Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 3/3

The last dungeon has Risky's Cannon. it lets you quadruple jump... This is the big endgame item right here. Now I'll be able to go through each island again and try to collect everything.

After I gained the map to the pirate master's island, Grave Island, I went there immediately, and I think I missed out on some extra dialog in scuttle town because of this...

Risky got captured by the pirate master (her old boss, who got revived thanks to Shantae losing her magic, or something).. and now when I go back to scuttle town, it is completely taken over. Everything is all dark, and nobody is in town except for the shops and Sky.

The palace is also completely different now. It's an actual dungeon. I used my new ability to go up through the palace, and it had a bunch of long platforming gauntlet rooms that made use of all my abilities and had a lot of 1 hit semi-kill spikes and shit...

At the end is the pirate master boss.. beat him and you get the bad ending.

Total Play Time: 09:02:50
Heart Squids Collected: 25/32
Dark Magic Collected: 17/20

In order to get the good ending, you have to collect all the dark magic and go back to Grave Island.

I didn't feel like just backtracking to every room I've been in, so I used a guide to find the rest of the stuff I was missing...

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 2/3

That 4th island was great... Shantae got captured by the people in the pyramid who thought they were her princess.. and apparently they also captured Risky, Sky, and Rottytops too.. Shantae's cell is the only one that has an escape route. you have to do some easy stealth bits to get passed the guards, and then explore the pyramid to look for keys and rescue the other girls... The actual structure of this area is huge, I got lost in it for like a couple hours... Then finally after rescuing all of the captured girls, the real princess shows up, back from shopping, and we're let go.

The 5th island, Mud Bog... here's where we're getting a lot more lore. Apparently in the 2nd game when Risky took Shantae's magic and converted it into dark magic, and she thought she had destroyed it at the end, that dark magic actually just got scattered about... and now the pirate master is using this dark magic to control Risky's crew, cuz they are like genies now... something like that.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 1/3

Story: Scuttle Town's mayor sells the town for chocolates, and the new owner starts tearing everything down and turning it into a cannon/weapon factory... Shantae is just a normal human now, and isn't sure what's going on.. but then Risky shows up, and she tries to get Shantae to help gather what she needs to fight the Pirate Master.

The first part of the game is similar to the usual Shantae overworld, starts out at Shantae's house, then there's Scuttle Town, then the scarecrow fields, then the woods, and after that there's the palace. The palace area has an underground section with some easy enemies... There's a bunch of sidequests you can do here on Scuttle Island, but at first you can't do anything, you have to come back here after each new ability you obtain and there's different NPC dialog/events and you can get further into the sidequest progress and also buy more upgrades from the shop.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge playthrough log

Oh wow, this gameplay is so much smoother than the first game... I really appreciate how the death pits are clearly marked with death clouds floating up out of them. The attack items are now tied to magic instead of inventory, so you can actually use them now. also this game has the same sorta thing as Wario Land VB and Kirby TD, where you go can through multiple layers of the Z-dimension.

But the biggest improvement is... This game actually has a built in overworld map. Just that is enough to make me want to play this completely blind without a walkthrough... If it turns out I'm missing some hidden stuff I'll use a walkthrough after beating the game to get everything.

11/11/2015

I started to notice this game was gonna be very short and easy compared to the first one... If there's really only 3 seals to collect and that map of Sequin Land covers every area in the game...

The first labyrinth was expectedly easy. It had the monkey transformation (which has much better controls now), and I think I got all the magic jams in the level. You need magic jams in addition to gems in order to buy all higher level magic powers.

The 2nd level wasn't actually a proper labyrinth.. It has you exploring a desert with lots of bottomless pits, and a fairly complex network of caves... Before going here though, the characters back in town hint you towards going to see the mayor who is currently near the lighthouse at the beginning of the game...

Shantae playthrough log

Reading the manual for the first game now... it seems kind of interesting. A looping overworld section leading to 5 separate town areas, a day/night system, and labyrinths (the game's dungeons) which are locked until you do some specific story tasks. The pause screen is very Zelda-like, showing a bunch of optional hidden collectibles as well as required story items.

One of the optional collectibles, warp squids, give you different warp dance powers that warp you to a certain place depending which warp room you returned those warp squids to.

Shantae has dance powers. Magical dances that give her different abilities. The dancing mechanic works kind of like playing the ocarina or conducting the wind. There's also a secret dance you can only learn if playing the game on a GBA.

Wow, this game is tough... not only is it tough to just survive (enemies ambush you constantly), it's also tough to find your way around... In particular I got kind of lost at this huge waterfall area on the way to the 2nd town, and the respawning enemies and pitfalls make it very inconvenient to explore...