It doesn’t cost hundreds to play it anymore!
Though Shantae has gone on to become an indie gaming icon, her origins were much dicier. The original Shantae was potentially planned as a SNES or PC release before it finally settled on the Game Boy Color. Production went well, but the game required an expensive cartridge which caused many publishers to balk at the idea of backing it. After a couple years of searching, Capcom finally swooped in to save the day for WayForward, but the company sat on the release for about eight months after it had gone gold. In that window, the Game Boy Advance enjoyed a successful debut, which made the eventual release of a brand-new IP on Game Boy Color a rather unappealing concept to most consumers.
Of course, Shantae eventually got the attention she deserves, but not before her inaugural release fell into relative obscurity. Original copies of the first-run cartridge can cost up to thousands of dollars these days, but it became substantially more accessible when it came to the 3DS Virtual Console a few years ago. Now, WayForward has opted to re-release Shantae yet again for the Switch, finally bringing the entire Shantae saga to one place. Shantae is a fun game in its own right and a fascinating period piece, though it feels undoubtedly like a lesser experience when compared to its successors.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
