Shantae Series

[SanoBaron]

real talk, Tuki is cute. really good design.

 

[Tank]

Yay a lamia made it in.

 

[Zazz]

Snake ladies seem to be quite popular now-a-days.

 

[Tank]

it's because of monster monsume I bet.

 

[Magma442]

Mia best girl.
Bring on the snakes!

...but Lamias were engines before in Shantae.

 

[SanoBaron]

Yeah, but now they even more popular because of top snek.

 

[Zeriam]

it's because of monster monsume I bet.

Monster Girls were popular way before Monster Musume came into fruition.

 

[Tank]

True but as far as I know monster monsume is one of the first mainstream (maybe semi mainstream) monster girl things I've seen.

 

[KaboomKid]

I can still remember my first monster girl crush. It was around 20 years ago, from a little known show called

Spoiler

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

 

[Zazz]

it's because of monster monsume I bet.

There are some in the new XCOM as well.

 

[Zeriam]

Transformation Update
​

Progress Status!

Good day loyal backers! It’s been a while since our last update. The reason is WORK!
It’s been a madhouse over here as we move ahead at a feverish pace towards our Pre-Alpha goal.
We’ve enlisted help from several of our go-to partners from all over the globe to help get the job done.
Half-Genie Hero is in production 24 hours a day - literally ‘round the clock!
It’s awesome and exhausting at the same time.

You might be asking, “is this normal?”
Yes! This is often what the end of a major development effort looks like, and we’re no strangers to it.
The major risks have been conquered, the fun is firmly in place, and all that remains is to bring each piece of the game to its final version, which takes nothing less than a TON of muscle.

Where that puts us today: We should be content complete in about 2 months, with another month of testing after that.
Also expect 3 weeks in there for translations and ratings too, which can only happen once we’re done making content.
These things can overlap, but it doesn’t always work out that way which is why we can’t give a firm release date (yet).
Our best guess is that we’ll be submitting to 1st parties (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Valve) in July.
We know that it’s been difficult to wait for so long, but ask that you endure with us to the end!

Mythological Transformations!

And now, more details about the game!
Half-Genie Hero will feature 5 main “Animal Transformations”, and 3 additional “Mythological Forms”, bringing the grand total up to 8.
(Okay, 9 if you backed the Tinkerbat Form Reward Tier, which will be delivered via download code)
The first of these mythological forms is the Spider Form! As a spider, Shantae can crawl on ceilings and shoot venom.
And unlike the classic Game Boy version, she can also fire webs and climb them.
Here are some of her animations for you to enjoy! As for the other transformations, we’d like to keep a few surprises for later.
We want you to have something left to discover in the final game and not spoil everything in these updates!

Idle Animation!!

Walk Animation!!

Ceiling Crawl Animation!!

Crouched Idle Animation!!

Screen Shots!

Our “scary themed” areas are coming along beautifully, as you can see here.
And, we’ve got some additional samples of the destruction Risky Boots is delivering on to the kindly people of Scuttle Town.
Shantae’s not going to stand for this! We’re currently working on the final area of the game, and the Final Boss.
As you’d expect it is EPIC, and nope... it’s not going to appear in a future update (sorry!).
Again, our goal is to keep updates as spoiler-free as possible!

PS3 and 360 versions

Backer Surveys are in, and only a handful of backers have selected the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions.
We’re strongly considering postponing the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game.
This would remove two sizable obstacles to launch, which already includes submitting PS4, XB1, Wii U, Steam for Windows PC, and Vita to multiple regions. It’s a ton of work, and if we can put off the 360 and PS3 versions, it will help.

Now, we can’t tell how many Backers would be negatively affected by this, as most of the accounts with 360/PS3 preference have been inactive since the campaign ended. But we know that at least a few of you have updated recently and selected 360/PS3. If you are one of these people, and switching to another platform isn’t an option for you.
Please contact us at support@wayforward.com.
This is an ever-changing industry, and our development spans a transitional time for the home console market.

Thanks! See you next update!​

 

[Magma442]

Disappointing that a delay might happen, while I haven't backed this if I had I would've been a little ticked since i probably would've chose one of those consoles. Still im planing getting the game for PC or PS4.

 

[North888]

The Spider animations look cool, but it feels like the only different is the hair. They probably did that for simplicity, but the arms and breasts are just defying gravity and it just bugs me cause I'm weird like that I guess.

 

[Zeriam]

An Update of Major Proportions!

Hey Backers – We’ve got big, big, BIG surprises for you today! Let’s kick things off with a bang!

