The third full Shantae game takes things in a slightly different direction. Does it work? Yes!

For story reasons, Shantae has lost her magic, and so replacing transformation dances in this game are the pirate-themed weapons and tools of former antagonist Risky Boots. I applaud the commitment to continuity, but also the abilities passively granted by these milestone tools are… actually more fun to employ than stopping to transform when necessary. Leaping and climbing as a monkey was fab, don’t get me wrong, but late in this game you get the ability to quadruple-jump and that’s just amazing.

Pirate’s Curse heavily reuses sprite assets from Risky’s Revenge but expands the scope into a true full-scale adventure (it also brings back and updates enemies from the GBC game to this more modern, expressive pixel art style). The structure is more like Monster World IV this time (a game I consider a spiritual predecessor to the Shantae series), in that there are discrete semi-open “levels”, but you can and must return to them later on with your expanded abilities for completion.

The story neatly employs the trope of “goodie and baddie team up to fight bigger baddie”, and does nice things with the side characters too, including an especially touching sequence with Shantae’s zombie friend Rottytops. There’s some new faces too who fit in well; this time, the character portraits for dialogue were actually handled by Inti Creates. I’d say certain situations and designs lean even further towards sexualising the female characters, to an almost uncomfortable degree… but they do try to balance it with cheesiness/cartooniness and there’s a good range of positive character traits or character development. I have mixed feelings.

Either way, as far as the game is concerned I consider it a high watermark for the series, for reasons including—but not limited to—the gameplay feel and humorous writing. I had tremendous fun exploring the diverse island locations, and expanding my movement/combat/puzzle solving options as the game went on. Special mention too to Jake Kaufman’s jazzy soundtrack, always a high point.

I played on 3DS, which is an excellent platform for showcasing the sprite art, as well as providing a second screen for constant map or inventory display. The “New” model’s extra buttons (or the Circle Pad Pro) were also used well to navigate those screens. As a final note, there were a ton of back-references and story links to the two previous games, so it was very rewarding to have revisited them before playing this, and I recommend at least playing Risky’s Revenge in conjunction with Pirate’s Curse.