An interesting take on the 8-bit "classic"

A mysterious white spaceship crash-lands on an alien world. As it clears the mountain range and skips across the surface, it sails over an alarmed blue creature, and comes to a stop. As the clouds rush over the bizarrely angular landscape, out of the ship emerges a nameless blond girl. Her purpose - unknown. As she steps out onto the alien soil unarmed and helpless, she is immediately set upon by indigenous surface predators of this world - the dreaded green jellies. However, before the gelatinous monstrosities reach her, an unlikely ally comes to her rescue. The same blue blob that has narrowly avoided being crushed by the landing spaceship has emerged as the girl's fierce champion, tearing and rending his foes to pieces; guarding this curious visitor with all his might. And while this unlikely partnership will not last for long, the girl must go on with her mysterious mission. In her travels she will be lost in crimson caves dripping with slime. She will trudge through swamps teeming with flesh-eating alien fish, and pursued by ghostly apparitions. She will pilot an ancient alien flying machine, and face off with a giant three-headed sky predator. She will employ alien weapons and artifacts in order to stay alive and aid her quest, and in the end she will face a mechanical nightmare that holds the object of her long struggle.
And you will experience all of that along with this nameless girl, and it will all be over in less than 30 minutes or so.
There has once been a budget 8-bit game by a Spanish developer Dynamic called Phantis, and to me it was one of those "classics" cherished almost purely for nostalgia's sake. By modern standards the game is decidedly worthless. Yet still - there are many who hold fond memories of it.
This remake, or re-imagining if you will, has reminded me of why I loved Phantis in the first place. The exploration of an alien world, bizarre creatures - both harmful and benign, a female lead, and most of all - the ever-pervasive, all-encompassing sense of adventure! The game continuously presents you with new situations and challenges, some of which might give you pause, but never frustrate you to the point of quitting, as a solution can always be found just around the corner. The locales the girl passes on her way are all unique, and each introduces unique problems. And while on occasion an element might appear unreasonably difficult, the game softens the challenge by allowing you to keep any artifacts you may have collected in your previous attempts.
Shmantis features several encounters with large boss creatures. While few of them are noteworthy, they provide a welcome change of pace. In addition to those boss fights, the game is punctuated by a sky chase at about 2/3 mark. Played like a horizontal shooter, this sudden radical change is a breath of fresh air followed by a kick in the groin delivered via the incredibly frustrating battle with a dragon at its end.
What little story there is, is delivered via a short in-game cutscene at the very end. It certainly wasn’t much, but it did a great job of justifying the time spent getting there, and surprising the people who played the 8-bit original, as it is, thankfully, a completely different premise.
All these things said - Shmantis isn't a great game. From the technical standpoint the experience is an amateur effort at best. The interface is almost nonexistent – the game’s front end is a hand-drawn screen with “Press 1 to start” written in a very hard-to read font, and upon losing a life you are prompted to “Press 1 to restart the game, or Press 2 to restart the level.” Hit the wrong button, and all your progress thus far will be erased.
The game’s graphics range from simple, abstract shapes to fairly hideous, muddy works of too many filters. While every world has a distinct color palette, those colors are often very primary. The girl’s animation is so subtle - you may at first wonder if it’s even there at all.
Shmantis’ level design shines at most times, but other factors conspire to make the game more tedious than it needs to be, such as when one has to backtrack through an entire level because of a missed jump. And while we are on the subject of missed jumps - those occur far too often, sometimes due to the unwieldy pan-handle camera, other times due to unresponsive jump button itself. Another oversight is the player’s lack of a grace period after taking damage, so in Shmantis it isn’t uncommon to die in infuriatingly cheap ways. To make matters somewhat more frustrating there is no feedback of any kind when the player gets hit, so it's possible to die from things you didn't think hurt you.
The music is fairly nondescript, but sounds occasionally make you take notice, both for reasons good and bad. For example in level 3 the ghost enemies that follow you around while making a completely insane sawing sound at random intervals. It's unnerving at first, and terribly annoying after about 30 seconds. Some enemy sounds are spot on though, and the synthesized female announcement voice is a surprising touch.
Overall - despite its flaws I would still wholeheartedly recommend Shmantis at the very least to those who played the classic game, or anyone else interested in a weird little platformer.