Check out our new cool promo art! Up until now, we’ve been using the in-game sprites to represent our cover art, or “key art”. But - just like in Pirate’s Curse, the way our sprites look in the game aren’t exactly how they appear close up. At last year’s Tokyo Game Show, Matt began working with Inti Creates and KOU (the same illustrator from Pirate’s Curse) to come up with a distinct visual style for Half-Genie Hero’s key art, and now it’s ready for you to check out!

This style will be used in close up images like talking portraits, digital cover art, or in advertisements.​

The new look is designed to be flashy and eye catching, and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do!​

This new “anchor image” will replace the artwork that’s been previously associated with the game, starting with this year’s E3 promotions.

VOTING TIME! A Rival Genie!

It’s time for another vote! Remember that “Fire and Forget” Stretch Goal you all funded into existence?​

In that storyline, Shantae gets REPLACED as Scuttle Town’s Guardian Genie. T​

o make matter’s worse, her replacement is snotty, stuck up, and none too easy to get along with.​

So – what’s this new genie going to look like? You can see all three of Matt’s rough sketches above, along with the cleaned up in-game sprite designs below.​

Which one strikes your fancy?​

Vote by clicking the link right here, and make your selections by May 13th, 11:59pm PDT. Let’s get voting!

Retail Deals in The Works!



We’ve received a ton of requests for physical versions of Shantae.​

Thing is, WayForward is a game developer and a digital publisher – but not an authorized retail publisher.​

In order to make physical copies of our games for stores, or distribute games in certain countries, console manufacturers require us to work with an authorized publishing partner. You’ve seen us do this before; Square Enix published LIT for WiiWare in Japan, Capcom distributed the original Shantae cartridge in the US, and more recently Intergrow released the boxed version of Pirate’s Curse in Japan for Nintendo 3DS.​

Due to the success of Half-Genie Hero's Kickstarter campaign - and the positive support from fans and press - we’ve been able to enter into discussions with top tier publishers to do the same for Half-Genie Hero. We’re extremely excited about this, but we also recognize that this might raise some questions from our Backers.​

So, here’s what you need to know!​

WayForward is the game’s primary publisher, same as always. You’ll still receive your download codes from WayForward, along with all of the Backer Exclusive content.
The game’s content will not be impacted by this. Partners will be given a license to distribute the finished game as-is.​

Any extra work required for these ports will be covered by the distribution partners, not taken from your pledges.​

Please understand that WayForward is not the distributor of the physical versions, so we can't offer backers any boxed copies.​

Look forward to more information as E3 draws near! It’s going to be big!

See you next update!​

 

[Metafogos]

I Want the Rival Genie as a Secret Playable Character (or a DLC one...)

 

[MetroKoolAid]

Rival Genie Vote is In!

After a week long debate the ballots have been tabulated and the results are in! Our winner is here in all her snotty glory! Next she's off to the animators and programmers to be brought to life in game. Thank you to the 1,370 backers who participated in our 4th vote! See you next update! ​

 

[North888]

Reminds me. I hope Shantae doesn't have too many transformations. As much as I love the mechanics involved with them, a lot of them removed Shantae's ability to fight and stopped the game's pace in order to do the transformation. More forms would mean having to wait longer to get the right form, unless they implement a mechanic that lets her do some sort of input with the dance button to immediately transform...

I like the designs of the other forms though, I just want Shantae to be able to be as active and adaptable on the fly as she was in Pirate's Curse. It was able to have a lot more fast paced puzzles and action moments focusing on multiple tools because they were directly attached to Shantae. Hopefully they figure out a way to keep something akin to that in the new game

 

[Kawalorn]

I was interested in this game before, cause the artstyle looked nice.

Thanks to Humble Bundle I got to play Shantae: Risky's Revenge and now I really want this game. :D

I'm gonna look out for Pirate's Curse on summer sale and probably buy Half-Genie Hero when it comes out.

 

[Zeriam]

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero launches on September 27

It’s been a huge week for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero news.
XSEED announced that they’re working with WayForward on a retail version, and now we have a final release date.

GameStop has started accepting pre-orders here.
The listing says that Shantae: Half-Genie Hero will be out on September 27, which WayForward confirmed on Twitter.

There’s also a tentative boxart:​

The physical version of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero will go for $29.99.
It’s the “Risky Beats” retail release featuring a copy of the game and a musical selections CD containing over 20 songs from the soundtrack.​

 

[Zeriam]

Shantae Half Genie Hero E3 Trailer

 

[SanoBaron]

that moment when you realized you backed the right game years ago.
it feels good man.
and hello giant mermaid waifu

 

[PastelOctoling]

I'm so hyped for the game.

