Quick Review: Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

She’s back, and ready to defend Scuttle Town again!

If we're starting with the downtown on fire... We're in for
something good.

WayForward’s Shantae series has quite a few games; I covered another one, Risky's Revenge, long ago. The entry covered today, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, was released on December 20th, 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. However, in place of a Metroidvania-style, interconnected world, we have a game split into stages. Most of them contain secrets inaccessible until Shantae collects the right abilities and forms to turn into (through her belly dancing, of course). You can return later to find those and expand your arsenal.

Factories? Mermaids? Crocodiles? Better investigate this.
I'm supposed to be looking for maidens, not mermaids!

After another attack from Risky Boots and her pirate crew on Scuttle Town, Shantae’s elderly inventor uncle begins making a machine, using old blueprints, that will protect the town in her place. However, she'll need to find the items he needs. And solve problems across the land, while she’s at it. Maidens are disappearing in the next town over? Everyone in Scuttle Town loses their memories and another half-genie looks like the culprit? Stopping a heist at the grand flying carpet race? Other than her uncle’s machine, what could tie these things together? Maybe the occasional dream Shantae has been having of the genie world, which speaks to her…

We're gonna need a bigger boat. ...Okay, that joke
is probably in poor taste to talk about a giant mermaid.

Wham! Need power to push large blocks? Become elephant.
Stay cute either way.

With the jewels you collect, you can buy additional upgrades for Shantae, such as magic spells to use (with the C key), or improvements to the attack power and speed of her hair whip. Over the course of this adventure, she regains her classic forms – the wall-climbing monkey, the ramming elephant, the swimming mermaid, and so on. Some forms have a secondary ability must be unlocked by finding it. As an example, the mermaid form starts out defenseless against underwater threats, but Shantae later learns to shoot bubbles to attack.

Uh oh, gotta escape the giant worm (which is dead when we
return, so yep, can't "finish" this area in one go).

Splitting the game into stages, each with lots of secrets, does help in some capacity. However, it means you’ll be revisiting eqch stage many, many times to find new abilities that were previously impossible to get. You do gain access to teleportation tools to quickly leave a stage once you got what you wanted, or to warp directly to the next area if you know exactly what you're looking for and where it's located.

Past the main mode, you can play the game again with various twists: A Hero Mode with all transformations unlocked from the start, a Hardcore Mode, and a Jammies Mode with Shantae in her pajamas and fighting with her pillow (yup). The store page includes DLCs for two additional quests, one playing Risky Boots’ side of the story, another playing as Shantae’s friends, and three “costumes” that come with their own arcade-like gameplay!

In Jammies Mode (implied to be one big dream), her pillow
atrtacxk is somehow stronger than her regular hair whip.
Also, this mode turns the game into a genuine platformer.

Some of these quests feel like a point'n'click. You obtain the
candy from the dotor, which you see after getting sick, which
happens after finding five relics for an archaeologist in the
desert tower, and finding said relics requires the ability to
ground-pound with the elephant form. ...Phew!

WayForward knows how to craft a good Metroidvania – as proven repeatedly by this very franchise. But if you bought Shantae: Half-Genie Hero hoping for one, you might be disappointed that it's split into stages rather than being a continuous world, even if the spirit remains and the game is still very good. As pointed above, this change does lead to some degree of repetitiveness, though there's a few workarounds. As usual, this is paired by a great soundtrack, a beautiful hand-drawn art style (seriously, the game looks awesome), and inventive stages and bosses with always something new to discover. It’s worth checking out for fans of the genre or of the series. Good time all around.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD. Or, alternately, you can get the Ultimate edition released two years later, in May 2018, which includes all the bonus material.

Year Plans 2024: What I've Missed

Last year, I made a list like this, going over all the games I had planned to cover during the year but didn’t; that meant playing roughly an hour of each of them, and collecting my “first impressions” (by default of not having enough time to play through their entirety, like I try to for regular reviews) into a single article.

I thought I had done poorly this year, but no – when compared to 2023, where I had 14 games I hadn’t played through, this time around I have 17, which… yeah, it’s more, but it’s not that much more. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t hit my goals, but then again – I did overshoot while setting up my Year Plans. I won’t explain my method in depth, but it’s more than just “roll for a random number”. As usual, I’ll be setting this up in time for my retrospective, next week.

One thing I noticed when going back over the titles I didn’t play this year: I had a lot of RPGs in there. When I was picking these games, I also stumbled on a few two-game franchises and put the whole franchise in there to make it simple. So yeah, I had a lot of stuff to check out. Opening with…

The variety

Wait till they toss in bugs! And fire! And MORE!

