Product Info

Platform

Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Publisher

XSEED

Developer

Wayforward

Series

Shantae

Genre

Action, Platform

Players

1

File Size (Minimum)

2.95 GB

Release Date (NA)

May 8, 2018

Purchase From

Amazon

Best Buy

Walmart

GameStop

eShop

PSN Store

Microsoft Store

Steam

WayForward worked on Shantae: Half-Genie Hero through Kickstarter beginning in September 2013 and successfully launched the game in 2016. Since then, they have constantly updated the game, giving Kickstarter backers extra content such as playable characters, new gameplay modes, and new costumes. Now, everyone can finally enjoy the content backers have received in Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition.

Half-Genie — Will Travel

Scuttle Town is home to Shantae, her inventor uncle, and her friends, and it receives a rude awakening when it is attacked by Shantae’s nemesis, the pirate Risky Boots. Looking to rule the world, Risky and her minions steal the blueprints for a powerful invention designed by Shantae’s uncle, so Shantae sets out to stop them.

Once you fend off the attack, Scuttle Town opens up and the adventure truly begins. You can explore the town, talk to people, shop for items, visit the museum of all the art you uncovered during your journey, upgrade attacks, and more. The town is relatively small, but you’ll be spending much of your time outside anyway since gathering items to trade with the townsfolk is the only way to progress the story. Moreover, some items are only available in specific levels, so you’ll be making multiple trips to find them.

Fortunately, each level is unique. For example, you’ll explore a waterfall level that’s home to mermaids but is being taken over by a secret organization looking to make a profit by taking women and turning them into “fake” mermaids. Moreover, the boss battles in these levels are a blast. Though they all require you to recognize patterns and take advantage of them, each fight is quite different, and each victory is satisfying. The only drawback is you can’t revisit the boss battles once completed; instead, you are left with a teleportation device to return to the game’s map menu.

After defeating each boss, Shantae learns a new dance move that’ll transform her into various animals such as a crab, a mermaid, or even a blobfish. Each transformation has its own skill set that’ll help Shantae overcome obstacles like using the mermaid to swim underwater or using the bat to fly. Some hidden areas have hidden treasures which can only be accessed by using specific transformations.

Aside from progressing the story, you will also be collecting items in order to upgrade Shantae’s skill set. Expect to revisit levels constantly, especially in the desert level of Tassel Town. To see what items and skills Shantae has, you can use the inventory screen. Each category is well organized, making Shantae: Half-Genie Hero’s user interface one the best in video games. For example, for the relics showcasing Shantae’s skills, each one can be turned on and off, giving you the option to use specific skills such as the “metronome” and “attract.” Each relic also displays what level they are currently, which can only go up to three levels (or stars to be specific).

That level of care and detail isn’t just reserved for menus. Shantae’s character animation is fun and cheerful. Whether she’s swaying back and forth while standing or shaking her bottom when crouched down, the team at WayForward has added loads of details to the half-genie herself, as well as to all the other characters residing in the game.

Move Those Hips

Shantae’s soundtrack is energetic and fun and composed by Jake Kaufman, well known for his scores for Shovel Knight. Whether Shantae is fighting a giant mermaid, riding on flying carpets, or in the middle of selecting a transformation, you will enjoy each score as they’ll be swaying to each beat.

One of the best tracks of the game is on the first stage of the main story, “Dance Through the Danger,” with vocals by Cristina Vee. You will be sucked in when playing the game for the first time. Unfortunately, revisiting the stage won’t bring back the specialized score.

Hero & Hard Modes

In addition to the normal difficulty, the main game has two additional modes: Hero and Hard. “Hero Mode” lets you replay Shantae’s adventure with all her transformations unlocked, while the “Hard Mode” is exactly what it says. If you are looking for a challenge — an “old-school” challenge — then give this one a chance. Just be warned you may get your butt handed to you. Providing a choice between three different difficulties for the main game is a great addition that should have been available in the original game’s release.

Friends to the End

Friends to the End! is a new adventure featuring Shantae’s friends: Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops. The story drops you into Shantae’s mind, where you’ll need to find and rescue the half-genie hero. You’ll play as one of the three characters at a time, but you have the option to switch between the other two with ease. Plus, each character has their own unique skill set that’s needed to get through each stage.

Sky can throw eggs one at a time to create a platform for you to jump on, which is great for crossing gaps. After throwing each egg, you’ll have to hatch it with the press of a button before it falls off the screen. There’s certainly a learning curve at first, but you’ll be an egg-hatching pro with practice. While the platform won’t disappear underneath your feet, it will disappear if you’re not quick enough to jump on to the platform, and you’ll need to throw another egg. Sky cannot throw multiple eggs, so it’s one platform at a time.

Sky has a couple more skills to use: the ability to glide across the screen and a special ability to summon a trio of birds for protection. While the bird shield is great, the glide ability feels abrupt and too quick when compared to Mario’s power cape glide from Super Mario World.

Bolo can use his spring claw, similar to a hookshot, to grab onto pegs that are scattered across the level. Once you grab onto one, you can swing Bolo back and forth to jump across areas. While swinging, you can move Bolo up and down to help create a longer jump — an ability that will test your knowledge of physics. Bolo’s special ability is the use of spike balls to attack enemies.