 

[Zeriam]

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero DIRECT FEED E3 2016

Finally found one that shows off her spider form as well as some item usage.​

 

[Magma442]

Can't wait! Pre-ordering this game, I just hope it doesn't dissapoint like MN9

 

[PastelOctoling]

That demo is so good.

Also as long as it doesn't involve prom and anime fans in the same sentence, I think we'll be good.

 

[Kawalorn]

Oh yes, this does look rather nice.

And now there's a sale for Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse on GoG so the timing couldn't be better. :D

 

[Zeriam]

Happy Anniversary, Backers

This month marks the 3rd year since we embarked on this epic adventure together!
The game is almost done, but the fun doesn't end there!
We still have plenty of post-launch content to develop, which will be loaded with fun surprises and brand new gameplay styles for you to explore and enjoy.
We haven’t gone into a ton of detail about this, but we will once the game is live!
We hope you have a ton of fun at launch, and look forward to some really amazing features which will continue to redefine the game with each content update.

Status Report

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is still in testing. We’re clearing out bugs on Wii U, PS4, XB1, Win Steam PC, and Vita, and this is happening quickly and making excellent progress. However, since we haven’t submitted the game to Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft yet, that means we still don’t have a reliable release date.
We’ll submit as soon as we have a clean, polished version for all platforms.
For now, we’re telling our partners (Xseed, GameStop, Amazon, etc.) to look for a 4th quarter release.
Because of this, you’ll see dates posted “in the wild” that range from November 1 to December 15, but none of these is an official release date.
When we pass First Party Submissions, the date will become real and we’ll let you know the moment we do.

More Product Features Revealed!

If you’ve been following our updates since the beginning, you know that we’ve been very up front about what we’re not being up front about.
That’s because we’ve wanted to keep some content a surprise. Now it’s time to reveal some of the features you’ll get when the game launches!
Don’t worry... this is still spoiler free!

• New Game Plus! We’ve added a bonus mode which will unlock when you clear the game for the first time!
• Speed runners and sequence breakers – this feature is for you. Expect some kind of treat for completing the game quickly!
• Transformations! The game contains five chapters, two of which were stretch goals.
• As with all previous games, this means 1 transformation per chapter for a total of FIVE, right?
• NO! This time, Shantae will transform into a whopping 10 forms - 11 if you include the Tinkerbat Form. A few of these forms are very unusual... hmm.
• Magical Attacks and Upgrades. We’ve added upgrades for many of the most popular Shantae powers from the past.
• Storm Puff, Bubble Shield, Pike Ball, and Fireball are back.
• But this time you can upgrade all of them through multiple stages, with some devastatingly powerful final forms.
• For example, you can upgrade Pikeball into the “SCIMITAR”, which will cut any foe down to size in seconds.
• There are other upgrades too, but we’ll let you find those for yourself!

GIGA WRENCH and Warp Dance!
New to Half-Genie Hero is the Warp Dance. Get this dance, and you can zip around the stages within a given world with ease.
To travel between worlds, you can catch a ride on Giga Wrench!
Whenever you need a lift, blow Sky’s Bird-Whistle for a quick lift!

Expanded Art Gallery: As planned, the Scuttle Town Art Gallery will house the 50+ images created by Backers.
Now we’ve expanded that feature to include additional artwork created by our concept artists, animators, and friends at Inti Creates.
Look for over 100 pieces of original artwork to unlock! If you unlock all of the images, you might get a special reward from the Mayor.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse at retail!

For fans who like physical versions of games, this month is loaded!
First, our friends at Rising Star Games are set to launch a new version of Pirate’s Curse for Nintendo 3DS.
This version contains a never-before-seen mini game “Super Shantae Nab!!” which will allow players to accrue Gems in Scuttle Town via a special arcade cabinet.
It's out in North America today and will be releasing in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Middle East on Oct 21st. Exciting!

Shantae at LIMITED RUN GAMES

Next, Limited Run Games will be launching Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, and Shantae: Risky’s Revenge for PS4.
Both games include an exclusive reversible cover, region free. It will be available at 10AM Eastern Time on Friday, October 28th.
A second batch will be available on the same day at 6PM ET. These are limited to only 6,000 copies worldwide.
You’ve been warned! Watch their website (https://limitedrungames.com/products/limited-run-25-shantae-and-the-pirates-curse-ps4) for more details!

