Shantae and The Seven Sirens

So, I bought both the physical releases of this and Half-Genie Hero and played them back to back. I really liked Half-Genie Hero, and I LOVED Seven Sirens. I don't think the game is without flaws - I do think it got way too combat-heavy in the last hour, among some other small issues - but, most importantly, it brings back the labyrinthine, exploration-based structure of the earlier games that made me so interested in the series in the first place. I love the tropical vacation premise - it's fun to get away from Scuttle Town. I miss the look of the 2.5D environments from HGH, sure, but the overall presentation is still so luscious that I forgot about it a little while into playing. I loved meeting and rescuing the new Half-Genies and watching the map expand as I gained new powers to explore more areas. That's another thing - the integration of transformations in this game is terrific! It plays like using Risky's weapons did in Pirate's Curse, with just the use of a button, so navigating and attacking with them feels breezy and seamless. It is a shame that there aren't any bonus modes or DLC like HGH had, which definitely added onto the runtime of that game - but the adventure here is bigger and meatier than HGH, so I don't mind. I clocked in at about 10 hours when I finished, considerably better than the 7 I spent on HGH. So, to go over my pros and cons:+Back to the connecting Metroidvania overworld+Perfect implementation of animal transformations, all of which are new to the game!+New characters and setting that are a lot of fun+Pretty solid if still slightly short runtime at about ~10 hours+Fun animated sequences-Boss fights are a little uneven - some are really good but others are repetitive/simple-Lots of healing items removes the stakes when things get tough, a bit of an addendum to the boss complaint, I found myself just pausing and healing whenever things got hard.-You get too many gems too fast-Missing Jake Kaufman's amazing music. The music in this game is fine, but it can't lay a finger on Kaufman's soundtracks and I really think that's the biggest disappointment of all, especially when HGH was filled with such memorable songs.Overall, I would recommend this game, and if you already like Shantae, you've got to get it! I'm relieved I bought it when I did because it looks like the physical copies are already getting scarce. I wish these games didn't have to have such limited releases. Can't wait to see whatever the next Shantae game will be like. This feels like more of a step in the right direction, placing the characters in more unfamiliar territory and giving us a bigger world to explore.

Stepdaughter loves it, mission accomplished.

I like this game so much for the Nintendo switch. I can't find it at GameStop but I finally did.

This game is very fun to play, and the graphics are very beautiful.

just shantae at it's core and expanded. a solid platform performance