By Gabriel Jones 12.12.2016 7

Over the course of a single day, Shantae has a lifetime's worth of adventure. That's the gist of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero , the latest action-platformer by WayForward. The hair-whipping, shape-shifting, hip-swinging guardian of Scuttle Town is back. All of her best friends and worst enemies are along for the ride in this sequel. Uncle Mimic has come up with an invention known as the Dynamo. Its purpose is to protect Scuttle Town, so maybe Shantae can have a day off. Unfortunately for her, she's been tasked to find the necessary parts to build this impressive device. Leave it to villains like Risky Boots and Ammo Baron to make her quest especially arduous.

This entry in the Shantae series is essentially split into two halves. At first, players will contend with an assortment of platforming challenges that culminate with a big boss battle. Afterwards, they'll be granted a new shape-shifting power, which can be used to explore previously completed areas for numerous treasures, including the Dynamo parts necessary to further the story. It's a formula that is handled very well. The straight-forward action portions are sufficiently compelling. The more relaxed exploration side gives ample reason for Shantae to utilise her wide assortment of transformations. The only aspect that's likely to disappoint long-time fans is that there aren't really any dungeons. In a way, this makes the game more like the Mega Man X series. It's linear, but with a lot of optional content hidden away. A few stages undergo slight changes when revisited, which is also a nice touch.

The controls are just as responsive and satisfying as ever. One of the key differences is that although there are over a dozen transformations, they're organised in a manner that makes them quick and easy to access, so whenever Shantae needs to turn into a monkey to climb a wall or make a long leap, the player presses one button and then left. If she wants to become a crab for a bit of underwater fun, then it's that same button and then down. Some other transformations - such as the flying harpy - require an extra second of waiting, but it never takes the player out of the game.

The moments where Shantae's powers are needed are also intelligently placed. She's not going to be forced into scenarios where she has to switch between four different forms just to progress through one tiny area. Everything else, from the jumping to the whipping, is polished and enjoyable.

Another aspect that makes the transformations so effective is how often they aren't used. When a different form is required, it's done so in a way that's just obvious enough to be clever, but never forced. This also extends to boss battles. While it would have been easy to include a boss fight where the elephant form was required to knock down some pillars or break evil rocks, this game wisely chooses to ignore ideas like that. Essentially, Shantae can defeat every boss without using her many forms. Although, it might be beneficial to switch to the monkey form sometimes, just because the small size and higher agility makes for easier dodging. The point is that this game is well aware that special abilities can become tiring if they're overused. A lot of action-adventure games get too caught up in their own formula, so the interesting becomes mundane. Never once in Shantae: Half-Genie Hero will it be thought, "Oh, great… It's time to use the crab form again... *yawn*"

The level of difficulty is dependent on the player. If they purchase a lot of potions, collect all of the life upgrades, and make liberal use of an invulnerability spell, they're not going to have any problems. What it takes to make the game more challenging is to impose limitations. A few gamers might even go so far as to avoid upgrades entirely, and in some cases, that means Shantae won't survive a single hit. There are also numerous modes and playable characters, which mean new ways to tackle the action. In short, the replay value is pretty high, which meshes well with the relatively lean campaign. A first-time playthrough with all of the collectibles should take just north of five hours.

For action-platformer fans, this isn't quite a breakthrough game. It's more akin to "comfort food." This entry in the Shantae saga focuses on what works, and doesn't make broad attempts at pushing the envelope. To explain it another way, the different forms aren't used to their fullest effect. The spider form, in particular, is used maybe a couple of times in the entire game. If a few platforms were moved around, then it probably wouldn't even have a reason to exist.

As much respect as this game deserves for not relying on shapeshifting, there's still that slight feeling that maybe ideas could have been played around with more. Perhaps there could have been a series of bonus stages that require absolute mastery over Shantae's many abilities. It'd be like Champion's Road from the newer Mario games. On the other hand, there are already enough games that go this route. This one plays it fairly safe, rather than demanding pixel precision with every jump.