That’s all the update for now! Believe it or not, we still have even more surprises waiting to be revealed! Look for that, and more launch details in our next update!​

 

[MetroKoolAid]

My body is ready for this game to come out already.

 

[PastelOctoling]

Well I was hyped before... but now... I'm beyond hyped. Is there any way to speed run time and get to November already? Also Giga Wrench is A+++++++

 

[Dunk]

According to the latest Kickstarter update, the game is done!

The game has been submitted to Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Steam, and digital storefronts are being created. Because this is a global release, we’re working with teams in each territory to establish a unified release date. We’ll let you know the INSTANT we find out when the game will be live! And this probably goes without saying, but of course we’ll do everything in our power to get the game released to backers early.

 

[Dunk]

It's happening!

This is it - the moment you’ve all been waiting for! The digital version of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero now has an official release date of December 20!

This release includes:

• Steam for Window PC - worldwide
• Xbox One - worldwide
• PS4 & Vita - North America & Europe
• Wii U - North America & Europe (awaiting final confirmation)

If you’re curious about the retail versions, look to Xseed for an announcement shortly! Spread the word! Half-Genie Hero is just a couple of weeks away!

 

[KaboomKid]

You can already play the full game if you got the Early Access tier. It's fun, although it's less of a Metroidvania than some of the previous games. Might be more similar to Pirate's Curse, but I haven't played that one for myself yet.

 

[Shnarfl]

You can already play the full game if you got the Early Access tier. It's fun, although it's less of a Metroidvania than some of the previous games. Might be more similar to Pirate's Curse, but I haven't played that one for myself yet.

All right so I've gone all the way through the first four worlds and I think I've seen enough to form an opinion.

Its pretty ass.

Like, the gameplay is mostly fine. Some fucked up hit detection here and there, but its pretty clear the designers had a plan and stuck to it.

The problem is that plan is super annoying to play. They wanted to make it more linear, which is cool with me I don't mind. But they also didn't want to lose the exploration, which is a pretty huge part of the Shantae games. Ok, yeah, you can certainly try doing both, Pirate's Curse certainly did and did it pretty darn well. But what ends up happening is that you just end up having to do levels over and over again with your new upgrades looking for spots you couldn't open before. In a metroidvania where you unlock shortcuts and mobility upgrades, that's fine and cool, but in linear levels, it just means doing the whole thing all over. That sucks. I've already done the first level 4 times and I know I'm gonna have to do it again, probably even multiple times. And I just made it past world 4. I've already talked to the NPCs in the hub and to gain access to world 5 I'm going to have to do level 2 and level 3 again, except oh wait I already had to redo level 2 to get into world 4 in the first place. And I still don't have the dance that lets me actually swim, so everytime I explore a body of water, if there's a spot I can't reach with my current diving ability I know I'll have to do the damn thing again.

When I see a new obstacle I can't clear yet, I don't think "Oh boy I can't wait to get my next upgrade that lets me go through that". I just sigh and resign myself to the fact that I'll have to do this shit again. That's killer for a game that wants to do exploration. It's like having to do Elec Man's stage again to get the Magnet Beam because you did the wrong boss order. Except this time, its not because of anything you did, but because the game is made that way. And also its not just once, but every single fucking time. They want you to backtrack as hard as you did in every other Shantae game except they don't make it fun to do so. Risky's Revenge had warps and shortcuts, Pirate's Curse shits out mobility upgrades and gives you a freaking shinespark. In 1/2 genie hero, you get monkey form and a warp dance that only goes forward and costs a (admittedly cheap) ressource. So yeah, oh boy a crab upgrade in the second half of the second stage how cool except now I gotta leave the stage and head back in cause lol I needed that upgrade in the first half for a collectible. Its a pain in the ass and I dread moving forward in the game because I know it'll just make me do the same things I've already done just to get to the real game.

The bosses are also pretty awful. I don't think any of them made me think about their pattern more that a second. Half of their patterns is completely trivial to dodge, as in, they're not even aiming at you trivial. There's a few cool moments in most of them, but for every nice pattern, there's usually a pattern where the boss just does its super move at nothing in particular and you don't even have to think or even move. Wow, that laser sure is cool, and its even rotating my way, except you started it in the absolute wrong direction and it can barely move 45 degrees before it stops. Whoops. The third boss is especially a mess. Like its just awful. The first half of the pattern will never hit you. The second half you'll take damage because the hit detection is awful.

