Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Ultimate Edition (PlayStation 5) Review

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero offers five replayable levels that unlock new abilities as the story progresses. While the level design encourages exploration with new skills, the total number of levels may feel limited for the number of abilities gained. This repetition is further emphasised by the abundance of currency, allowing for easy maximisation of Shantae's core stats and magic, potentially making some abilities and max-level magic overpowered. The difficulty curve may not suit everyone, with the base game lacking a balanced challenge between casual and hardcore modes.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Ultimate Edition introduces new content, including a tank transformation and additional modes. These modes, however, primarily remix the core gameplay with slight variations. While some may find the sex appeal amusing (e.g. Bikini Mode), they often come with limitations or drawbacks that may not appeal to all players.

Officer Mode introduces a dramatic gameplay shift. It incorporates mechanics from WayForward's Mighty Switch Force games. The player controls Shantae as a police officer who uses a gun to manipulate the solidity of platforms. This mode eliminates crouching, crawling, and hub areas, making the game a linear series of stages. Ninja Mode offers the most variation in terms of costumes. Shantae gains a sword, faster movement, teleportation, and wall-jumping abilities. However, regardless of costume, her health remains limited to three points, and all maps are reused. This mode is also the most difficult, exceeding the challenge of Hardcore Mode.

Pirate Queen's Quest is a story mode that allows players to take control of Risky Boots, Shantae's recurring antagonist. Risky Boots has unique mechanics, including a grappling hook, guns, a gliding hat, and a self-launching cannon. Players can explore six levels in any order. This mode offers an original story from Risky Boots' perspective, retelling the events of the main game with her own embellishments.

Friends to the End is a story mode featuring Bolo, Sky, and Rottytops. These characters essentially function as one with three forms that can be swapped freely during gameplay. The mode could potentially have been more intricate if the developers had committed to making each character persistent throughout the levels. Development limitations led to the creation of a single, combined adventure from what was originally intended to be separate stories. This can be noticeable in the final product.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Ultimate Edition features multiple extra adventures and costume modes, but these reuse the same level layouts from the main game. The core adventure itself only has six levels, which may not be enough to support the amount of extra content. Additionally, some levels are revisited multiple times in the main game, and even more for 100% completion.

Despite the reuse of levels, the game boasts a visually appealing art style with large, cartoon-like sprites and detailed backgrounds. The controls are responsive and allow Shantae to use a wide variety of abilities. However, some of these abilities may not be fully utilised due to the limited number of stages.