Playing A Game Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut PC

Immediately, the most jarring thing about Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut is the high-definition UI art that it's putting on top of Nintendo DS-era gameplay graphics. (Honestly, they look even more like GBA graphics.) The modern-ish HD veneer fades away pretty quickly.

And beneath that veneer is a game that feels just a bit too antiquated for today. The controls aren't quite responsive enough; the hitboxes are never exactly what I expect; the menu sucks (where's my Map button); the UI's visual language is unclear; combat isn't interesting at all; the logic on enemy respawning is all over the place.

It's slightly bizarre that, although I definitely wouldn't call the game hard, I end up taking a fair amount of damage -- because I'm having a lot of trouble timing my attacks and movement correctly. Thankfully Shantae's HP is more than enough to accommodate this.

Gameplay aside, Shantae's world feels very minimally charming. Pixel-art belly-dancing can only go so far.

... actually, I guess my nitpicks don't necessarily indicate "antiquated" as much as they might "sloppy." A trend I really can't help but ascribe to WayForward, game after game after game.

Progress: Defeated the Squid Baron