Rottytops (Rotty) can throw her head across destructive beams and barriers. Before throwing, you can bring up an indicator on where you can throw Rotty’s head; otherwise, you can free aim. Once you successfully throw the head across without it being destroyed, Rotty’s body will automatically teleport over, which is a slick ability to have in your adventure. For her special ability, Rotty can regenerate your health.

Be aware that when you use each character’s special moves, it’ll drain your dream gauge, the rainbow-colored bar below the character’s hearts. Use them wisely.

Out of the three characters, you’ll end up using Sky the most. Not only because she has more abilities to use but she can summon a bird to attack enemies, similar to a boomerang. Prepare to get comfortable with the button to switch characters as you’ll need it in order to complete each level.

Get Risky with a Baddie

While you can play as Shantae’s trio of friends, you can also play as Shantae’s nemesis, Risky Boots. Her adventure tells the story of the main game from her perspective with equally amusing dialogue but a different style of gameplay compared to Shantae’s.

While Risky doesn’t have any intriguing dance moves or summoning birds, she can use various types of bullets to fire at monsters. Since Risky does not have any special abilities to jump over tall walls, she instead has to activate an object which creates platforms that disappear after a short amount of time. However, figuring out how to activate these objects and then traversing the platforms can lead to some frustration.

Still, Risky Boots’s adventure is something you will want to jump into if you enjoyed playing as Shantae. Like the main game, you can revisit levels to grab missing key items, though they’re not as plentiful compared to Shantae’s.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

One of Shantae’s alternate costume adventures is based on WayForward’s other games, Mighty Switch Force. The dialogue in this adventure is rather entertaining as Shantae acts as if she’s a police officer. While Shantae’s new suit is great, her movements are limited to running and jumping. She cannot duck, crawl, swim, or dance.

She does have new abilities, though. She can shoot pellets from her handheld weapon and switch blocks around in each stage. For the majority of the time, you’ll have to use the controller’s action button to initiate the block-switching to move Shantae to the end goal while capturing stranded prisoners along the way. Out of all the costume modes, this one was quite interesting as it requires not only problem-solving skills but also timing when repeatedly switching blocks.

Genie Ninja

Another of Shantae’s alternate costume modes lets you play as a ninja. Her movements are much faster than in any other costume forms, plus she has ninja-like abilities such as throwing Shuriken (throwing stars) at enemies, teleporting, dodging enemy attacks, and jumping up walls.

The ninja skills are nifty, but using the teleportation and wall jump skills can be a little tricky since you can easily lose track of your character. Also, since Shantae runs a lot quicker than in the other modes, you will need to be aware that the character will feel more loose when jumping. Wall jumping also feels a bit clunky at first since you will need to hold down the directional button towards the wall and then press the jump button to kick off from the wall. It can be frustrating, but you’ll get the hang of it.

Sunbathing Shantae

Shantae’s third costume adventure is no walk on the beach. While you can still use Shantae’s hair to attack, she can also use beach-related skills such as throwing beach balls at monsters and being able to float in a bubble. You can activate the bubble at any time, and once in it, you can maneuver Shantae left and right while floating upwards. Just make sure not to touch a wall or any other object or the bubble will pop. It’s a useful skill that will save you on more than one occasion.

The trickiest part of the beach mode is the sunscreen. There’s an indicator at the bottom of the screen that’ll fill when Shantae doesn’t apply sunscreen, and once it maxes out, Shantae will burn and your health will start decreasing. Fortunately, it can be reset by picking up sunscreen bottles that are scattered across the stage, but since you’ll need to constantly grab bottles while also battling monsters, this mode isn’t as easy as you’d think.

Common Mode Theme

In each costume mode, the gameplay itself doesn’t change too much from the main story, but the dialogue is adjusted accordingly. For example, instead of Shantae confronting Risky Boots for stealing blueprints in the game’s main story, Risky gets frustrated with Shantae for getting to the beach first or even arrives to make fun of Shantae’s ninja outfit looking like pajamas.

Some gameplay aspects are streamlined, though. When finishing defeating a boss, Shantae automatically starts the next level. Also, all the dialogue in-between and the tasks to get to the next level are cut. It would be amusing to see more dialogue with Shantae and the other game characters, but it makes sense to skip the hassle and immediately continue playing. In addition, each costume mode gives you the option to collect stickers instead of key items, and even if you don’t collect all the ones in a level, the game gives you an option in the menu screen to replay the level as long as you’ve already finished it.

Finally, the costume modes do not have an actual inventory menu, so all of your skills are available from the beginning. Moreover, you start out with set level stats which you can build upon by collecting gems. Unfortunately, you can also go down in level if you lose a certain amount of gems, but you can also restore it by recollecting them.

Summary

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition returns with a massive amount of content that’ll bring in new and returning players. The platforming is smooth, the character designs and the world are incredibly detailed, and the gameplay is a blast. Without a doubt, this ultimate edition will leave everyone smiling and shaking those hips.

A Nintendo Switch review code was provided by WayForward for this review.