Shantae

Well... Sry for putting this under GBA. no GBC category, but this game can be played on the GBA to unlock an extra dance and use of a different pallete.

Written by NY Gamer (brother to Skygrinder, Thanks again for the buy!) I've heard alot about this game from various sources (GoNintendo.Com, Reviews, Etc.) and while I was a bit skeptical on how a GBC game grabbed all of this praise... i dove in to pick up a copy.

While the price on ebay may throw some people off (I mean, the game can climb up to a C-Note! I was even thrown from this!!!) I did get a nice deal on it and I'm glad I went ahead with buying this game!

Well, onto the meat and potatoes:

Gameplay: 10/10 About 16 hours first time, Following Plays about 10 hours. Overworld, 5 towns, 3 money making minigames, 4 Dungeons, Final Area. The game is a platformer and can be an unforgiving one at that with health dropped sparingly from enemies and 1ups allocated to dungeons.) The overworld takes place in 2 different times (Daytime - Enemies are Normal & Nighttime - Enemies have double health and I may be mistaken, but deal double damage as well.) Shantae starts out with 3 Hearts and Her Pony-tail attack. As the story progresses, she picks up 4 transformations (only the elephant can attack though) but fully Powered up, Shantae can collect 7 heart containers for a max of 10 hearts, can collect the 4 fighter items for additional attacks (you'll need alot of gems though) and 4 talismans to enable attacks for her animal forms (all optional pick ups as you can run the entire game w/ just her pony-tail.)

Difficulty: 8/10 unless you rescale dungeons for additional 1ups. Your Pony-tail can only reach so far so you have to step up and get in close for connections. Bosses can be hard if you don't know what to expect or their weak spots.

Graphics: 10/10 For a GBC game, this feels a bit more like a GBA game, just kicked down. Sprites are very fluid in animation and detailed greatly! This pushed the GBC to it's limits (you may see some slow down in the 3rd dungeon.)

Music: 9/10 14+ Tracks. Each tune has a nice feel to it and fits in with the game. You may pull a favorite track from this game.

Overall = 10/10 For the GBC's Swan Song (just some really bad timing on Wayforward's part since their game was pushed back) this game is a very, VERY great game to own a hard copy of. If you wish to though, Pick up a DSi and just wait until Shantae's next quest hits before the year's end.

Score: 10.0