I will be biased as always. And with that said: I fw it.

The music is nice in its own way, a different and "older" approach to a Shantae vision I don't dislike tbh. Chiptune-esque upbeat vibes, it is a good OST I guess people don't like it that much cause it is Shantae and they kinda had like a groove going forward with previous games.

The gameplay? it's all there. The map feels more "closed" but I remember getting lost quite a bit, it is pretty weird. But I'll be generous with the rating, I do believe it's a good game.

Ever since the announcement of the revival of Shantae: Risky’s Revolution, the canceled GBA Shantae game from 2004, I’ve been pretty hyped for the Shantae series. I’ve always enjoyed Shantae as a franchise as well as a character, but for the past few years the only Shantae game I’ve actually beaten is Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. So ever since 2024 started, I’ve been on a mission to play every Shantae game that I didn’t get a chance to finish, even replaying Half-Genie Hero. And while all of them absolutely have their issues, I had a blast playing through them and think they’re a genuinely fun time. However, out of all the Shantae games, there was only one I didn’t own, and that was Shantae and the Seven Sirens. I’d heard a lot of mixed opinions on this game. I heard it was kinda mid overall, but I heard that some enjoyed it as well. Nevertheless, I still wanted to give it a try before Risky’s Revolution came out, and once the game went on sale, I could finally give it a try for myself.

Judging from the 2 star rating I gave the game though, you can already kind of tell where this is going. I’m just going to be blunt when I say that this review isn’t going to be very positive. I’m sorry, but I really didn’t enjoy Shantae and the Seven Sirens that much. At best, the game just sort of feels like you’re going through the motions and is kind of just an alright Shantae game, and at worst, it feels incredibly unintuitive and frustrating. Like, it genuinely baffles me that this game came from the same team that designed the Shantae games before this. However, before talking so negatively about the game already, I want to talk about the things that I think this game does right, before explaining why I feel like it kinda squandered that potential.

First off, I really enjoyed the way the animal transformations were implemented. Rather than having to dance in place like in Half Genie Hero, the transformations are built-in to your moveset, so you can transform into an animal quickly with the press of a button. It’s kind of like how Pirate’s Curse handled its weapons, and while I don’t think this is nearly as satisfying, I think it still works really well and is a pretty huge step up from the game that came before it. This transformation system definitely needs to return in the next non-cancelled Shantae game. I also really enjoyed the dungeons in this game (for the most part). I feel like the dungeons are typically the best part of most Shantae games, and Seven Sirens is no exception. It has a lot of the clever puzzles and fun level design you expect from a Shantae dungeon. I also appreciate that it has a counter for how many Heart Squids are left in a dungeon, I think that’s a nice touch. Finally, I want to talk about this game’s art style. While a few of the main game sprites are reused from HGH, the new ones added look really nice and blend in well with the rest of the game. A lot of the character designs look very nice too, even some of the NPCs stood out to me. The new Half-Genies they added are a real sticking point, all of them are really well-designed. And man, the absolutely gorgeous artstyle of the dialogue portraits definitely help in making the game look very visually pleasing. I’d also like to give a shoutout to both the Studio Trigger opening animation and the animated cutscenes in-game, which are both stunning as well.

That’s about all the positive things I have to say about this game. While Seven Sirens has a lot going for it, I don’t think it really outweighs the negative aspects that plague the game, so let’s discuss one of my main gripes with Seven Sirens; the level design. While I love Half-Genie Hero, my main issue with the game was probably the way its enemies were integrated into the level design. I mentioned this in my Mighty Switch Force Academy review, but the enemies in the game don’t feel like they’re placed there to enhance the levels themselves, they’re just kind of slapped in there because you need something to block your path when playing a game, right? So the enemies just typically feel like they’re kind of just… there, for no real reason. Unfortunately, Seven Sirens doesn’t attempt to mitigate this issue at all, and in fact, I think the level design is even worse here. Because while, yes, Half Genie Hero’s enemy placement can leave the game feeling quite bland to some, I still found the game fun because not only were the enemies fun to fight, but there was a variety of enemies placed throughout the stages so that all of the levels don’t feel too samey. Seven Sirens basically does the opposite of this. For most of the beginning of the game, they kind of just reuse the same crab, spider, and bat enemies over and over again. However, when they do introduce new enemies, they’re either underutilized as hell, or not fun to fight AT ALL. Like, there are enemies in this game whose entire gimmick is that they telefrag you. I’m not fucking kidding! There’s two of them, and they appear relatively frequently as well! But even aside from those enemies, most of the enemies in this game just aren’t that fun to fight. There will either be enemies that just kind of appear without warning, or ones that don’t feel designed around the fact that your main attack is a short-ranged attack. Like I said, occasionally they throw in some enemies that are fun to fight, but like I said, they’re often underutilized. It also doesn’t help that aside from the dungeons, the levels are pretty lacking in stage gimmicks, which just makes the levels even more repetitive than they already are. Now, contrary to what it might sound like, not all of the game’s levels are bad, but even at its best, the level design is just kind of… alright? It really just feels like you’re going through the motions. Like, yeah, this is certainly a Shantae game alright. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain, but the levels just don’t feel very captivating to play or come back to. The only reason you’d really do so is because it’s a metroidvania, you’re typically going to come back to an area eventually. But overall, the level design and especially the enemy design in Seven Sirens just didn’t really click with me. They aren’t terrible or anything, but they certainly aren’t that fun to play, and certainly didn’t go well with the game’s other issues.

