The cutscene just before the second Tinker Tub fight in Risky's Revenge. Because you see Rottytops running away crying when she realises that she betrayed her best friend, ultimately for nothing because Risky didn't uphold her part of the deal.

Gameplay wise, i’m certain WayForward could make Shantae work in 3D with enough testing and patience. It’d be a new era for the half-genie.

I’m more concerned how they’re going to transition the artstyle to the 3rd dimension. It’s not impossible and maybe i’m just being overly paranoid, but having seen some of the fanmade 3D models of Shantae... yeah.

I hope so someday. Going back to the GBC original is a bit akward after playing the sequels, with it’s low screen space and lack of a map for instance. A remake would be a great opportunity for WayForward to polish it up and make it’s strengths stand out even more.

That's a good question. Some theories:

1. Since the portraits were drawn by Inti Creates, it could be that they didn't recieve full guidelines from WayForward about Risky's eye color.

2. They did it as a reference to Pirate's Curse, which had the same thing with her eyes present.

All of these are just guesses.

WALL OF TEXT INCOMING, SORRY

Having played them all, i can safely say Pirate's Curse is the game i enjoyed the most out of the Shantae games. It just hits so many right spots in terms of exploration, humor, pacing and controls.

The original Shantae is still a fun experience, but i feel it hasn't aged too well thanks to some design choices and limitations of the Game Boy Color. For instance, the small screen makes it difficult at times to find hidden items or be prepared for enemies that appear so close to Shantae, and the lack of a map makes navigation the first time around very confusing. Still, the graphics are amazing considering the platform and it's obvious WayForward were passionate about the game. I'm hoping it'll get a remake someday that irons out the issues while having the game's pros further lightened up.

Risky's Revenge made a lot of improvements over the first game. For one thing, you can now buy a map very early in the game that shows the locations of Sequin land, making navigation easier. The controls were also made better as now, Shantae can be set to always run rather than having to hold down a button, and the transformations were streamlined, making them less of a pace-killer.

That being said, RR suffered from being too short as there's only 2 true dungeons in the game, there's actually 3 but the 2nd one is an endurance tower so it doesn't really count. Plus, i wasn't too fond of the requirement of finding magic jams to buy certain upgrades and items, that ensured RR is the only Shantae game i haven't 100%'d. Supposedly, this was because it was intended to be an episodic release, but WayForward ultimately only released the first half, resulting in the game's length being so short.

Overall though, i found Risky's Revenge consistently more enjoyable than the first game.

Half-Genie Hero meanwhile was good, but in my opinion a small step down compared to Pirate's Curse. The biggest departure is the change of gameplay, from a Metroidvania into a traditional platformer, compareable to Mega Man and Shovel Knight, and thus i felt the level design suffered from being a bit too linear. In terms of backtracking, i felt HGH also had it only for padding, whereas in PC i felt that the backtracking had a purpose for the story, in addition to also being helpful when you had to.

HGH's positives were it's very detailed and colorful artstyle, which i liked, and once again the amazing soundtrack by Jake Kaufman. In the end it is a worthwhile game to play through, and over time it got DLC that extends the play time. I just was left wanting a bit more after having experienced Pirate's Curse and being so pleasantly suprised.

And yeah, sorry for the huge wall of text, but explaining my thoughs required some heavy writing.

Have played through them all.

Overall, i enjoyed all of the games thanks to their humor and feel of passion, but Pirate's Curse is easily the best in the series. It's pacing is great, it's helpful with the backtracking and the pirate items are so damn fun and effective to use.

If i had to rate them it'd be like this:

1. Pirate's Curse.
2. Half-Genie Hero
3. Risky's Revenge
4. Shantae (GBC)

I rank the original game the lowest, because while it was a fun experience and is a good deal for 5 bucks, i feel the gameplay hasn't aged too well thanks to limitations of the GBC and some design choices. The lack of a map made navigation at times confusing, and the way the transformation dances worked were neat but really slowed the pace of the game.

I’m very sorry if i am necroing this thread, but i want to give my experience on how i got hooked with the Shantae series.

It started last year, in april when i was checking My Nintendo. I noticed they had a discount for Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse for both the Wii U and 3DS versions of the game, which was interesting. What made me decide to get the game however was a post on the Wii U subreddit that mentioned how fun he was having with Half-Genie Hero. After a bit of misunderstanding, i was convinced and got the discount, then bought Pirate’s Curse on Wii U.

And very quickly the game made me fall in love with it. If there is one word i can use describe Pirate’s Curse, it’s passion. All aspects of the game felt like part of a big passion project from WayForward’s part, which included the art, writing, character designs, fanservice and music to name a few. I also loved the amount of exploration the game offered, since i’m a big fan of that in games.

Unfortunately, i put the game down after a few hours and then didn’t play it for a few months. Not because i did not enjoy it (i heavily did), but because i was still heavily invested into Zelda: Breath of the Wild at the moment, and didn’t want to focus on too many games at once.

Once i did beat Zelda though, i went back to Shantae and played through it to the end. And i enjoyed evey second spent on the game, again due to the game’s strong feeling of passion from the developers.

Since then, i’ve played through the rest of the games in the series, and it’s become a favorite of mine. I just love the colorful graphics that feel right at home on Nintendo systems combined with the ”semi-adult” humor. If WayForward ever makes another kickstarter for a new mainline Shantae game, i will fund it. No questions asked.