Recent reviews by ipi

Playing this game feels soooo buttery smooth, which is good cause you're gonna be playing the same level again and again aiming for your best time, or looking for secrets! The trailer doesn't do a good job of explaining the card mechanic, but once you play it in-game it clicks immediately.

Only bad thing about it is the visual novel-esque storytelling feels a bit tacked on, and there's lots of interruptions at the very start. But if you stick with it (or just skip the cutscenes) you have an excellent FPS/platformer hybrid!

TLDR; if you like collecting stuff and revisiting levels to collect more stuff, you'll like this. Sort of like a Metroidvania with the level-to-level gameplay of Mega Man.

Gameplay is fun. There's lots of items to collect if you want to get the 100% clear rating! Revisiting the stages with power-ups you've collected since is rewarding, occasionally expanding into areas you didn't expect. The upgrade shop is a nice idea, but could do with a bit more stuff in it. The difficulty curve starts a bit higher than average - it might be a bit difficult for a beginner player - but it peters out towards the end as it doesn't scale well to match all of the upgrades you've amassed. The bosses are okay, but some of them are quite boring, especially the two phases of the final boss. Controls are nice and responsive (as they should be!), but I'd recommend using a gamepad.

The visuals are great! Shantae definitely benefits from not being on a tiny handheld screen! They've built upon the techniques they learnt while making Ducktales: Remastered - bright 3D environments with 2D animated characters. The characters are really well animated, and share a nice, consistent style.

Music is on point as well! It's been done by the wonderful Jake Kaufman (who also appeared on previous WayForward titles). Definitely some very catchy songs in there, my favourite being the haunted castle stage.

Luckily the story isn't the focus of the game, because it's an afterthought at best. I'm not familiar with the series, but it seems clear that they tried to squeeze every single earlier-established character into the game. They also introduce a new character... only to have that character be killed off five minutes later. Overall, it doesn't really make much sense.

The writing is terrible - it definitely tries way too hard to be funny. It seems like it was written by a four-year-old; I remember one of the worst offenders being "hey, guess what? Monkey butts". Unfortunately, you need to read some of the text to know what to do next; if you don't want to read it, try skipping through the main text, then talk to the NPC characters afterwards to get them to repeat the important details.

Overall, it's a good platforming experience! It suffers from being a bit short - it took me 7 hours to 100% it at a rather leisurely pace - but I'm aware that there's more content coming in the future.

A very polished experience, especially compared to the original! It improves on the original with a new graphical style, tighter controls, improved item combinations, new preset challenge runs, and tons of new items, pickups, dungeon layouts, bosses and more! It's a straight-up upgrade to the original!

Gameplay resolves around a very simple but well-executed formula: explore, collect items that incrementally improve your stats, kill the boss, progress down to the next floor, repeat. Nothing beats the feeling of getting all the best items and becoming an overpowered killing machine!

The game is very difficult and unforgiving. In true roguelike fashion, the game features perma-death: if you die, that's it - start again from floor 1! No second chances! You'll have to make do with a different dungeon and a different set of items on your next run!

Tons of replayability - hundreds of unlockables (including characters, items, challenges and additional bosses!) and thousands of interesting item combinations. 100+ hours of content - no exaggeration!

If you love pain, you'll love this.