Starting with a funny puzzle game (that I had almost forgotten about!), Girls Like Robots is a creation of Popcannibal. In this game from 2014, we seat girls, robots, nerds and various other characters (with the loadout changing at every chapter) to reach as much happiness as possible. Girls love to sit next to robots, but a robot cannot stand being surrounded by four girls. Nerds like edges, corners, and robots, but girls don’t like them. Girls and nerds like pie, but robots don’t! New requests, character interactions, and rules get added regularly to shake things up. It’s fun, and gets surprisingly tricky even an hour in.

Quick Review: KilaFlow (Demo)

Kila: Cyberspace explorer. Antivirus. Sometimes, gymnast.

I don’t usually review demos on Steam, because there would be way too much to cover (and my backlog’s already massive enough as is!), but this once, I’m going to make an exception. Why? Today’s game had a successful Kickstarter campaign that I donated to, and I know its creator, so this is my way of giving it a little bit more visibility.

KilaFlow is a creation of Mason “Chaoko” Hardison. When I backed the Kickstarter, the game’s release window was estimated to be at the end of 2024, but it has been pushed forward to early 2025, as the stretch goal reached includes the addition of two extra worlds. Greater beta testing for backers is also being rolled out.

Gotta pose for the picture every time you hit an enemy
you've already debugged. "Cheese!"

What is KilaFlow about? It’s Kila, a cat-shaped, CRT-screen-headed antivirus program. The software jumps through levels filled with orange-colored enemies, indicating that they’ve been corrupted by a virus. When bounced on or touched by Kila when it spins or runs very fast, those enemies turn blue, indicating that they’ve been "cured". And you’re playing an antivirus, so it should be your focus, right? Kila is aided by TippClip, a personal assistant who’s a few branches off in Clippy’s family tree; it will provide helpful advice, but it will react if you annoy it.

High-flying! Wheeeee!

KilaFlow features extra platforming mechanics that you’ll need to master early on if you want to do the job properly. (The page recommends you play with a controller, but all I have is the keyboard, so:) Kila moves with WASD and jumps with Space. Press the Left-click button to bounce, sending Kila downwards so it can jump back up, or press the Right-click to spin, which can be done both on the ground and in midair.

-Vaporwave intensifies-

On the ground, spinning causes Kila to shift “gears”; it starts at 0, “Bit”, and goes up to 1, “Byte”, then to 2, “Kilo”, the fastest. 0 is slow but good for precise platforming, 1 is the right balance, 2 is very fast but difficult to control. However, keeping Kila’s higher speeds is tricky, as it will go down a gear if it stops moving or slows down.

This entire set of abilities also comes with a few bonus skills. Spinning lets Kila stay in midair longer. You can Bounce while holding down the Spin button to jump even higher from a bounce. Even better, with Flowbouncing, you can Spin right after bouncing off something to reach even greater heights.

Starting in World 1, the game even toys with perspective!

Provirus? ...Well, if the antivirus gig doesn't work out,
Kilo's still got a future in personal training.

The Tutorial, World 0, teaches you the basics and tricks, and ends on a boss battle. The Demo also includes World 1, a bonus level, and a boss battle. The main goal is to get to the end, but there are many additional challenges. If you cure every enemy in the level, you get an Antivirus award; if you reach the end without getting hurt once, you get the Efficient award; if you reach the end really fast, the key you get at the end of the level will be silver or gold-colored instead! Or you can do the opposite and reach the end without curing even a single enemy, which grants the Provirus award, which also comes with its own silver and gold times, so that’s even more stuff to hunt for.

Oh, and did I mention the alternate costumes? So many alternate looks for Kila, you wouldn’t believe.

If Kila is the Sonic, that's the Shadow.

It knows how to be cute. Kila, I mean. But the robo-dog too.

Completionists will have their work cut out for them. With all the options it offers, I bet speedrunners will have a field day with this one. You can tell there’s a fair bit of inspiration from platforming classics, be it Sonic or Crash Bandicoot. The original plan was for eight worlds, but the stretch goal for two more was reached. Levels are mostly short and quick, but the game gets challenging fast even if you’re not looking for every award. Kila has 4 HP, but I haven't seen any healing items and I don't think there's much in the way of mercy invincibility, so the test of skill is real, especially if you're hunting those Efficient awards. It’s not an easy game to learn, and it’s even more difficult to master.

