Shantae: Friends to the End DLC

Think of it as a tag-team mode with Shantae's friends, where you need to use certain abilities to progress at a slower pace than the base game. Collecting gems to upgrade attacks is a nifty idea, but not only are the new collectables worth swiping since they give nothing more than an achievement, the difficulty is so irritating. Everyone shares the same health meter, and only one character can heal them. However, everyone has a different special meter. If you stumble into a boss battle without full-health, you're gonna struggle. It's linear, unlike Pirate Queen's Quest DLC, and it just isn't that funny. Unpolished, uninteresting, and unfair. Don't bother.

I only got this DLC for the achievments. I like the tag team concept of this DLC, but there are multiple issues with the gameplay that over shadow the good. You are able to switch between Bolo, Sky, and Rottytops at any time in order to get around obsticals. It's enjoyable till you realize that Bolo's special attack is useless, Sky's special is too weak, and Rotty's is the only useful one that heals the entire party's health. However it requires a ton of dark magic to use. Which wouldn't be a problem if the game had a decent health and dark magic drop rate. I constantly found myself stuck on low life and dark matter for healing, forcing me to go back to previous areas to reheal just to get further.

I got this game a couple days after it came out and beat it in about 3 hours. Rather short, but still quite enjoyable. I'm not crazy about getting dlc, but since the base game was only $20, I can't complain too much (even though I got that on sale). Playing as all the characters was fun and a bit more challenging than I thought it'd be, since you don't get any extra health. I got through Pirate Queen pretty easily, but this one took me a few tries on certain levels. In any case, I recommend this game to any fans of the Shantae series. And if you're put off by the price, remember 2 things: 1, It's less expensive and more rewarding than going to the theatre. 2, Rottytops is the best zombie girl you'll ever meet.

I'm really disapointed in Wayforward for this one. This DLC is really bad, the new charaters feel like the worse of both worlds from the base game and other DLC. Not as cool as shantea's powers and not as easy to control as Risky. The new character's don't bring anything new just reskins of Risky's items and they are lot more clunky to control. It feels 99% of this DLC is just reused assests, the one new level has no back ground and the final boss is just the new boss for the last DLC. Only really nice thing I can say about "New content" is the writings pretty funny. But you don't need to buy this to be able to read it. Just watch a lets play. It very short and there is only 1 collectable and it gets you nothing but a pice of photoshoped art that you will for beating the game at any persentage. I love the Shantea games but if the is level of quality continues. I'll drop the franchies. Don't get this DLC if feels like it was choped togeather by five people in and afternoon watch a lets play instead. I Regreat getting this.

Shantae: Friends to the End its seriously good dlc. WayFoward gave to this dlc (like in Pirate Queen's Quest) new gameplay on this same maps (ofc. with few changes) with different story. We are playing as 3 heroes (Sky, Bolo and Rottytops) and changing them pretty fast. This dlc isn't too easy (at least for me 2d platformer casual), but difficulty is enjoyable, but the most enjoyable thing in this dlc are boss fights with that new gameplay.

This DLC feels borderline untested, not because its broken, but because the level design ranges from unfun to punishing the player to artificially inflate play time. If you like shantae, the characters and designs will be fine for you. Nothing mind blowing but fine. First off, the presentation is awful. Gone is the nice neat stage select menu from shantae or even the Risky Boots DLC, this one is just linear. There IS a stage select, but it is just a menu item within the pause menu. And the levels will feel repetitive/uninteresting BECAUSE THEY ARE. These are just the same levels from the original game with a few extra knobs for bolo to swing from. And these levels are crude. The term artificial difficulty is thrown around incorrectly to describe dark souls alot lately, but here it would apply fine. Your resources arent refilled before boss fights, so there is no incentive to use them in levels, meaning that you're characters will feel perpetually nerfed/uninteresting on the way to a boss, and god forbid you healed before a boss room. Then you'll feel gyped when you enter a room with one less healing ability. And the bosses themselves feel unfun and unfair, as they are just the same bosses as before, but with no changes to them to compliment anything in the new characters kits. IT is ESPECIALLY bad in the final gauntlet of challenges, which punish you for even one mistake by taking you all the way back to the start, and god forbid you tried to grab the collectibles along the way. If you die (which you probably will as these stages actively punish you for playing as you were before, BREAKING player trust), time to get all those collectibles again, rerun the boring parts of the gauntlet you already ran, and die again to whatever got you last time because did I mention most of these last obstacles happen to quickly to react to and kill you for missing your chance? This is a blantant extreme of trial and error to artificially inflate the play time of these stages. Progression is out the window because you arent allowed to upgrade your characters in any meaningful way and the upgrades you do get, are just minor damage buffs that you IMMEDIATELY lose if you take a single hit of damage. This feels rushed, bare bones, and maybe even a bit spiteful of players. Unless you really like Shantae (which I am unfortunately guilty of) then wait to get it on sale/as a gift/anything that doesnt cost you time and/or money.

I feel mixed about this DLC. On the one hand, the characters you get to play as each have their own purpose and are fun to control. There are even some interesting platforming challenges where you switch between them in succession. But on the other hand, the level design doesn't really play into their abilities in interesting ways until the game is just about over. Most of the challenge and content can't be credited toward this but rather the level design of the main game. There is a new section with completely original level design and it's great! I just wish they were able to do more of that since working on top of the original levels hardly ever works. The only reason you'd want to get this DLC is if you're going for 100% of the achievements.

