Topic: What I think of the shantae series?

I posted this topic earlier on unpopular game opinions but since I didn't get much of response (or the fact that i posted it on the wrong topic)

so I just did a Shantae retrospective so if anyone wants to know what I think about the Shantae series, here's my blog.

http://bittypix.blogspot.in/

So what do you guys think?

Well, I disaagree. TBH, Shantae is the only Metroidvania I actually like so far. Including Metroid and Castlevania! LOL (well, besides Prime, I frickin' love Prime). But I can understand someone not really appreciating it. It does things a little different and that's really not for everybody. So it really comes down to a difference of opinion...the only thing I might say is "wrong" is the "girly" claim. Attractive women (albeit cartoon women) in sexy outfits is definitely trying to attract a male crowd even if all the strong characters are female. I think they're trying to get both crowds with fanservice for men, and good female characters for women...not a bad idea, really.

Thor 2 is a perfect example of the reverse. They have very obvious scenes with Thor without his shirt (for women), and action/chest pounding for men. Of course, this is playing to stereotypes, but with the pressure from society you'd be surprised how many (paying) people adhere to it.

@R_Champ but the female characters don't have much of personality. That's like saying many play tomb raider because of lara croft being hot. That shouldn't be the ultimate reason to play a game as you play them for fun and I agree that the shantae games are fun.

You know what, I might as well say it here, but why is it wrong for a female character to be hot? It's one thing if, let's say, the devs were all up in your face about her skimpiness and made that the game's main selling point; however, from what I can tell, Shantae looks like a gameplay-centric platformer that has a good looking main protagonist. There nothing wrong with that IMO.

Different things bother different people in different ways. It's part of why there are so many different reactions to Bayonetta 2. People have different things that bother them. Nothing wrong with that when it comes to something like enjoying a video game.

Please god change the colour scheme and design of that blog!

@GuardianKing but that beauty shouldn't be the only reason why gamers should play as females...that's the point I'm trying to make. If you don't want to play Mario because its a kiddie image, then you most likely will play platform games that don't look kiddie to you but there's not many of them that aren't kiddie if I'm not mistaken.

Seems like he actually did. Much easier on the eyes.

@Dezzy yeah I changed it. Though I kinda wish I could create my own template somehow......

Hey Artwark, i'm gonna let this one slide for now since people are already having a discussion, but in the future please refrain from posting for the purpose of advertisement, be it for your personal blog, website, forum, YouTube channel, etc. and so forth. We ask that you do any self-promotion via your user signature and/or profile information. Thanks in advance! :3

Does anyone else find that shade of purple hard on the eyes? The backround's nice and the purple goes well with it, but I recommend picking at the very least a darker shade of purple, if not a mellower color all together.

Just wanted to get that out there. Glad you got a blog. I really should update mine but I think I accidentally restricted access to it...

I think the blog is a fair description of the individual games. There are only two points I really disagree with:

The first is the price/length argument. I never debate this when it comes up because everyone's entitled to their opinion, but in all honesty I find it pretty sad that it's so often such a big issue. Here you have WayForward crafting labours of love like no other studio (in terms of spritework, music, controls etc) and people are reluctant to reward them for it. At the end of the day, their wages need paying, and the games aren't ridiculously expensive. Risky's Revenge cost me £12.99, I believe, and I've played it so many times it was far better value than retail games I've paid £50 for. WayForward's games are like craft products rather than the average game you get on the eShop, and so I don't mind paying a fair bit for them. OK, there's a limit (about £20 for me), but for me the prices are very favourable compared to downloadable retail games.

The second matter is the "girly" issue. Without wishing to be at all rude, I find it a shame that people can't just accept it has a lot of female characters. Not aimed at men, not aimed at women - it just has female characters. Besides, there are many male characters - Bolo, Mimic, Ammo Baron, the Mayor, Abner and Poe, compared to Shantae, Risky, Rottytops and Sky for female. Yes, the protagonist and antagonist are female, but I don't see why that shouldn't be the case.

At the end of the day, I just don't find the games girly. It seems more to me that Matt and Erin Bozon thought up this fantasy world and simply crafted it in the best way they imagined, rather than for any particular demographic. It has an Arabian theme, which is linked to belly dancing - a type of dance that, you can't get away from it, is very feminine and linked to the way the waist and hips move. Sometimes the games are a little bit sexy, and although I don't play them for that, it's part of the enjoyment when it happens. It's sad that when something has a lot of female characters we think "For women", unless you see quite a lot of their bodies, in which case we say "For men". Not very progressive, in my opinion. Why can't we accept they're simply female characters with good bodies?

Anyway, everyone's got an opinion. Unfortunately, I suspect WayForward has realised a lot of people are a bit insecure about Shantae and have gone from aiming the first three at dedicated gamers to aiming the fourth one at young girls. From what we've seen, Shantae has no sex appeal left and looks much younger than ever. Doesn't mean it'll be a bad game, but it does seem they've had a stylistic lack of confidence.

@MetalKingShield although my opinions remain the same for the series, I respect your opinions. I truly admire the love Wayforward creates for their series. Its something I wish Western devs would do a lot more care with their creations like how Japanese devs do. Infact I think I enjoy Pirate's curse more than Azure Striker Gunvolt (I seriously am finding gunvolt just......lame.) and its definitely the best in the series.

But to argue you're "girly" opinion though, its like I said in the blog. If you want the female characters, fine but if they don't have much of personality or the fact that its just to do it because girls are like that, then there's really no point of the series to have a story. Sure you get male characters in the series as well but in the end, its more of the female characters that show up there. The same thing can be said for Mighty Switch Force. I'm not saying that the inspiration of the game like belly dancing is girly infact I get that since the series is centered around the arabian nights, its only understandable when they do stuff like that. But the real problem is that if a game has a story and if its to make it all about girls or if they have to have girls and make less of boys, then give them all some personality. I honestly can't see all of that in the series and I could elaborate that in the blog but that requires spoiling the stories and I don't want to do that because I don't like to spoil the surprise to anyone else.

Thank you, Artwark, it's nice to have a respectful, informed discussion about it, and like I say, I think you've described the individual games perfectly! I'm not a fan of the first game and haven't played the third. It's strange to think my fandom comes just from Risky's Revenge, but it does.

But to argue you're "girly" opinion though, its like I said in the blog. If you want the female characters, fine but if they don't have much of personality or the fact that its just to do it because girls are like that, then there's really no point of the series to have a story. Sure you get male characters in the series as well but in the end, its more of the female characters that show up there. The same thing can be said for Mighty Switch Force.

There's no doubt about it, WayForward likes female protagonists. I don't know, maybe like a lot of artists they just prefer the female shape.

Regarding the gender balance of characters, I still say that Ammo Baron contributes just as much as Rottytops, for instance. And in the first two games, at least, Sky doesn't really feature any more than Mimic or the Mayor. The thing is, when a developer creates a supporting character, they have to decide on their sex. Sometimes they're male and not all that important; sometimes they're female and not all that important, but I don't think the sex should have an effect on how much the developer has to justify the character.

But that's the supporting characters. As for protagonists and antagonists, I won't claim there are any male characters as important as Shantae or Risky. Personally, I really like Risky as she is, and Shantae being female does allow a certain type of humour that wouldn't seem as natural if she was male. For instance, I really like how she talks to the guard in the Battle Tower and ends every sentence with "Kiss."

Anyway, all the best to you. I really like Shantae how it is at the moment, but let's see how it develops in the future.