Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution Review

Back in 2004, WayForward announced the cancellation of Shantae Advance, a follow-up to the 2002 Game Boy Color game Shantae. While the Shantae series would eventually see its return in 2010 on Nintendo DSi with the release of Shantae Risky’s Revenge, that game was entirely new and the original Game Boy Advance sequel fell to the cutting room floor. Until now. Teaming up with Limited Run Games, WayForward returned to this cancelled project and finally completed it, giving it the new title Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution.

Shantae Advance originally released earlier this year on Game Boy Advance, and now that it is being brought to other consoles this new release is treated similar to the remasters of their other older Shantae games. The Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution console edition allows fans to play the game in its original Game Boy Advance format, but also includes a ‘modern’ mode that adds a high definition user interface and character portraits that are more in line with Shantae’s previous console outings.

Both options are chosen from the main menu and act as separate save files, which is slightly disappointing as it would’ve been nice to swap between both on the fly. However, given the modern version of the game comes with extra additions not found in the original Game Boy Advance title, like cinematic images, and for those playing the Deluxe Edition, additional costumes, it makes some sense why things are formatted this way.

True to Shantae Advance’s ethos of presenting itself as a 2004 game, the story takes place between the events of the original title and Risky’s Revenge, serving as a true sequel to Shantae’s Game Boy Color debut. Risky Boots, her pirate archnemesis, is back and is using a device to shift Sequin Land around, turning all the inland towns into coastal areas for easy plundering. To stop this, Shantae and friends travel all across Sequin Land to seek out Uncle Mimic’s three Relic Hunting colleagues to figure out how to put their home back to normal.

The characters and dialogue of Shantae Advance are cute and funny, as the series is known to be. For longtime fans, it is interesting returning back to this time in the Shantae story where characters like Sky and Rotty are only just meeting for the first time, and Shantae herself still feels like a novice in her role as Genie Guardian.

On this adventure, Shantae will learn several dancing transformations and purchase sub-weapons that will help her explore and battle Risky’s minions, as well as clear out ruins and find hidden collectables. It is the standard Shantae series formula, one that fans will be familiar with. Its main new twist is the ability to manipulate the foreground and background by using Risky’s machines, opening up new paths forward in the process.

This twist does have a slight drawback in that it makes exploration a little confusing sometimes. Each area loops back around on itself, and with the shifting background and foreground, it is not uncommon to enter the same cave multiple times and get a little lost. This especially becomes annoying when backtracking for new collectables once later abilities have been unlocked.

Unlike other Shantae games, returning to new areas is easy. Shantae Advance’s setup is similar to that of Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, having each area be a standalone location that players can pick from a map. This makes backtracking itself to each area incredibly fast and was one of the many reasons Pirate’s Curse was as good as it was. Likewise, it works really well here.

Shantae Advance is not a difficult game. Shantae can max out the strength of her ponytail attacks and half her magic consumption fairly early on as both can be purchased from the store in exchange for gems, which can easily be obtained by fighting enemies – and she reach those heights even quicker if the Greed Jar item has been purchased. Furthermore, while Shantae starts with only three hearts, that can very quickly be doubled by just exploring the first proper action area. Add onto this one of the Deluxe Edition costumes that make certain sub-weapons stronger and Shantae will be cutting through bosses like butter. The actual standard enemies end up being more dangerous, which feels like an issue of pacing out upgrades more so than the implementation of those upgrades itself.

In addition to the story quest, Shantae Advance also comes with a multiplayer battle mode, one that contains more stages than the original Game Boy Advance release. That said, you couldn’t tell that at a first glance as the stages (and characters) can’t be chosen. Instead, the stages appear in a set rotation, requiring a rematch to be initiated to continue rather than going back to the character select screen. It’s a neat addition but feels slightly tacked on with a lack of player choice. Still, better to have it there than not at all.