Speaking of damage! Health design is terrible! You start with very low health, fair enough. Damage scales very quickly and health ups are locked behind upgrades you probably don't have yet (but hey you'll redo the level later anyway so you can get it there!), so you need to make up for it. How? Well, the game is very generous with healing items! That's nice! But it also mean that soon enough taking damage means going in the menu to use them. As far as I know, there's no way to have healing items on your quick-use menu. So you've taken a hit during the boss's cool pattern? Time to pause, eat some oranges, takes a piss break while you're at it oh hey you need to feed your cat wait no mittens get off my lap ah geez. Best part is, eating a food item makes Shantae do the whole exagerated eating noise thing. All right, cute, that adds personality and charm, that's nice. But then you have to wait for Shantae to finish before you can eat something else. Its not long, about a second, its not that terrible. But when I'm eating my freaking oranges during a boss fight, and I need to eat 3 of them to get to full health again, then that's three seconds where I'm just mashing to get it done as fast as possible. A nitpick for sure, but it is also a symptom for what really annoys me about this game.

It clearly wants to be a speed game. The movement is clearly the movement a fast game would have. Shantae moves and controls in a way that makes you think and feel that that jump should be possible if you go fast enough. Half the platforming obstacles promote speed. Crumbling platforms, rising floors and the likes. They also give you a fairly nice mobility form very early with the monkey form. I love running and jumping as a monkey! It feels so good to climb a wall real fast, jump off, cling to another wall and keep going. I have some issues with getting stuck to walls, but that's mostly on me and I know I can improve on that. That is really cool. In fact, it gets me into a real groove. Except lol there's a timed obstacle now time to wait. What's that? You want to jump on that platform? Better wait, cause that enemy covers all your jump arcs for two seconds. Touched that laser or those wall spikes? Time to do the whole room again! Dances are also a factor that kills momentum. Hey, that vertical shaft looks fun to climb as a monkey! Except wait there's a block there you have to destroy and monkey can't attack gotta turn back and oh there's more shaft past the blocks time to transform again. To be fair, the dances are a lot (LOT) better than in Risky's Revenge. But there's still the animation to start dancing and the transformation animation to go through. They're not long, but its something you see everytime and very often and it quickly adds up. Risky's Revenge is a lot slower paced so it can afford to have slow dances. You don't have to shift form very often because the way its made, you have multiple puzzles to solve with that form before you switch back again. In 1/2 Genie Hero, they'll show you a pool of water to crab into, then they'll make you turn back into regular Shantae so you can reach another pool of water that's half an inch away, but unreachable if you remain in crab form. The game just can't decide if it wants to be the slow paced metroidvania that the first two games were, or the amazing linear speed game that the third game is, and it ends up just giving the worst of both: a linear platformer with upgrades that don't make it more fun to go through levels.

Also, I'd had a couple of times where checkpoints were messy, putting me back in the wrong rooms. Also, don't go in the gallery if you're using a remapped keyboard, cause lol you can't exit! And also my eyes started hurting at some points, including while moving too fast in the hub, so careful with that.

For all my words, I don't hate the game and I don't regret backing it. Most of my problems are opinions so if you like it or want to play it, don't feel intimidated by my wall of text. I wrote it because I care about the game enough to do it. There are good parts and it can certainly be an enjoyable game. Its just that there are deep flaws that have been souring me on the experience so while I can say its a "good" game, I can't say it's a "great" game. My opinion could still change, I'm not done with it yet after all. I'll probably still try to 100% it. But Pirate's Curse was much better :P

tl;dr there's no tl;dr read my shit you nerd

 

[Flotilla]

Gonna post here for the first time ever to address the above post.

The problem is that plan is super annoying to play. They wanted to make it more linear, which is cool with me I don't mind. But they also didn't want to lose the exploration, which is a pretty huge part of the Shantae games. Ok, yeah, you can certainly try doing both, Pirate's Curse certainly did and did it pretty darn well. But what ends up happening is that you just end up having to do levels over and over again with your new upgrades looking for spots you couldn't open before. In a metroidvania where you unlock shortcuts and mobility upgrades, that's fine and cool, but in linear levels, it just means doing the whole thing all over. That sucks.

I am completely confused here. Are you saying you prefer Pirate's Curse (which had long unskippable linear segments at the beginning of EVERY level) or Risky's Revenge (in which you had to backtrack EVERYWHERE unless you took warp statues, which only warped you to one specific area linked to that warp statue)? Like, you're making out the level design in HGH to be some huge regression when it comes to backtracking, but the only major difference is the removal of dungeon areas with keys/maps, which reduces backtracking.

