Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is an action platformer with metroidvania elements, in which the half-genie Shantae loses her magical animal transformation powers and must rely on a newly acquired arsenal of pirate gear – from a pistol and a cutlass to a grappling weapon called the Hookshot and magic boots that allow a double jump. The game is built around exploring an interconnected world of islands, where new tools gradually open up previously inaccessible areas and force the player to revisit already-explored locations with freshly gained abilities, a classic genre principle delivered with the lightness and sense of humor for which the Shantae series is renowned.

Visually, the game benefits from bold, colorful pixel art and fluid animation that give the characters and environments a distinctive, cartoonish character with striking background detail, while the soundtrack offers catchy melodies that combine chiptune with a more modern electronic sound. The story of Shantae's forced cooperation with the pirate Risky Boots, who turns from a longtime villain into an unexpected, not entirely trustworthy ally, is told with a light tone, comic-style character portraits, and playful dialogue.

Contemporary critics received the game very warmly, praising above all its thoughtful level design, humor, and precise controls, ranking it among the best entries in the entire series and among the highlights of the eShop lineup at the time. Even years later, Pirate's Curse is regarded as one of the high points of Shantae on handhelds and as a title that showed how well a metroidvania can work even at the smaller scale of the 3DS library without lowering its demands on the player. The gradual unlocking of pirate gear also gives the game a pleasant pace of discovery, as the player regularly returns to older areas with a fresh perspective on what they previously overlooked, typically rewarded with another piece of equipment, a hidden heart container, or a shortcut that makes later travel between islands easier.