This DLC is not what I expected, and that's a bad thing in this case. "Friends to the End" functions as an interquel to "Half-Genie Hero" featuring Sky, Bolo and Rottytops. It, disappointingly, features the same exact levels as the main game and "Pirate Queen's Quest" (sans the final level), but with an ENORMOUS jump in difficulty. I dare say, the difficulty surpasses even Hardcore Mode in the main game. This is because the developers made this DLC artificially hard. See, unlike Shantae and Risky Boots, all 3 playable characters in "Friends to the End" play like 1/3 of the former two. You're forced to constantly switch between them on the fly in order to take advantage of their one ability that's required to clear obstacles. Problem is, none of these abilities were programmed very well. Sky has the bizarre ability to create static bird platforms by throwing eggs in the air and hatching them at the right moment. Problem is, you have to make sure the eggs don't hit any obstacles and that the platforms are high enough, but not too high that your characters can't leap onto them. This process is not only slow and tedious, but it leaves you wide open to enemy attacks. Rottytops has a faux-teleportation ability that allows you to throw her head and transport the rest of her body wherever the head lands. Unfortunately, the head never seems to land where it should, often either missing its target or bouncing right off a platform into a spike pit, causing her to take damage. Rottytops is also the only character who can heal, but the ability uses a tremendous amount of magic, so you'll usually only be able to heal twice per stage at most. Bolo has a grappling hook, which functions like a poor man's Simon Belmont whip from "Castlevania IV" and is the worst ability in the game. The grappling hook only fires in 3 directions, and for some reason, the default direction isn't horizontally, but diagonally. If you suspect this leads to a ton of cheap falls, you are correct. Not only are all 3 of these characters weak and awkward to control, they can't even be upgraded beyond some minor attack buffs that vanish after a single enemy hit. But I haven't even mentioned the worst part: All THREE characters share a SINGLE health bar, with 3 hearts that can't be extended, and there's very few opportunities to heal. Boss fights are now a desperate struggle for survival. That is, if you can even reach them, since all the stages are now littered with knobs for Bolo's grappling hook. Be prepared to fall. A lot. "Friends to the End" is a missed opportunity to flesh out interesting minor players in the "Shantae" series. Instead, it's like playing all of "Half-Genie Hero" with one armed tied behind your back.

this is a great DLC that adds a very interesting and different way to play the game. switching between each of the 3 characters is a good challenge since health is the only thing shared between them. each one has seperate gems and magic bars so even deciding which character breaks open pots can be important. it is great to see Dream Squids back as they have not been around since the first Shantae game for gameboy color and they really bring that classic Shantae feeling to the game. really wish they could be for more then a achievement though. collecting all 3 Dream Squids from a area to get 1 heart would be much more motivation to collect them. having only 3 hearts makes this mode extremely difficult, sure a challenge is good but I wouldn't see the harm in letting players get a few extra hearts as it would give us something else to work for without effecting the games difficulty very much.

It's not that I in particular disliked the recycled levels featured in Friends to the End, nor was it because I found the gameplay somewhat lacking, but I gave this seemingly promising DLC a negative review because it was needlessly frustrating and not an enjoyable experience overall. There were certainly many good ideas made in playing as Shantae's trinity of side characters, yes. I was fond of Rotty's (Ms. Fortune called, she wants her gameplay back) head detach gimmick, as it opened up to some truly interesting combat and navigation abilities outside of those nightmare barriers that can't be passed in any other way. Bolo's and Sky's movesets were more predictable, but at least they were distinct and they do shine in some areas. All this, however, wasn't enough to make up for the sudden, exaggerated jump in difficulty. It's not that I don't relish a little difficulty when its due, but I find myself dying to only a few hits far too often to be tolerated, with only two opportunties to heal up at most. Only three hearts of health are given, and no more. This means that you have to be excessively cautious to even survive the first boss fight, and it feels really insulting to constantly lose to one of the many enemy pile-ups further down the road that either Shantae or Risky Boots were able to clear so easily before. This is when leveling up should come in handy, but since you are given so little health points to begin with, it's hardly a meaningful advantage. But wait, there's more! Getting hit just once might as well de-level you, and it's a guarantee once you topped off your character's level. Having to regain 20 or so gems every time I get hit feels more like earning a speeding ticket over genuinely accepting it as a fair consequence for making a mistake while playing. Another complication to note is that while Rotty, Bolo and Sky share the same health bar, they have separate magic meters. To be fair, it does ensure that using Sky's bird circling thing or Bolo's pike balls wouldn't compromise Rotty's godly (and expensive) ability to restore health, but the former two are just too woefully weak to really find a viable use for. There's a rough headstart early on with the first one, but the bosses are fairly balanced in comparison, or so far I've encountered, as I've hadn't got the patience to finish the DLC yet. The Giga Mermaid is again a frustrating health drought, but the worm one that comes after it is as easy as it was before. You can guess where I got stuck at this time of writing. The conclusion is while there has been some new and innovative content and gameplay, it is greatly overshadowed by a punishing level of difficulty, and I even doubt the replay value, given the very linear approach with little room to rest or explore. It strives to make up for the lackluster presentation of Pirate Queen's Quest, but I fear that this is not so. This is not Cuphead, players appreciate the high level of difficulty in it because they expect it to. Friends to the End has it, but for all the wrong reasons.