Shantae is the first game in the legendary platforming series known for it's excellent sprite animations, and lovable character designs. The story revolves around a Half-genie, the titular Shantae, who is the guardian of a port side village called Scuttletown. One day her village is attacked by the nefarious Pirate Queen, Risky Boots who steals the plans from a local inventor to build a steam powered machine of destruction. Now it is up to Shantae to not only avenge her friends but also stop Risky from taking over the 7 seas. The story is rather simplistic, however it is still enjoyable as all the characters you encounter are all vastly unique, and have their own quirky character animations that help them stand out from each other. So certainly don't expect a NieR, or Killer7 level of writing with this game, and to me that's just fine to sit back and enjoy a fun little adventure. The gameplay is a rather traditional sidescroller platforming adventure on the surface but what makes Shantae stand out from the crowd is the transformations you unlock as you progress through the game. Shantae can transform into things like Monkeys, Spiders, or even Elephants to help traverse through her world and this opens up many possibilities for solving puzzles or defeating enemies. Speaking of enemies, one of the major drawbacks in my opinion is that Shantae's primary method of attack is whipping her hair at enemies which all things considered is a very short ranged attack. The problem with this is that most enemies you encounter through dungeons or the overworld are rather tanky taking upwards for 5-10 hits to dispatch, meaning you have to be right up on the enemy whipping your hair as fast as possible. This causes a problem when a lot of these enemies have a combination of ranged and close quarter attacks meaning you'll almost always take hits, even if you are really skilled. I found most of the time I just ended up skipping most of the fights I could just to avoid losing HP and personally I feel like that strips away some of the fun of a platformer. Overall however, Shantae is a very unique game, and is perhaps one of the best games to have originally come out on the GBC. The version I played was the remaster on Nintendo Switch, where they used a proprietary engine to upscale and faithfully recapture the original game's feeling and appearance and to that I say they did a pretty good job, also with adding a couple filters to best suit the player's taste. Shantae is a solid first entry to what would later become a very popular franchise, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into what the later games have in store as there is a lot of potential here to improve and make a truly unforgettable experience.