Shantae and the Seven Sirens (Switch)

 

Where entry is by seaweed gate
And plan the plan of dreams

The latest game in the Shantae-series. 5th game in the series. Feeling they had it for a while Shantae and friends go on a vacation where Shantae is invited to join in the half-genie festival... where the other half-genies gets kidnapped, so Shantae has to travel across the island and its sunken city to rescue them from the seven sirens. That ends that vacation. 

Standard Shantae fair, find dungeons, get upgrades, save half-genie and defeat boss, get items to get another upgrade repeat ad nauseam and in-between get heart squids to pummel to new heart containers and new for the game is collecting monster cards that will give you bonuses if you equip them. Reminds me a bit of the card system from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. In every dungeon you fight Risky Boots as a mini-boss before rescuing the half-genie that give you the dungeon upgrade and Squid Baron shows up in places. Small references here and there.

It has its moments. Turns out that the sunken city is actually a sunken ship (I suspect alien since when you open it up it contains enemies with crab and fish design which together with the sirens seems akin to some Lovecraftian monsters from the stars) and Risky is behind the kidnapping with a faustian bargain with the Sirens to get the ship and the Sirens to be released from their imprisonment by a genie back in time. Of course Shantae saves the day since Risky built in some failsafes if the Sirens would backstab her together with one of the Sirens helping Shantae. 

Played it twice, the second time on New Game+ with the magic mode. First time took 9-10 hours and the second time just beyond 7 hours (and 100 % at that). New Game+ was more fun with the fact I could use dances and weapons much more, but the game overall felt rather small. Just 6 dungeons total and maybe that's the problem, missing a 7th dungeon and battle with a Siren, since the game title promised me that. Agree with SomecallmeJohnny that waiting for a price drop might be justified (which I did this time).