Keep an eye on this one. I do look forward to the final product. And in the meantime, I can say I’ve done my part to spread the word!

Quick Review: Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora

When your previous job doesn’t work out, career redirection is a-okay.

We're here to investigate! P.S. Your guard
on ground floor is a jerk.

Made by Glass Bottom Games and released on February 20th, 2015 following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora is a sequel to their previous game, Jones on Fire, reviewed here last year. We have a complete shift in genre, the total opposite of the endless runner the previous entry was. We follow Emma Jones again, and after the Firestorm that she rescued so many cats from, society has retrieved a semblance of normalcy. Even if it meant rebuilding over the charred remains of the previous world. Since firefighting isn’t so necessary now, Jones became a private investigator, helped by the fedora-wearing cat Francine (Franky).

We have here an odd combo of genres. At first, we could think this game is a platformer, due to how Jones plays; but it's more of a Metroidvania. We also have an aspect of an adventure game, as we interrogate suspects, pick up clues, and present those clues to relevant people. Our first investigation involves the robbery of a will at the Ossified Egg. Tied to this is the discovery of a dead body at the Slice of Pi eatery. Then there’s the mystery of Franky’s past, which she’s not interested in sharing.

Nifty platforming, but there's a lot of places where Franky
struggles to follow Jones around.

Jones wields her weapon of choice, the “Wobbly MK 2/3”, which adapts to weird ammo. None of her bullets can kill, but all come with special effects. The starter ones can just destroy stuff like boxes. Then, as we progress, we find: Bubbles that reveal hidden things; bullets that turn this gun into a grapple hook; fire bullets that destroy some items and light up areas; knockback rounds, which can push heavy items or send Jones upwards; and gumdrops that explode when lit up (don’t ask).

This thing comes in bullet form now? I'm struggling to
"grapple" with the concept.

This dungeon, even lower than the underground, is packed
with nuclear toxic vines that trap you in place.
That's good, I was feeling too safe from radiation lately.

We visit three “dungeons” with platforming puzzles to solve and discover these weapons, allowing Jones and Franky to explore more areas. The dungeons can be tricky to explore; several rooms force you to use your tools to the maximum. Our goal is still to figure out the means, motive and opportunity of each crime, which allows us to ask our Chief for search warrants to get into places we can’t enter otherwise (or can, if we figure out an alternate path), or arrest warrants once we’ve figured out the culprits.

It's also a good idea to read the clues you've found, as
they update as you find information.

Featuring box-shaped people and both cats and rodents that talk a lot (and love to snark), the tone of the game is somewhere between classic noir and referential, parodic self-awareness. Lots of comedic moments. Either way, expect unexpected twists. I’ll fully admit that I wasn’t feeling much at first, but the plot eventually won me over. There’s a decent amount of challenge here, and in true Metroidvania fashion, we need to revisit past areas to find more secrets and get the best ending; but also, the multiple endings all have achievements attached to them, encouraging one to replay the game to get the others.

The camera angles I discuss in the next paragraph. Goes from
a 2D moving one axis, to 2D moving another axis. The idea,
while fine, leads to risks of getting stuck as the camera
won't work anymore if you activate some specific stuff
while in that view.

That big-ass castle in the Dump? I tried everything. You
can't go in it. Come on, you put something that large in a
significant area of the game, and there's no way to enter?
We also never find the perfect gift for our girlfriend working
at Slice of Pi, nor can we ever discover the Chief's
true name. Pieces are missing!!

I don’t have a lot of critiques to make, really; due to its odd 2D side-scrolling system applied to a 3D layout, venturing the world is confusing at first, in part as it achieves such a thing by playing with camera angles. It takes some getting used to. Once or twice, I activated something mid-camera swap, got stuck, and had to close the game from Steam and resume from a save point (which are bathrooms). Not the only glitch, but others were just minor stuff. You can manually reload the gun on a screen that opens when you press R, which also allows you to switch between ammo – but in that case, you also need to reload the gun yourself, which gets tedious at the end when you swap regularly between the various types of ammo to solve puzzles. You can also hold down R to reload instantly, but there’s still no quick way to swap between ammo types. There’s a bit of leniency in difficulty as there are ways to get advice as to where to go next, when stuck. To top it off, there are plot threads still unsolvable due to hopes of these elements being added later, which hasn’t been done.

Overall, a decent idea and combo of genres, I had a good time, but it’s very much unpolished and could have spent a bit more time being tested and improved. Still, it’s fine, so if you’re looking for something unusual, it might be up your alley.

Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora is available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.