Shantae (GBC) (2002)
Developer: Way Forward Technologies

Review by Faididi and Co.

At least it's more fun than rubbing the cartridge three times

Story: Average

Shantae is the half-human, half-genie girl employed as the guardian of a quiet little town in the world of Sequin Land. One morning, the lady pirate with the silly name of Risky Boots raids the place and steals the local inventor's experimental steam engine. Now Shantae must search for some magic stones hidden across the world, before Risky seizes them in order to build a killer robot. The dialogue is written well, but the characters in the towns can use more lines, instead of always repeating the same messages.

Gameplay: Below Average

Based on Matt Bozon's character designs, Way Forward's Shantae is an action adventure along the lines of much earlier games like Konami's Castlevania 2 or Infinity and Imagineer's Olympus no Tatakai (The Battle of Olympus). Shantae runs and jumps through large side-scrolling areas, buying items from shops and beating dungeons along the way. Like Castlevania 2, this game has areas that periodically alternate between day and night, and Shantae can encounter some events only during certain times of the day. Her progress can be recorded at save points.

Making like the hero from Human's Jigoku Gokuraku Maru (Kabuki: The Quantum Fighter), Shantae's main attack is to whip her hair forward. She can also change into many different animal forms by performing magic dances, which are acquired by freeing the genies trapped in the dungeons. Each animal form comes with its own special ability. For instance, the monkey form lets our heroine climb vertical walls. For another, the elephant form lets her ram through certain barriers.

The level and enemy designs are a mixed bag. The bad guys range from Risky's shadowy pirate henchmen to exotic creatures like lamiae and scorpion men, but Shantae can often leap straight past them. As a matter of fact, doing so is better than fighting them, because our heroine's hair attack has a woefully short range. However, the overworld's unbelievably awful layout is the worst part of the entire game. The bottomless pits' aggravating placements prevent Shantae from dashing at top speed across the terrain. Instead of offering an actual challenge, they force her to stutter through the same boring-ass areas as she searches for exactly where to go next. This last problem is due to some sections of the adventure lacking proper clues (like Castlevania 2, except that game has the excuse of being released over a decade earlier). Experimenting blindly with the animal forms to make progress wouldn't piss you off so much if not for the time wasted in doing the transformation dance for every single fucking form.

In sharp contrast, the four dungeons (excluding the final area) is far more smartly designed. They're actually enjoyable to explore and conquer, thanks to the few creative puzzles (like bouncing objects into a slot or matching the tiles on a wall), and the bosses happily tend to be pushovers. In short, you'll want Shantae to hurry through the overworld garbage as quickly as possible just so you can see her in the dungeons.

Controls: Below Average

While Shantae moves around okay in her normal form, she inexplicably cannot cling still onto a wall while climbing in the monkey form. Pressing the correct buttons at the right time to perform the magic dances seems cool at first, but this grows tedious when Shantae needs to switch among different forms frequently, and enemies can still kill her while she's dancing. Her special charging attack also takes an unreasonably long time to perform.

Graphics: Average

The vividly drawn characters are fluidly animated. The backgrounds are nicely textured, and their transitions between day and night are smooth. Unfortunately, the characters' large sizes and the unhelpful camera work make seeing dangers to the front difficult. During the obstacle course minigame, for example, the camera fails to pull ahead of Shantae, leaving little time for reacting to oncoming hazards. The bottomless pits are kept out of view in a similar manner, turning the overworld areas into a pain in the ass.

Audio: Above Average

The sound effects are loud. Shantae's hair-whip attack comes with a forceful whoosh, and defeated enemies go out with a noisy poof. From the overworld to the dungeons to the towns, the tunes are upbeat, and the way the music changes according to Shantae's moves whenever she dances is a neat touch.

Overall: Average

Shantae is a great-sounding action adventure that has engaging dungeons. Too bad it's dragged down by its unpolished controls, its shitty camera work, and its incredibly fucking annoying overworld.