Shantae and the Seven Sirens Review
by Amr (@siegarettes)
- Shantae and the Seven Sirens
- Developer: Wayforward
- Publisher: Wayforward
- PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, iOS
For as much charm and style as the Shantae series has had, I’ve rarely found most of its entries to be genuinely exciting. Despite their lavishly detailed landscapes, their level designs often left me unimpressed, and the moment to moment gameplay rarely diverted enough from its established design to keep it from feeling routine. Shantae and the Seven Sirens doesn’t exactly shake that feeling, but it does bring welcome change to the formula that points at a more interesting future for the series.
Seven Sirens immediately makes a statement from its opening moments, with an animated intro from Studio Trigger that provides a short intro to Shantae’s world alongside a short vocal theme. A few more of small animated bits follow throughout the game, mostly during pre-boss scene introductions. The art itself has been refined, following the 2D animated style established in Half-Genie Hero, a mix of hand animated movements and paper doll style image deformation to give more static poses more life. The 3D platforms of Half-Genie Hero have also been jettisoned, using more straightforward painted artwork throughout all parts of the scenery.
The move away from mixed 2D and 3D alone improves Seven Sirens dramatically over its prequel. Wayforward used a similar art style in Ducktales Remastered, and I never liked it. It distracted from the 2D artwork and the constantly shifting perspective often made jumps more difficult to judge than they should have been. The painted backdrops give Seven Sirens a greater sense of artistic cohesion, and simultaneously make it smoother to navigate.
The reworked transformation system helps keep that momentum as well. Where most previous games had Shantae performing genie dances to transform into various animal forms, Seven Sirens relegates dances to secondary functions like searching for hidden items, while keeping traversal abilities instantly accessible. It keeps things moving and makes it easier to switch between forms, instead of breaking stages up into sections designed exclusively for each form.
The new traversal abilities are the biggest improvement, and would be an unqualified success if Seven Sirens didn’t insist on keeping those genie dances. The vestigial system finds other ways to shoot the pacing in the foot, encouraging you to constantly poke around every screen for minor trinkets along the way. The very first dance for instance, reveals hidden blocks in each room, with most rooms giving no hint of hidden items, encouraging you to spam it on almost every room you step into. Accessing the dances requires you to stop for a few seconds as you choose your dance and watch the brief animation, short enough not to be too annoying, but long enough to keep the game on a start and stop pace.
That stuttering pace follows Seven Sirens throughout, with a rigid game structure that keeps throwing up roadblocks whenever you build up speed. Seven Sirens goes very literal with its overworld, having you explore the towns on the surface, then diving into the caverns below the island to complete various dungeons, solve simple puzzles and rescue the next half-genie character who’ll grant you your new ability.
Dungeons themselves flow well enough, with just enough friction to keep you attentive, and boss fights that serve suitable up finales centered on each ability. But immediately after you’re tasked with a side quest that often ends up being some variation of “collect x number of items”, and it repeats often enough that it lays the structure of the game bare. Explore the overworld, do a dungeon, do a sidequest, then it’s off to the next one. Knowing you’ll have busywork immediately after each completed area sucks the energy out of exploration, keeping you dreading the end of dungeon, instead of anticipating opening up the world.
Those stumbling steps forward kind of describe Seven Sirens as a whole. Every step forward comes with a caveat that keeps it from being outright celebratory. It adds up to a full game that points towards promising changes to a rigid formula, but can’t quite deliver them. If you wished Half-Genie Hero delivered a bit more, well, Shantae and the Seven Sirens halfway grants it.