Shantae Risky's Revenge (Review): "The Genie's New Groove" | Tome of Silver

A powder keg of high-octane, hair-whipping, hip-shaking action! Hello everyone and welcome to Chapter 38 of the Tome of Silver. The show where I randomly select a game from my collection, review it and add it to an ever-growing ranking list.
When Shantae was originally released in 2002, it was a commercial flop, despite receiving primarily positive reviews. This was likely due to it being a title exclusive to the Gameboy Color, in spite of the system’s successor, the Gameboy Advance, having already been released. The developer, Wayforward, nevertheless wanted to make a follow-up game and began development on a sequel for the Gameboy Advance. Sadly, Wayforward failed to find a publisher for this title, and it would be ultimately canceled in 2004. Amazingly, this game, now titled Risky Revolution, has resumed development and after 20 long years will be released in 2024! At the time of this recording, the Shantae series is in a good place but that wasn’t the case in the early 2000s’. With the commercial failure of the first game, and the GBA sequel being scrapped, Shantae would have no new games for over seven years.
It wouldn’t be until 2010 that a new Shantae game would be released, called Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, released exclusively on the digital store for the DSi, the newest iteration of Nintendo’s DS line of handheld consoles at the time. Risky’s Revenge would receive a similarly positive reception as the original. Though I’m not sure how well it performed sales-wise, Risky’s Revenge would do well enough to draw back interest in the series. The game would soon be ported to current-gen systems in 2016 as Risky’s Revenge: Director’s Cut, which added a new mode originally added to the IOS port of the game. The Switch port of the Director’s Cut is the version we will be looking at today. Crack that whip, return to monke, and let’s turn the page to Shantae: Risky’s Revenge.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Story & Characters
04:07 Gameplay
13:37 Conclusion & Ranking