One of the biggest issues I had with Seven Sirens overall was the dancing. I don’t think I’ve ever had to use a mechanic more unintuitive in a Shantae game since the first game’s dancing. It’s REALLY bad. Now, in concept, it actually sounds pretty cool, especially alongside the other mechanics in the game. Along with getting transformations built into your moveset, you also get access to Shantae’s iconic dances, which allow you to attack enemies, heal yourself, and even interact with the environment? That sounds really cool, but unfortunately, with it came a myriad of problems that just make the dances more of a chore to use than anything. First of all, straight out the gate, enemies don’t get paused when using dances. This sucks, especially since it takes, like, three seconds for the damn dance to even show up. Compare this to Half-Genie Hero, where you can immediately select an animal, and the enemies are paused! But what’s worse is that these dances consume magic when used. This wouldn’t be a problem if, like I said, they were simply a way to attack your enemies or heal yourself, but no, there are multiple points in this game where the dances are required in order to progress. This means that if you come to a point where you need to use a dance, but don’t have enough magic, you have to go back and grind on the enemies in order to get magic. What’s worse is that for the Seer and Quake dance, ESPECIALLY the Seer dance, it’s not exactly clear where you’re required to use the dance. Yes, they do give you a hint as soon as you enter the room, which is nice, but you usually won’t know whether it’s for a collectible, for a few gems, or if it’s for something required to progress through the game, meaning that’s valuable magic down the drain. And what’s even worse than that, is that when you’re in a room that scrolls vertically or horizontally, you basically have to use the damn dancing multiple times to see where exactly you need to use it, meaning that’s even MORE magic down the drain, meaning that when you inevitably come to a spot where you DO need to use it, you either gotta grind on more enemies, or go back to the damn spa and come all the way back. It fucking sucks! And look, I understand for some of the dances why they need to use magic. Vera’s dance heals your HP, and Harmony’s does massive damage to enemies, so they’d need to use magic as to not be too broken. But why make them required in order to 100% the game? At LEAST make it so that you don’t have to use them to beat the game! And do you want to know the real fucking kicker? I almost never used these dances outside of their intended purpose. And… wasn’t that like, the whole problem that everyone had with Half-Genie Hero’s dancing? That you’d have to use a dance to transform into an animal, but just immediately transformed back most of the time?! You introduced a new transformation ability, but then have us use Half-Genie Hero’s dancing mechanic anyways, BUT WORSE?! Seriously, this might be the most baffling design choice of the entire game for me. And it sucks, because this mechanic seems like such a cool inclusion to the game, but it feels so cumbersome to use. They should’ve just focused on making them supportive, or making it so they don’t have to use magic. Hell, they could’ve at least had the courtesy to give us magic when we need to use the dances. Unfortunately, what we’re left with is a mechanic that ultimately just makes the game more frustrating to play than it needs to be.

