Wayforward and Limited Run Games have announced Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, coming exclusively to the Game Boy Advance.
This Shantae game is the missing link between the original Shantae from 2002, and Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. As Wayforward lead developer Matt Bozon revealed in the Limited Run Games LRG3 event, fans who played the Shantae series would know that they got introduced to Shantae’s group of friends, including Rottytops, Sky, and Bolo.
Shantae Advance: Risky Revenge was the game that would introduce these characters properly. However, when WayForward shopped the game around different publishers, they couldn’t find the interest. It may seem crazy now, but at the time the first Shantae sold poorly, and so they couldn’t find the interest.
For those gamers who don’t remember this period, WayForward would then spend the next few years making many licensed games, as well as outsourcing work. Notable WayForward games that did get published on the Game Boy Advance include Sigma Star Saga, Tak: The Great Juju Challenge, and Justice League Heroes: The Flash.
Now, some fans reading this may wonder if Limited Run is making some kind of fake lost game, the same way Marvel Comics made a fake lost character in The Sentry. So, we will link here to the Fandom page about Shantae Advance as proof that this really was an old game that never got released, at least until now.
In Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, pirate Risky Boots finds a new device which allows her to ‘rotate’ the world, allowing her to plunder parts of Shantae’s home she couldn’t access before. Shantae will eventually find a way to use Risky’s device against her, but the team at Wayforward have something even more special planned.
In keeping with certain ‘classic’ style games, Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution will be developed for the original Game Boy Advance, using the same original development tools. The team is also working on adding Link Cable support so that up to four players can play at the same time, using only one copy of the game.
So, it shouldn’t surprise you that Wayforward and Limited Run Games did not announce a port of the game to modern platforms. That may be something that they will work on after the fact, but the team’s current focus is making it a real Game Boy Advance game, and a good one to boot.
As you can imagine, this Game Boy Advance title is planned to be a collectible, and won’t be easy to acquire unless you pre-order it through Limited Run Games. That’s part of what makes LRG controversial, but also allows them to touch so many projects.
Given that Wayforward has ported their entire library to as many platforms as possible, and is even doing the same to the original Game Boy Color Shantae, they will likely do the same for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution in the future. But don’t hold your breath for it.
You can watch the official trailer below.
