From a a singing bard to a dancing genie, it seems my month is developing a theme. Shantae is a fairly long-running franchise of metroidvania games, with Seven Sirens being the latest (and the only one i've personally played)

As a metroidvania, it's pretty good. The world is nice to explore, and each new ability is fun to play with, although only about half of them pass the test of "is-it-just-a-glorified-key?" - for extra credit, even the ones that fail will add a sort of mini-game to the unlocked "doorways", which is different at least. Enemies (and bosses) will test you in interesting ways, and controls are tight enough for you to respond. It's not as expansive as the better Castlevania's or Metroid's but it doesn't really have to be

Difficulty-wise, Seven Sirens has the odd quirk where things will get easier over time (at least if you aren't intentionally limiting yourself). The first boss was probably the hardest for me, as character upgrades are scarce at that point, but by the end of the game i was just tanking bosses while whipping them to death with my upgraded hair. I know people are divided on which way a difficulty curve should progress - i'm not even settled on an answer myself - but i found it a touch too obvious here

For aesthetic and narrative, it's (just) pretty good as well. Nicely animated style, and lots of weird characters along the journey. Story has a mild mystery to it, but nothing too wild. Soundtrack has some good bops in there. I guess it's overall well made, and nothing seems out of place.. i'm just kind of running out of things to say…

I want to make it clear though: Shantae and the Seven Sirens is a good game. I enjoyed my time with it, even it was very familiar ground. If this was my first metroidvania, i'd probably like it more