Let’s talk a bit about the bosses. They’re not great. I know that the bosses aren’t exactly the selling point of the Shantae series, but never have I played a Shantae game where nearly all of them sucked. Let’s start with the Risky Boots battles. Risky Boots will show up in each dungeon to challenge you to a fight, kinda like Proto Man in Mega Man 3. But my main problem with these fights is that Risky Boots doesn’t have a clear pattern. She’ll either jump to a seemingly random spot on the field, or walk towards you, then do one of her attacks. I’m sure there’s some pattern, but it’s really hard to tell, so oftentimes, you’ll just stick onto the wall with the newt until Risky does an attack. These aren’t that fun, and there’s five of them. Regrettably, the siren fights aren’t much better. There’s the Water Lily Siren, which genuinely might be one of the worst opening bosses I’ve ever faced in a video game. You have to press on a switch in order to move the Water Lily Siren towards the light, but the problem is, the light changes every five seconds, AND she’s firing all this shit at you at the same time! Then, once you FINALLY get her to the light, you have to hop on platforms, and then FINALLY you can hit her. It sucks, and it’s not fun to have to do. The Coral Siren was alright, but she was really easy, and her attacks aren’t really that memorable. The Tubeworm Siren was just kind of annoying, mainly her final attack with the laser, as you have like a fraction of a second to hit it before the laser comes back up. The Angler Siren was pretty good, definitely one of the better fights in the game, but it still left me wanting a bit more out of it. Lastly is the Octo Siren, and it’s just kind of a memory game with slow moving projectiles coming towards you. It’s pretty underwhelming.

Finally, I want to talk about possibly my least favorite part of Seven Sirens; its endgame. I’m gonna start with the dungeon where you rescue Rottytops. Remember the Battle Tower from Shantae: Risky’s Revenge? Remember how that sucked and how all of the enemies were placed terribly? Yeah, let’s do that again, but with even worse enemy placements. After you finish that up, you get the Jet Octo and fight the Octo Siren, which like I said, is a pretty underwhelming fight. After that, Rotty helps you escape the underground, Risky summons an airship from under the island, and now you have a choice. You can go back and 100% the game, or you can challenge Risky. To be honest, 100%-ing the game wasn’t that bad, ESPECIALLY after you get the Magic Regenerating monster card. The only thing that sucked was one chest that they don’t give you a hint for in the laboratory, but other than that, it was kind of fun. However, I can’t say the same about Risky’s airship. Not only are there a fuckton of enemies scattered around with no rhyme or reason, but it also just goes on for way, WAY too long. I understand that it's supposed to be challenging, as it's the final area in the game, but nearly all of the difficulty here just felt artificial rather than actually being challenging. So after you go through some of the most frustrating enemy waves in the game, you reach the final boss of the game, that being the Seventh Siren, also known as the Empress. Her first form is actually pretty fun. Her attacks have clear telegraphs, they’re pretty fun to dodge, and overall, it actually feels satisfying learning this phase’s patterns and quirks. Probably the best boss battle in the game in my opinion. But if you’re worried maybe this first phase is maybe too good, rest assured because the second phase of this fight is probably the worst boss in the game. So, now you’re fighting a giant version of the Empress, as expected. However, now you have to jump on randomly moving rocks as a random accessory on the Empress’ body starts shooting a bunch of shit at you. Oh, also, you have to attack said accessory. That’s real nice. It’s not even a fight that’s too hard or easy, it’s just annoying as hell. You have to wait for the random rock to show up near the accessory, but not while it’s attacking, so you have to go back, and did I mention there’s also a big ass orb chasing you? This fight is honestly a mess and might be the only part of the game that genuinely doesn’t feel playtested. After you inevitably defeat her, you get your ending, a nice animated cutscene, and the game’s over.

There’s a LOT more I could’ve talked about in this review, like the mess that is this game’s story, or the lame monster cards, but I think I’ve made this review WAY too long already. If you couldn’t tell already, I’m not a big fan of Seven Sirens. But contrary to what it might seem, I actually feel really bad being really negative towards this game, not only because it’s from a franchise I love, and not only because it’s got a TON of good ideas under its belt, but because it genuinely seems like there was a ton of heart poured into this. It feels like they wanted to make something ambitious out of this, and as much as I want to applaud them for it, the end result just isn’t something I would consider revisiting. So all-in-all, if I had to describe this game, I think it would be like if “style over substance” was a video game. There’s a lot of style here, with great music, character designs, gorgeous visuals, but not very much substance in its level design as a whole. Yeah, the game’s got a cool new transformation system, but it’s also packaged with a worse version of Half-Genie Hero’s dance mechanic anyways. I do really hope that WayForward continues to work on some of the great ideas from Seven Sirens for future games in the series, but as it stands, I don’t intend on revisiting it anytime soon, nor can I really recommend playing it. (4.5/10)