You're also implying that HGH has no mobility/shortcut upgrades, when there's an upgrade which allows you to skip segments of previously-beaten levels, available from the start of the game. Monkey transformation is the literal definition of a mobility upgrade, you run significantly faster and can jump higher (and it's also available from the start of the game!). Later transformations like Bat/Harpy allow you to skip or ignore huge segments of previously-beaten levels, just like cannonball/boots did in Pirate's Curse.

I've already done the first level 4 times and I know I'm gonna have to do it again, probably even multiple times. And I just made it past world 4. I've already talked to the NPCs in the hub and to gain access to world 5 I'm going to have to do level 2 and level 3 again, except oh wait I already had to redo level 2 to get into world 4 in the first place. And I still don't have the dance that lets me actually swim, so everytime I explore a body of water, if there's a spot I can't reach with my current diving ability I know I'll have to do the damn thing again.

Again, I really don't know how you can complain about backtracking in Half-Genie Hero while praising the previous Shantae games in the same breath. There are many mandatory backtracking segments in Pirate's Curse; the mummy sidequest, Brandon's sword, the Death Mask, the good ending, all of which require you to revisit previously-beaten levels multiple times. Every chapter in Pirate's Curse has several areas which can't be accessed until several chapters later. Why is it okay for Pirate's Curse, and not for HGH?

When I see a new obstacle I can't clear yet, I don't think "Oh boy I can't wait to get my next upgrade that lets me go through that". I just sigh and resign myself to the fact that I'll have to do this shit again. That's killer for a game that wants to do exploration.

Okay, I really don't get this. What did you think when these obstacles showed themselves in Pirate's Curse? Or Risky's Revenge? Or the GBC game? Because they existed in all of them, but you only have an issue with them existing in Half-Genie Hero?

Speaking of damage! Health design is terrible! You start with very low health, fair enough. Damage scales very quickly and health ups are locked behind upgrades you probably don't have yet (but hey you'll redo the level later anyway so you can get it there!), so you need to make up for it. How? Well, the game is very generous with healing items! That's nice! But it also mean that soon enough taking damage means going in the menu to use them. As far as I know, there's no way to have healing items on your quick-use menu. So you've taken a hit during the boss's cool pattern? Time to pause, eat some oranges, takes a piss break while you're at it oh hey you need to feed your cat wait no mittens get off my lap ah geez. Best part is, eating a food item makes Shantae do the whole exagerated eating noise thing. All right, cute, that adds personality and charm, that's nice. But then you have to wait for Shantae to finish before you can eat something else. Its not long, about a second, its not that terrible. But when I'm eating my freaking oranges during a boss fight, and I need to eat 3 of them to get to full health again, then that's three seconds where I'm just mashing to get it done as fast as possible. A nitpick for sure, but it is also a symptom for what really annoys me about this game.

You could've summed all of this up with "I wish there was a quick-use button for healing"... and again, you make it out to be some serious egregious issue when this is a "problem" that's existed since the very first Shantae game. Correct me if I'm wrong (I just checked Pirate's Curse/Risky's Revenge and I could find no such thing), but there are no ways to quick-heal in Risky's Revenge or Pirate's Curse. And this is just a personal thing, but as someone who has played Zelda since they were a little kid I really don't see the big deal about having to heal from a menu.

Except lol there's a timed obstacle now time to wait. What's that? You want to jump on that platform? Better wait, cause that enemy covers all your jump arcs for two seconds. Touched that laser or those wall spikes? Time to do the whole room again!

More stuff that has existed in every Shantae game and cannot possibly be interpreted as HGH suffering from a decline in quality...

Dances are also a factor that kills momentum.

This, I can agree with. Pirate's Curse took a step forward in allowing Shantae to retain all of her utility without ever having to navigate a submenu or transformation screen to switch out abilities. It's an issue that can be mitigated by purchasing a shop upgrade (which I instantly bought and don't regret one bit), but it still doesn't quite match up to the fluidity of SatPC. Fortunately Risky will be a playable character at a later date, and she's been confirmed to have SatPC Shantae's moveset.

The game just can't decide if it wants to be the slow paced metroidvania that the first two games were, or the amazing linear speed game that the third game is, and it ends up just giving the worst of both: a linear platformer with upgrades that don't make it more fun to go through levels.

I fail to see how Risky's Revenge is any more of a metroidvania than Pirate's Curse. They have nearly-identical level design, and the only major factor separating the two is that Pirate's Curse makes everything far more convenient with fast-travel tools that trim out pointless backtracking (the pointless part is important). That was a step forward for the series IMO; if you have a choice between making the player backtrack through an area for no reason other than he needs to get to another area, OR fast-travel, fast-travel is almost always better. That's why WayForward made the Squid Statues in Risky's Revenge far less obtuse in the remaster, because it sucked having to backtrack through 6-8 screens of nothing just to get to the next area.


