I really love Shantae and the Seven Sirens, which is a surprise to me because I have never been able to get into the other Shantae games. Even after loving Seven Sirens and thinkning I finally "get it", I still don't like the other Shantae games. What makes this one different? It's smooth and streamlined, and an actual Metroidvania, with great music and awesome graphics and hot girls and OMG I love it all. Read more and watch gameplay here.
I've always liked Shantae's design. She, and all of the girls in these games, looks freaking amazing. Seven Sirens is even more refined and better looking than ever, and the cherry on top is that it has an awesome anime intro by Studio Trigger and a bunch of other animated cutscenes. Shantae has never looked better.
The game is a more traditional single-map Metroidvania where all of the levels are connected and you freely move between them as you get new abilities. I much prefer this over Pirate's Curse or Half-Genie Hero where there are separate levels you swap between on the menu.
The gameplay itself also just plain feels better than previous games as well with animal transformations happening instantly based on context rather than making you actually select them and everything else just flowing together more smoothly. It makes the game a ton of fun to play, and also makes it hard to go back to the others (for me, at least).
I will say that the game is pretty easy overall, but I don't mind that. Not every game needs to be a dick waving contest about how much of a masochist you are because you grinded your way through un fun, overly difficult nonsense. Shantae games are always pretty easy and smooth, and I like that. Seven Sirens does have an unlockable New Game+ mode that is considerably more difficult than the default mode, but even on NG+ you get so much money and healing items that it's pretty hard to die as long as you're paying attention.
One other thing is that I really wish the game had some sort of unlockable optional feature to put collectibles you haven't found yet on the map. I'm at 99% completion on my NG+ run and have absolutely no idea where the last gold nugget or statue or whatever is hiding. Let me buy a power up in the shop (because I have 999 money and nothing to spend it on at this point ...) or automatically put the last few collectibles on the map when you hit a certain percentage or something. Come on, man!
All in all, though, I freaking love Shantae and the Seven Sirens. I've beaten it twice now and have plans for perhaps a full playthrough LP in the future. Sorry today's gameplay video is sort of short, but I recorded it during my first playthrough and got lost, so the footage was boring.
