Shantae And The Pirate's Curse

After remortgaging my house, I've downloaded Pirate's Curse for the 3DS. It feels like Risky's Revenge up to press, albeit with a bit more graphical polish and I'm not thoroughly confused about where to go in the first area.

Anyone else saving up the pennies to take the plunge/already taken the plunge?

Much-belated reply! I've finally acquired this, and I'm liking the feel of it! Enjoyed the first boss fight especially, and the town music is good too.

Only one problem: the 3D. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive when it works, but it produces two other problems:
1. Why couldn't they have highlighted things you can actually land on, often quite difficult to tell apart from mere scenery, with 3D?
2. Why did they have to make the characters' mammaries pop out quite so much? It's more than a bit juvenile. Risky Boots? Risky Boobs, more like.

Jake Kaufman is the man behind the music, I believe - it looks like he's one to watch.

I'm about two hours or so from the end and I've not felt any scenery/platform issues. As regards the fan's, er, vice, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Hopefully it'll go on sale soon - as fun as Pirate's Curse is, the price point is ridiculous.

Whilst ever it's this price, I ain't biting. I thought the DS outing was good enough, but not much more besides being alright and exceedingly pretty.

I recall boobage in the DS game, too.

The Shantae games are slowly getting better and I feel that there'll be a brilliant iteration at some point. Pirate's Curse is not that game... but it's pretty good.

A bit further in, and some of the gloss has fallen from my eyes. The level design is just dull: so far I've trekked through two more utterly uninteresting levels filled with baddies that have far too short a respawn distance. The dungeon-y areas have been better, but are still somewhat unimaginative.

The third island, with the respawn thing? They come back almost two seconds after you dispatch the original. Normal enemies take longer but are broadly similar... it's annoying, to be sure. You will get several ways to circumvent the third island's ones, though.

Finished it last night and my mini-review is up in the usual place.

This is getting a 25% discount soon as part of wayforwards 25th anniversary,

I'm looking at the Wii U version, worth going for Zero at £12

You beat me to the punch, mas! Yes, £12 is a much more respectable price. It's not bargain territory but it makes the thing easier to recommend by far. Ignore the flat dungeon approaches and embrace the Shantae bantae!

Might give this a bash for £12. That said, with the exception of the brilliant Mighty Milky Way on DSiWare there hasn't been a WayForward game that I've played that has been, at least to my mind, at least slightly disappointing. I'll approach this with lowered expectations.

Okay, who designed the "Run Run Rottytops!" section? Apart from that being an awful name (zombie with boobs! I get it!), a combination of infuriatingly long segments and insta-death does not go down well. The music's annoying too. Bad call.

Cap, your lowered expectations should see you through this - it's charming enough.

With the exception of the bit Balla mentioned, which is probably the most frustrating bit in the whole game. I was remarkably lucky/on it the day I played that bit: just three deaths. Which is totally not what you want to hear right now!

Would you suggest that I download this on 3DS rather than Wii U? Is there anything that really distinguishes one from the other? I can only find one games journo who reaally sticks their neck out on the subject, but sadly it's David Jenkins of GameCentral, aka The World's Most Miserable Bastard.

It seems to me that it's been designed as a portable game, so I would say the 3DS one, yeah. Having said that, I've not played the Wii U version, although it probably wouldn't be any smoother. The only thing you'd lose on the big screen is the 3D effect (which pushes the female characters' breasts to the forefront ).

It definitely feels portable. The 3D's good, but oddly applied, in the game world as well as the character art.

ZeroJones wrote:

With the exception of the bit Balla mentioned, which is probably the most frustrating bit in the whole game. I was remarkably lucky/on it the day I played that bit: just three deaths. Which is totally not what you want to hear right now!

I did finish it, but I didn't really enjoy doing so. Anyway, another dungeon now.

I've finally made it to the final dungeon of this. It's hard. Not good hard, either. Bad, irritating, checkpoints-far-too-far-away hard. Naughty WayForward!

The very final dungeon is not fun, agreed. By that stage, though, I was packing so many health-replenishing items I could have opened a shop. Hopefully you're the same and it'll be reet - good luck!