Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

After the original game in the Shantae series released in 2002 on the Game Boy Color, there weren’t any follow-up games released in the series until Shantae: Risky’s Revenge released in 2010 on Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service. However, we did almost get another Shantae game in between these two titles. A follow-up to the first Shantae game started development almost immediately for Game Boy Advance, but the project was canceled two years later after developer WayForward couldn’t find a publisher for the game. However, after partnering with Limited Run games, the development for this “lost” entry in the series was finally completed, with the game releasing in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and… Game Boy Advance. Better late than never, I suppose?

The plot here has Shantae facing off against series antagonist Risky Boots as the fiendish pirate unleashes a new plan to twist around the pillars holding up Sequin Land to rearrange all of the villages above and make it easier to plunder. To stop her, Shantae needs to track down a trio of geologists who may be able to think up a way to stop the villain. It’s a silly plot, but the Shantae games were never Shakespeare.

Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution is a bit out of the norm for the series in that it isn’t really a Metroidvania, even though you can return to previous areas and sometimes make use of new abilities to reach previously-inaccessible areas. However, the areas in this game aren’t interconnected, and you’ll mainly just be exploring to figure out where you need to go next.

This actually ends up being one of my biggest complaints regarding this game, because as an Action-Platformer, the level design here can be extremely convoluted and unintuitive to navigate. This is because not only are the levels arranged on both a background and foreground plane, but the way the two connect can be rearranged at certain points.

Beyond this, the gameplay is more or less typical of the Shantae games – move, jump, whip enemies with your hair, and as you progress gain new transformation abilities Shantae can activate by dancing. I did find myself frustrated that this game seemed to occasionally fail to detect button inputs, and I’m not especially fond of the transformations in this game, as they seem very limited in purpose and utility. However, otherwise what’s here plays well enough.

The presentation is about what you’d expect from this era of the Shantae series too, which is to say that this game uses 2D pixel art visuals with decent detail and excellent animation. There is also an updated game mode that improves the visuals of the HUD elements, text, and character portraits to be more in line with modern Shantae games, but overall this is a game that definitely evokes the Game Boy Advance era graphically.

I should mention that there’s also a 4-player arena-based battle mode here, but I found it to be disappointing – rather than damaging others directly, you’re aiming to thwack them into spikes surrounding the stage that often aren’t a strong presence and it can come down to luck who in the messy melee gets off the shot that ricochets an opponent into a spike.

Overall, I liked Shantae Advance, but much of what I liked about it is also present in the other games in the series, games that I would argue are much better than Shantae Advance is. If you’re a diehard fan of the series, this will be an amazing gift of a “lost” game you never had the opportunity to play. But for everyone else this is a sub-par entry in a series with numerous better entries already available on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – Shantae Advance is an Action-Platformer that was never released when it was originally created for Game Boy Advance, but now it’s brushed up and finally getting its day on modern platforms. Unfortunately, while this isn’t a bad game, it can’t compare to most other games in its series, thanks to confusing level design despite that this game isn’t a Metroidvania like most of the games in the Shantae series. If you’re a series fan, this is a great gift… but otherwise, you’re better off playing other games in the series.

Grade: C+

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