To make this short, I think you either set unrealistic expectations that HGH would be a significant departure from previous Shantae games, or are explicitly looking for reasons to dislike it. You're grilling it for things which have been a staple of the series since 2001 while praising Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse for those exact same things.

 

[Kawalorn]

Didn't play it yet but I like how the game is now less of a Metroidvania.

The level design is way different in those games since you have to accomodate the player passing through multiple times through the same location and in both directions. It's makes it impossible to produce heavily scripted levels like for example the prologue of Pirate's Curse, which IMO is one of the very best parts of the entire game.

Hopefully this means there is a lot of levels like that in the new game.

 

[Zeriam]

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Launch Date Announcement Trailer

The PS4 and PsVita retail versions, published by Xseed, will also release on December 20th.
The retail Wii U version will arrive a week later on December 27th. Check out the Xseed website for more details!

 

[Ninja]

oh my...

*sweating very hard*

 

[Shnarfl]

To make this short, I think you either set unrealistic expectations that HGH would be a significant departure from previous Shantae games, or are explicitly looking for reasons to dislike it. You're grilling it for things which have been a staple of the series since 2001 while praising Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse for those exact same things.

Most of you points are good and fair, and I do agree that most of the flaws I pointed out are flaws in every Shantae games. I also don't think this game is worse than Risky's Revenge. What you are misinterpreting, however, is that I'm not praising the prequels for having the flaws, I just prefer how they mitigate it. Risky's Revenge was just a slower paced game all around so the fact that some things were slow didn't feel out of place. Pirate's Curse shat out mobility upgrades all over so when you were revisiting lands you could do it in new and exciting ways.

Risky's Revenge (in which you had to backtrack EVERYWHERE unless you took warp statues, which only warped you to one specific area linked to that warp statue)

Director's cut fixed the warp statues, and that's the version I played so...

You're also implying that HGH has no mobility/shortcut upgrades, when there's an upgrade which allows you to skip segments of previously-beaten levels, available from the start of the game. Monkey transformation is the literal definition of a mobility upgrade, you run significantly faster and can jump higher (and it's also available from the start of the game!).

Yeah and I spent like half a paragraph gushing about monkey form i love that little monkey. My problem is that this is the only one you get for a long time. As I've said I'm already past world 4. I'm glad to hear there's more stuff later, but as of now I've had to do multiple levels multiple times, with the only difference being some enemies being different.

Again, I really don't know how you can complain about backtracking in Half-Genie Hero while praising the previous Shantae games in the same breath. There are many mandatory backtracking segments in Pirate's Curse; the mummy sidequest, Brandon's sword, the Death Mask, the good ending, all of which require you to revisit previously-beaten levels multiple times. Every chapter in Pirate's Curse has several areas which can't be accessed until several chapters later. Why is it okay for Pirate's Curse, and not for HGH?

As mentioned, Pirate's Curse upgrade pacing makes it so that every time you have to revisit a stage, you have new movements you can do which lets you traverse it in a different and more interesting way. Gotta revisit the first stage? You have the hat now! Just glide over those tough jumps. Revisting the second level? I got the scimitar now, lets bounce! HGH gives you monkey form early, and that's all you got for a decent while. So I'm going through level two for the first, I already have monkey form so I use it a lot. All right. Then, to get to level four you have to do level two again, just like Pirate's Curse. But this time, all you have is... monkey form still! The only new forms I got where crab form, which is ass, and elephant form, which is ass. Pirate's Curse gives upgrades that are both keys to new areas AND new ways to move. Meanwhile, in HGH, lol if I'm going to spend more than half a second in elephant form after smashing that big block and even if I did want to just dash around, I'd get blocked by a jump or a pool of water after a single dash. Again, I'm not saying Pirate's Curse is flawless, but having to head back to old areas was a lot easier to swallow when I had new toys to play with.

Okay, I really don't get this. What did you think when these obstacles showed themselves in Pirate's Curse? Or Risky's Revenge? Or the GBC game? Because they existed in all of them, but you only have an issue with them existing in Half-Genie Hero?

"Oh boy I can't wait to get my next upgrade that lets me go through that". Again, those games weren't perfect, and I haven't played the original so I can't comment on it, but RR felt like a slower paced exploration game so seeing those meant more things to explore later on or a shortcut to previous areas. In PC, as mentioned, seeing those obstacles meant "I'm getting a shiny new toy at some point" which is a great feeling to have.

