Glen-i

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is the latest game in the Shantae series. It's a Metroid style platformer developed by WayForward and released on all modern platforms in 2019. Shantae (Half-human, half-genie), her uncle, and two of her best friends have been invited to Paradise Island for an all expenses paid vacation. Shantae soon discovers that five other half-genies have also been invited. The small print turns out to be that Shantae and the 5 other half-genies take part in Paradise Island's brand new "Half-genie festival". They agree, but during the festival, every half-genie except Shantae mysteriously disappears. Suspecting foul play, Shantae explores the ruins underneath the island to try and find them using her powers... Yeah, that. Thank you. Like most of the Shantae games, this one consists of a big interconnected area where most of it is inaccessible until you unlock more abilities for Shantae to use. I'm sure all of you have played a Metroid game, you get how it works. Shantae distinguishes itself by also having Zelda style dungeons. Granted, it's closer to Zelda 2 because of the side scrolling nature of the game. Seven Sirens specifically takes notes from Castlevania with the monster card system. Whenever you kill an enemy, there's a chance they'll drop a card of themselves. There's 50 of these cards, and you can activate three of them at a time to give Shantae some kind of passive ability. None of them are required to finish the game, but they add an extra layer of customisation. Even if a certain one that replenishes magic over time is way too good. One thing to note about this is that in 2021, a pretty sizable update was added to this game that included 4 extra difficulty modes. Alongside the 2019 Legacy Mode, there's Beginner Mode, which makes Shantae invincible and crazy strong. Definitive Mode rebalances enemies to be harder, makes boss patterns faster, but adds extra dialogue, and quality of life features to make 100% completion far more reasonable. Full Deck Mode gives you all 50 monster cards from the start, and Rule Breaker Mode removes the three card activation limit, and lets you have every one you find active all at once. Rule Breaker Mode sounds like a lot of fun, but this was my first time playing this game, so I went with Definitive Mode. I'm glad I did, the extra map features were very much appreciated, especially the one that hints at what dance you might need in each room. Considering that there's a lot of invisible goodies with not much in the way of hints to help signpost them, I can't imagine trying to find everything in this game with the original release (Legacy Mode). Hmmm. The Screen Clearing Blast is my favourite character. Honestly, I don't know why it took me 5 years to play this. I like all the Shantae games, and this one is no different. I'd put it right in the middle of the 5 games in terms of quality. It's great. But Risky's Revenge and especially Pirate's Curse outdo it.

No need, really, considering the other way Kaclang managed to get me killed.

Just so we're clear. The last match was "Sakurai lunchtime rules" right? First to Kamikazee wins? What do you mean, no!?

Oh, I'm always signed in here, I had no issues getting in there. OK, now it's funny again. Seems like a really dumb oversight.

Awww... That's less funny. The possibility that someone was scrubbing through some random guy playing Smash Ultimate with his friends and seeing that freeze frame and immediately reporting it was quite amusing.

I went back to relive this laugh. And was greeted with a warning that this video was for "Mature audiences only" Take what you will out of that... Stock Format tonight at 8pm. With Time Format Custom Stages from 7:30.

No, I've lapped a CPU and still gotten the heads-up. Maybe it's because of the weird lap structure of Kalimari Desert?

Woah, what the hell? Absolutely no heads-up at the bottom there. That's so weird!

There's three of us playing with NSO tonight if anyone wants in. 8:30pm. Likely Perfect Dark, but if a hypothetical mysterious fourth person wants to try something else, I'm sure we can humour them.

My Mii is the same weight as Mario, how did that happen!?

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

Honestly, there's a good case for the music alone being worth the price. There is some amazing remix work in there!

And if all else fails, you can still leg it, because I'm not catching you, even after 2000+ eggs.

It's gonna take you a lot more than 5 hours to unlock everything here. Trust me on that. If running out of stuff to unlock is the reason you stop playing, then go for it, there's enough to keep you busy for ages. If you quit because you've just had your fill, then ehhhh, think about it.

Why tell, when I can show? (Base game secret character spoilers ahead)

You didn't even see the double Lucas during the Custom stages.

I was watching on the stream and @Ike had a really good win streak going. Snatched away from him right before the tenth win, but it was very well done. And it was a one point loss that did it, so it was very close.

Yeah, gonna have to bow out. The connection is not playing ball.

There isn't a limit. The ramifications should be obvious, but if stats get to a certain extreme, a merchant appears on Moongolow who will either remove all that characters' golden eggs, or just the ones that improved Move Speed.

Eh, Your Stinky Old Garlic Man™ is no match for my Malevolent Nuke Tree! Yes, that was the character I was using in that previous clip I posted, not that you could tell. In an effort to make it not move agonisingly slow, I've inadvertantly made it the most powerful character on my file... I regret nothing!

Time matches tonight. Custom Stages start from 7:30.

Right, 15 minute heads-up for @S.C.G and @BowserBasher for the Turok 2 session. There's a free spot if anyone else wants to join in.

Man, that house rule is an utter blight! It's so awful. And yet so many people swear by it!

It's a... passable Switch icon, the logo is there, but when you compare it to Dragon Quest XI... It's not the greatest icon, but it is nice. Final Fantasy can pull off the "Logo on white background" thing, but I expect more from Dragon Quest.