Between 21st March and 1st of August this year I was furloughed from work and so undertook the daily task of playing, and writing about, one game from my vast unplayed backlog to give my days some structure, to stop my brain turning to mush, and, frankly, to manage the stress of feeling completely out of control of my own life.
Over one hundred and thirty days I played racing games, platform games, shooters, brawlers, and fighters. I played on the ZX Spectrum, the Switch, and almost everything in between.
I'd usually play a good three hours minimum, but occasionally I'd spend a lot longer, and occasionally a lot shorter time on them.
To this end it was rare that I completed anything before moving on to the next - and that's what 'Gaming the Pandemic: Re-visited' is all about; going back to some of the games I had to leave behind due to the blog format and giving them the time they deserve.
Shantae and the Seven Sirens was released originally for the Apple Arcade in October 2019 and there are some issues that seem to have come about due to oversimplification - and I can't help but believe that the games roots on that ecosystem are at least partially to blame.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because for a long time this is a very entertaining game and a good extension of the Shantae series.
On the definite 'plus' side, and as I mentioned when I first played the game, there's a more immediate mechanic for magic than in previous games which is extremely welcome. Most of the fan-favourite, gloriously upbeat characters return, too, and a good few new ones are welcomed.
The usual high quality voice and art work that has come to be expected of the series is maintained, and indeed is further embellished by the occasional fully animated cutscene - but there's something missing elsewhere that it's a little harder to define.
Generally, the game doesn't feel like it has moved forward from the previous entry, and in some areas, notably boss battles and some of the later abilities, there's a sense that a backwards step has been taken.
And this is where the game's origins on iPhone irk me somewhat.
It's debatable whether the lower difficulty in combat against bosses is the direct result of trying to appeal to a more casual audience, or whether it's due to building a game around the limitations of swipe controls, but either way, while the visual creativity is unquestionable, the tactical skills required to defeat the titular Sirens is almost non-existent.
At least two of the unlocked abilities fall victim to this approach too. Swimming and digging are much the same ability, just performed on a different colour background, and they are also clearly designed for ease of use on a device with no physical controls - leaving them to lack player agency on one that does.
I should make it clear that I don't generally have any issue with phone games. In fact, I get really annoyed by the childish comments that great any announcement that a developer is embracing the medium.
But a phone game and a console/PC game are usually very different things, and making one into the other is always going to involve compromise.
On the whole, though, there's nothing fundamentally 'wrong' with Shantae and Seven Sirens, but these compromises that seem to have been made to ensure the game work well for Apple Arcade, are magnified many times over when playing on a more game specific platform.
Away from this, there are issues with the endgame too. At least the last quarter of the game feel like a real slog, with more than the usual amount of backtracking for a Metroidvania.
Usually at this point in games of this genre traversing the environment has become a slick, streamlined, joy, but in Seven Sirens it remains a wearying plod until the very end, to the extent that, when the game starts to feel like it’s unceromoniously rushing you towards the conclusion, as jarring as this is, you’re actually grateful for it.
Which all reads like a resounding 'Avoid', and that's probably a bit harsh.
The problem is that almost everything new or different in Seven Sirens makes it slightly less good than the previous games - and it's hard to recommend based on the fact that it does a lot of things merely 'equally as well' as its predecessors.
No comments:
Post a Comment