You could've summed all of this up with "I wish there was a quick-use button for healing"... and again, you make it out to be some serious egregious issue when this is a "problem" that's existed since the very first Shantae game. Correct me if I'm wrong (I just checked Pirate's Curse/Risky's Revenge and I could find no such thing), but there are no ways to quick-heal in Risky's Revenge or Pirate's Curse. And this is just a personal thing, but as someone who has played Zelda since they were a little kid I really don't see the big deal about having to heal from a menu.

That's true! Every Shantae game has that problem. It sucked in the other games, so why can't I say it sucks now? As for Zelda games, you could put your bottles in the quick use menus at any time so it did it better than Shantae. Again, its not a big problem, the game isn't ruined for it, but I find it pretty annoying and since that was pretty much my review of the game so far, mentionning things I find annoying seems appropriate.

More stuff that has existed in every Shantae game and cannot possibly be interpreted as HGH suffering from a decline in quality...

Also true! I haven't played the other games recently enough to give concrete examples from them so its very possible I'm just mostly seeing them with rose-tinted glasses.

Fortunately Risky will be a playable character at a later date, and she's been confirmed to have SatPC Shantae's moveset.

I fail to see how Risky's Revenge is any more of a metroidvania than Pirate's Curse. They have nearly-identical level design, and the only major factor separating the two is that Pirate's Curse makes everything far more convenient with fast-travel tools that trim out pointless backtracking (the pointless part is important).

There's a pretty big difference between one big seamless world and multiple individual levels in terms of how they make the player feel. The concept may be similar (head to new area, find quest to open dungeon, do quest, do dungeon) but then RR has stuff like the desert fields which are connected in multiple ways with both themselves and even some earlier areas. That's pretty huge in terms of making a world feel like one big thing. I'm not saying its a better way to do things than PC and in fact RR doesn't do the "connected world" thing particularly well. But it's like the difference between levels in Super Mario 64 and galaxies in Super Mario Galaxy. They're both 3d platformers, they both use the "Pick a star" system, but SM64 spawns you in a a big level you have to explore while SMG puts you in a linear level with side areas. Similar concepts, but way different in how they feel and one is not necessarily better than the other.

To make this short, I think you either set unrealistic expectations that HGH would be a significant departure from previous Shantae games, or are explicitly looking for reasons to dislike it. You're grilling it for things which have been a staple of the series since 2001 while praising Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse for those exact same things.

I think the big problem in my review is that I start by comparing it to the other games which lead you to assume that all of my critiques were in comparison to the other games. That's my bad!

So here's my thing: I don't want 1/2 Genie Hero to be a huge departure from the series. Pirate's Curse already was that departure. It was faster paced and streamlined things a lot. That made something very different and (IMO) much better. Not flawless, of course, but it was a pretty big imporvement. And to me, it seems like 1/2 Genie Hero is trying to use what made Pirate's Curse so different (linear levels, better movement on Shnatae herself) while also bringing back concepts from the older games. And they just don't mesh all that well. The dances don't feel like upgrades, they feel like keys, so the backtracking through the previous levels feels like having to go back to the forest temple because you found a key in the water temple. In Pirate's Curse, it was more like having to head back to the forest temple, but with the hover boots or the hookshot (I know you get the hookshot before the forest temple its just a metaphor). Most of the flaws in 1/2 Genie Hero are flaws in the other Shantae games, but after Pirate's Curse fixed a bunch of problems, it feels like 1/2 Genie Hero brought back some of the older flaws and didn't even try to fix the flaws in Pirate's Curse. It doesn't feel like an improvement on the Shantae formula. Its a good game, just like the other Shantae games are good (Pirate's Curse being great even). If you love the other Shantae games, you'll love this one. If you thought Pirate's Curse was a great direction for the series to go and wanted them to build on that, well...

Glad we can have a clean discussion over this! I love talking about this stuff and other persepectives are good to hear.

 

[SanoBaron]

So, I played the first stage of the game, and I gotta say, my smugness feels so intense over backing this game and not mn9. What a feeling it is to back a good kickstarter game.

Okay, smugness aside, everything feels good, and I love all of the ciaual designs in this game, especially some of the NPC overhauls. Just that little touch makes me so happy with how this game looks. So much vibrancy and charm ooze out from this game.

 

[Zeriam]

I have achieved greatness.

Spoiler

100% Heroism