I've finally gone through most of Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and if you enjoy metroidvania platformers, by all means get it. Great game that made me eager to go back and play the previous games in the franchise.
As for which is better, though, I'd still go with Shovel Knight.
Shantae, hands down.
I bought Shovel Knight and played like for 2 hours before been put down by the underwhelming graphics.
Shantae gets almost everything right: tight controls, appropriate learning curve, great secrets, interesting bosses, the best npc of any game ever, beautiful graphics, great music and sounds, and so on.
Shovel gets most right, except for the graphics (which depends on everyone's taste) and the very short length (I'm guessing between 3-5 hours at most), while for Shantae I've cover 25% of the game in about 2.5 hours.
I haven't played the Original or new Shantae, but Risky's Revenge is an excellent albeit short game. Shovel Knight is only a bit longer but does have more replay incentive given it's challenge mode and future DLC. The new Shantae game however is supposed to be much longer than the first two so i'd imagine it'll be more comparable in length to Shovel Knight.
The key differences between the two is Shovel Knight is a level based platformer, with a few towns and stuff on a world map. Shantae is a connected world you explore, travelling back and forth between areas as you gain more powerups to explore previously blocked/hidden areas. Shantae is like Metroid, Shovel Knight is like Mega Man.
I personally think both games i've played are terrific but Shovel Knight is a tad overrated, it's very good just not Game of the Year good (Teslagrad for example was quite a bit better IMO), and i would suggest Shantae R.R. was the better game for me. I never found either difficult but i've grew up on the NES/SNES and games nowadays don't stack up in challenge (this is good and bad). I'd be hard pressed to suggest either is overly more difficult than the other but perhaps Shantae R.R. was a tad easier. Shantae had more story and interaction in the towns and starts off at a slower pace, Shovel Knight starts off right in the action and has less essential things to do in regards to NPC's. Shovel Knight is about timing jumps/shovel-bounces and attacking enemies with only a minimal degree of exploration, Shantae on the other hand did have enemies to attack throughout as well as some basic platforming, but the focus in R.R. was more on exploration and puzzles within the environment. Given how close the games are in enjoyability i think it comes down to whatever game sounds more appealing in terms of gameplay focus to you.
Ditto to everything in the quoted post above, with extra emphasis on the bolded parts. Both games are fantastic, but Shovel Knight tends to be horribly overrated while Shantae is usually overlooked.
Tbh, while I didn't love Shovel Knight QUIIIIITE as much as some people (as in I'm not declaring it GOTY), calling the game overrated is basically saying "fantastic level design in nearly every way is so overrated guys!" Which just makes you look silly.
Shovel Knight is underwhelming (Nowhere near as good as e.g Transistor or Astebreed). Removes too much of what makes e.g Megaman 9 good in the first place. All the bosses can be done with cheap tricks. Lots of the subweapons are not quite right.
It wouldn't surprise me if Shantae is better seen as it is made by the same people as Megaman 9. (And Megaman Zero / ZX).
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Tbh, while I didn't love Shovel Knight QUIIIIITE as much as some people (as in I'm not declaring it GOTY), calling the game overrated is basically saying "fantastic level design in nearly every way is so overrated guys!" Which just makes you look silly.
Everyone has different tastes. A lot of the levels felt like a slog to me. And the stupid Ninja Gaiden/Dark Souls forced deaths--even though the game otherwise isn't too difficult--are just stupid.
That said, it is a pretty sweet game. But people acting like it's SOOOO amazing kind of deflated it for me before it ever started. Again, comparing it to Megaman is pretty fair...and it's obvious that's what the devs were going for.
There are a few reasons I preferred Shantae more (even though I actually prefer Megman over 2D Metroid). The characters are likable and more involved. The pirate gear makes for some creative gameplay (In Shovel Knight I pretty much did Shovel Bounce+Green Orb to kill EVERYTHING...QUICKLY...). It's like Metroid...but with well-designed, Zelda-like dungeons. No false difficulty--sure Shantae is easier, but at least I'm not getting bumped off an edge by a slime . And like I mentioned above, the hype for Shovel Knight was so high I kinda overlooked Shantae at first thinking it wouldn't be as good so my expectations of it weren't bloated before I started (which made it a lot more enjoyable).
That said, it is a pretty sweet game. But people acting like it's SOOOO amazing kind of deflated it for me before it ever started.
Exactly. I don't know if Shovel Knight is overrated but, in all truth, I think it veers towards it. It's a 10/10 for what it does; it's just that I didn't find it all that interesting. I think it's fair to say that Shovel Knight benefitted from an enormous amount of goodwill from the moment it appeared on Kickstarter, and a lot of that must be from people's nostalgia for a Mega Man/NES-type game. I'm not saying the end product didn't deliver, it's just that I liked it rather than loved it.
I had a lot of pre-goodwill towards Shantae 3 as well, but only because I'd played the 2nd. Now if it's ever released in Europe, I'll have a more informed opinion of which one is actually better.
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Topic: Shantae or Shovel Knight?
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