The last Shantae game I care about, since I’m ignoring 1 and the soon to be released Gameboy title is also not worth playing for ecchi so that 1.5 title is also being ignored. Half-Genie Hero is the follow up to Pirate’s Curse. It’s the game in the series with the most overall content, having 7 different game modes that have small gameplay changes to some major ones.

Honestly I don’t expect another pure Shantae game in the current game landscape. At best, we get Shantae in a snow land and she has to wear a parka or they stick to throwback graphics so you have a hard time ogling her. I just can’t expect any western dev team making a bikini clad women as their star in a game anymore unless they are a porn dev or making gacha stuff.

Story-4

Shantae finds that her uncle is doing some suspicious stuff and the next day Risky attacks. The mayor fires Shantae for not preventing attacks and actually kind of drawing them to the town(which he is correct, half of Risky’s attacks are for Shantae not the town itself), and hires a new genie that doesn’t matter. The actual plot is stopping Risky’s dark energy plan that she starts after she steals the uncle’s tech.

Oh, and Shantae’s Mom is referenced a lot. It made me realize that Shantae and Ratchet have very similar character arcs when it comes to parents. The Genie realm is brought up and should be the goal of a future game. One day maybe a bunch of curvy genie’s will be the focus of one of these games. Maybe.

Gameplay-8

Metroidvania like the other games. Lots of going to old levels to find new items to trigger the next level.

The gameplay score is high for the side modes, the core game isn’t anything great. I got lost a few times since the between new level stuff tends to not make any sense(find a mouse transformation to get to a wizard to get some item to visit a new place!) and the village people aren’t great help when it comes to where you need to go to find stuff.

The actual gameplay is old Shantae but faster. She dances for form changes which does mean a lot of stop and go for platforming but compared to Risky’s Revenge its fast enough that it doesn’t make the mechanic bad. Just kind of a hindrance.

The side modes are fun though. It’s just race through the same levels but with new gimmicks or movesets. Risky mode is like playing through Half Genie with Pirate’s Curse items. Friends to the End is character switching thing that finally makes Sky, Bolo, and Rotty do something on screen and fills a gap in the games story. Each of the costume ones gives Shantae a new skill or mechanic like the sun burns her in Beach or switching platforms in cop mode. Each mode is only around 1-2 hours long but is a decent time. Just wished they skipped the bosses or at least remove the third boss who you fight the exact same way for the same amount of time each time you fight the damn thing. That damn worm was easily the worst part of the whole game.

Lewdness-4

Usually Shantae is a busty girl in bikini surrounded by other busty girls in about the same level of clothing. She’s never truly used for ecchi but it’s hard to deny the appeal of running around with a skimpy dressed girl who hip wiggles to turn into other forms. And butt wiggles when crouching.

Each mode has 4 win screens, so the game has 28 images. Most modes four images are just Shantae in a single pose with different versions of the themed outfit, like beach mode’s win screen is different swimsuits or Jammy mode is different pajamas. Main mode is different images for each win screen, only the final win with 100% fast is pervy with Shantae in a full two piece biniki relaxing on the beach. Risky is also just showing off in all four of hers, and Friends to the End is four images that progress to push the guy out of the shot of the three playable characters.

There is a feel of Shantae getting skimpier outfits in harder to get wins screens, but the art and poses really don’t make the shots erotic even if some of the outfits would work. Sex appeal wasn’t the goal generally.

Oh, and Risky mode has a hub screen where she is just taking a bath. So she’s naked after every stage. Even get some cleavage there.

Final Thoughts

As a series, I find Shantae to be a beginner style metroidvania. Healing items are easy to get, spells make the combat a joke, and the vibe is almost the direct opposite of most of the well known games in the genre(so many dark and despressing games in the metroidvania/igavania genre. Or gothic style.). I would never recommend Shantae to a veteran ‘Vania player, but would offer it to someone interested in the genre but is a begginner. Or a kid.

Personally the best parts of each game are the speedruns. Which also strip out the personality of the world and writing as cutscenes have the game timer still running so must be skipped.

Save for Shantae Half-Genie Hero Ultimate

Has all win screens unlocked and saves near the end of the games. Save won’t work on base version of the game with dlcs(I think), has to be Ultimate edition.

Gameplay: 8/10 Eroticness: 4/10 Story: 4/10

Completion: Get all wins screens. This means 100% speed runs of each of the seven modes, sometimes 2 whole runs for just fastest time and fast time with all items.