Such an obscure gem!

User Rating: 10 | Shantae GBC
By Emperor_Zander | Review Date:
STORY (9.5/10): The story is about a genie named Shantae who is the guardian genie of her hometown, Scuttle Town. One day, Shantae was at her home on the outskirts of Scuttle Town minding her own business when all of a sudden, a pirate ship shoots a cannon ball which crashes through the roof of her home. Shantae witnesses the pirate attack, so she runs to the town to warn the residents of Scuttle Town about the attack. Just outside of Scuttle Town, she runs into her arch-enemy, Risky Boots, pirate leader of the tinkerbot army. The tinkerbots attacked the city and took Mimic's steam engine because Risky had some plans to take care of the people who as she says "has been using her seas". Shantae fights off the tinkerbots and destroys Risky's ship, but Risky escaped with the steam engine in her possession. Later, Shantae is thanked on the behalf of the Mayor of Scuttle town all the residents that live there and are grateful to have her as their guardian genie. Unfortunately, Shantae had a secret that she never told anybody: Shantae was only a half-genie. Shantae tells Mimic that Risky managed to get away with the steam engine then Mimic tells her that whatever Risky's planning on doing with his Steam Engine has to do with 4 relics that can power up the steam engine so that Risky could turn it into an unstoppable machine. So now, Shantae goes on a quest to collect these 4 special relics and keep them outta Risky's grasp. Good luck Shantae, and God speed!

GAMEPLAY (9/10): The game is a 2-platformer that plays almost similar to The Legend of Zelda because you explore dungeons, collect gems, buy items and equipment to help you on your quest, fighting monsters and bosses, collecting heart containers which increase your health by 1 heart, all of that. Instead of Shantae using a sword and shield, she uses her long ponytail as a whip to fight off baddies. An important fact I forgot to mention about the enemies in the game; when the sun goes down, the outside enemies become stronger and more durable. She also can buy other items that can make her fight, so you don't have to use her hair whip all the time. As for exploring dungeons, you collect keys to unlock doors and instead of finding a big treasure chest that contains an important item used to fight the dungeon boss like in a Zelda game, you find a helpless genie lock in a cage which in turn give you something useful to help you. Shantae has a dance mode which you activate by pressing the SELECT button. In this mode, you can make Shantae perform a move with the D-pad and the A and B buttons. This is actually useless until a little later in the game. On the side note, there is also a dance parlor back in Scuttle Town that you can participate in, but it only opens in the evening. Here you can dance in front of an audience to earn a little extra money just in case you get bored of killing enemies outside of town. The way you dance is kind of similar to Dance Dance Revolution because you're given a list of button presses.

MUSIC AND SOUND (8/10): The music sound really nice for an 8-bit handheld game. I really don't have much to say about the music in general but I think my favorite songs in the game are the outworld theme and boss theme. The sound effects can be somewhat annoying, but some are tolerable for the most part...

REPLAY VALUE (VERY HIGH): Well, you can't go wrong with this game. This is simply one of those games that should be played again.

OVERALL
This has got to be one of the best games to have on a Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance since it was released back in 2001! The only problem about this is the game was actually very obscure to find. Hell, it might still be a difficult game to find today, but you may be lucky to find someone on eBay who's willing to sell or put it up for auction or to even find it on Amazon.com. So overall, it's an obscure gem for the Game Boy Color that should not be passed up. Of you happen to find this game out in the real world or just have an emulator for this game, I'd suggest downloading it because this is one of those games that will not disappoint! With my rating system, I give Shantae for the Gameboy Color an "S"!

Other Helpful Reviews for Shantae

Load Comments (0)