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Shantae Half-Genie Hero; TOMODACHI DENSETSU

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Evan_B:
So my very late impressions of Pirate's Quest are dropping TONITE, BABY!

I just. I don't get it. How could a studio that made a game like Pirate's Curse make such stupid design choices? Well, the fact is, the same people didn't work on these two games. So. You know.

If you are going to make any stage available from the start of the game, then you need to do this wild thing called- yeah, I know this is going to sound crazy, but here we go- DIFFICULTY SCALING. As Clex mentioned, some of these bosses are just absurd damage sponges, which doesn't feel rewarding in the slightest and really shows how little effort they put into making this mode non-linear.

But is Risky's moveset bad? Well, not really. It's redeemed by the absurdly high power of the cutlass early game, although there's still areas where it doesn't work so well.  The flintlock has some cool utility and there's a couple of moments where the preexisting level design redeems the choice of powerups- but it's all in the late-game which is rather unfortunate. Again, it's a shame that the unlocks are gifted based on the amount of levels cleared, because if you could get the grappling hook early game this mode would be SO much more fun. Speaking of fun, you know what isn't? Pointless upgrades! What is with the underwater upgrade in this mode? Talk about a waste of potential.

Still, I'd say that Pirate's Quest excels the more it feels like a Mega Man game. Okay, not really, because the rate of fire and range you can attain in this mode are way better than most Mega Man titles. Shooting things down from across the screen is really fun and kind of makes the cutlass feel a bit superfluous by the end of the experience. I can honestly say that the pacing and feel and chaotic nature of Pirate's Quest just escalates at an exponential rate once you acquire all of the progression-locked powerups, which is cool, but takes a lot of dedication in order to stick around for. Keep in mind, this mode clocks in at around two and a half to three and a half hours max, so that should tell you a bit about how disappointing and drudging the opening moments are.

Is Pirate's Quest worth the price of entry? Well, if it were packaged with the main game, I'd say yes. As it stands, I'm beginning my Friends to the End run right now at about eleven hours of playtime and Pirate's Curse had me max out at around ten and a half, so. I don't know how to feel. It kind of further proves that the defining traits of Shantae don't really gel that well with action platforming in any way, even with the quality of life aspects such as mid-stage warping. I would say Pirate's Quest is fun for the last half hour to forty minutes of gameplay, so take that as you will.

Now to do some stuff with best girl Sky.

ClexYoshi:
Amen, Evan. It's not like Pirate Queen's Quest is outright bad. It just feels superfluous in a game that already pads it's play time out so much. it's a neat experiment to try and bend the genre of the game, if nothing else... but I also feel like Friends to the End does a better job at that.

Order.RSS:
Meant to read through all of this when it went on sale recently, but never finished the thread until now. I've always kinda sat on the fence with 1/2 Genie Hero but I think you two may have talked me down from it. Hope their next effort will be better once again, though I wonder if Pirate's Curse will hang over the series as a Sword of Damocles for the forseeable future; it's just a rather high bar they set for themselves now.

Could be down to preference; I rather like the Metroid style of traversal with backtracking becoming way faster thanks to new abilities. From the sounds of it, perhaps Half Genie Hero could've still done the animal transformations if the sections (and entire game?) were shorter. But people like me would still be whining about the lack of permanent "use these anywhere" upgrades, I guess.

Evan_B:
The thing is, HGH is already short. The padding comes from running the same levels over and over again in order to obtain the hidden collectables.

Now, I hate to compare action platformers, especially since I'm no real fan of the genre myself. But a game that does powerup-based collection right is one that, in theory, is pretty similar to Shantae. Kirby telegraphs its powerup unlocks pretty directly and challenges the player to hold on to the correct powerup until they reach the unlock point, which means you return to levels with a sense of purpose. However, HGH gives you multiple transformations that have upgraded forms, mainly so that they can make certain segments difficult on an initial run and let the player go off and explore on a second visit. But even then, the most expanse level is arguably Tassel Town, while the others feel very claustrophobic. You'll often get a powerup that will allow you to explore a new area only to be roadblocked by another powerup unlock point. The real sin is that there's no way for player expertise or exploration options to circumvent this, either- you just have to progress further in the game to retread that familiar ground.

Where the first three games used powerups to encourage experimentation in their large environments, HGH is attempting to mix exploration with action platforming in a way that neither really feels substantial. Some of my favorite Wayforward games are those that focus on a specific gimmick, but that doesn't seem to be the case, here, and it's sad. It's sad because the game suffers and I like Shantae but I already dropped forty bucks on a game that I don't feel is worth half that price.

ClexYoshi:

--- Quote from: Steefosaurus on January 08, 2018, 10:52:31 AM ---Meant to read through all of this when it went on sale recently, but never finished the thread until now. I've always kinda sat on the fence with 1/2 Genie Hero but I think you two may have talked me down from it. Hope their next effort will be better once again, though I wonder if Pirate's Curse will hang over the series as a Sword of Damocles for the forseeable future; it's just a rather high bar they set for themselves now.

Could be down to preference; I rather like the Metroid style of traversal with backtracking becoming way faster thanks to new abilities. From the sounds of it, perhaps Half Genie Hero could've still done the animal transformations if the sections (and entire game?) were shorter. But people like me would still be whining about the lack of permanent "use these anywhere" upgrades, I guess.

--- End quote ---

That's fine and dandy, as I like the retraversal stuff, but the problem is these are linear levels with the only real deviation from that being Mermaid falls and the first bit of mermaid falls. If you make the mistake of say... using the Gemjug dance instead of the warp dance or not buying the warp dance immediatley, you have to play through the whole level again just to get to the thing you need to stomp with the elephant to get an item. it's not the animal transformations that are rotten, but the game's structure.

it's not like it's asking you to revisit each stage once. I ended up going to Mermaid Falls 3, 4, 5 times, because at one point of the game it might ask you to defeat Techno Baron's gator minions with Shantae's Fireball attack, or it might send you back agian to talk to the grandma fish and find her kids for a sidequest item, or you might have to go back a third seperate time to do a part that involves Mouse Shantae, or you might have to go back again to stomp flowers with Elephant shantae or explore parts with mermaid shantae, and there's just... no neat way to do all this without specifically planning it out, especially since progress gets gated by these little side quests throughout the game.

there's a little bit of that in Pirate's curse, but not to the degree that it's here in Half Genie Hero.

I think it especially hurts because Half-Genie Hero ditches the traditional dungeon structure of the previous games.  with the original Shantae having slight exception for extra warp squids, Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse avoids backtracking into the dungeons at all costs, and keeps it to the overworlds.

the only parts of the game that don't require a backtrack to at some point for completion outside of Risky's hideout for obvious reasons, is the Magic Carpet Race, and the third part of Tassel Town? It feels like I'm going on this wild scavenging hunt of replaying levels rather than experimenting through environments. there's some upgrades that feel like that, like the stupid thing that lets Crab Shantae and Mermaid shantae shoot up a waterfall to get access to exactly 2 things through the game. Or Mouse Shantae. The mouse bite may be  the most superfluous thing Wayforward has ever put in a game.

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