Shantae Advance

Just some vids of game play footage by ign.

Kind of like a beta version of Risky's Revenge.
The Idle animation is sightly different where in the footage Shantae measures her waist and adjust her top
(In RR she just adjusts her top).  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyuR1sFLjlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LWSwFWQCJA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=849MAifJHqY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv7kMVEk0mk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEd5wXJAkrE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0vi_IJSt7w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDm4Xucas8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rVOq4vQHus
Also Wrench is HUGE in this!

Wow, Axol, I'm amazed that there's this much footage of the GBA version laying around on Youtube. O: AND OMG WRENCH, now I'll always wonder why he didn't get to be that size in Risky's Revenge; it had to be a good reason to scrap that much work put into his animations here.

Well to be fair, it was almost entirely different in its initial stages.
I am sure the story progressed differently too.

Plus, instead of the Tinkertub, Risky used an armed hot-air balloon to fight Shantae.

Where was that?

Here you go: Click


As you can see, it was even supposed to have multiplayer.
Such a shame it was never made.

Like The concept sketches, Specially the one with I would assume alternative costumes.

Concept sketches are always fun to dig through. ^^ And that's true Paragon, the story probably changed a lot, and they didn't need a bigger Wrench in the end. (Or the passing of two years wasn't realistic for the bird to reach those sizes.) It would still be nice to see some of Sky's full-grown war birds, regardless.

Paragon-Yoshi wrote:As you can see, it was even supposed to have multiplayer.
Such a shame it was never made.

From the looks of that old site, the link mode was nearly finished; I guess it was either scrapped because of the ever changing technology, (They were already moving on to the DS and PSP at that point.) making it more difficult maintain a solid network architecture, or the mode that they designed wasn't too much fun in execution, forcing them to cut it out. Considering the developers have never shown screenshots of their 2.5D DS prototype, I'd want to assume their standards are pretty high.

It can be difficult creating fun modes outside the single player experience. Even games like Pikman had evidence of multiplayer as early on as the first game, but it was a long time before they tried it again. And Portal didn't get co-op until the sequel either.

An interesting thing to note about the multiplayer mode screens! I noticed that the sprites and tiles are extremely similar to those in Mighty Flip Champs!

If you look at Shantae's idle, Risky hanging on to the gate, and Risky and Bolo being stunned, it's the same poses Alta has in MFC. Even the gate itself looks to be the exact same. I really can't help but wonder what the multiplayer mode could have been like now...

Interesting note Mike.


Also:

Like The concept sketches, Specially the one with I would assume alternative costumes.

I can only refer to THIS THREAD again.

In the very original plans, Shantae was supposed to have different customes, each with a different special effect.
I guess they planned to bring back that concept in the Advance game.

Just in case anyone hasn't had the pleasure of viewing it yet, here's a link to the 54-minute live broadcast of the Shantae GBA demo, with narration by Matt Bozon (among other WF directors): http://www.twitch.tv/wayforwardtv/b/467113071

Highlights:

6:33 - Boom box Bolo!
8:22 - Diving. Spiffy as heck.
9:21 - MASSIVE Wrench.
11:18 - Mode 7 flight on Wrench's back. Yes. Yes please, more of this someday.
16:02 - The Greedy Jar. Double your gems; double your fun. (Doublemint Gum?)
17:52 - Crab transformation, with exposition a la mode.
19:20 - Gates to switch between foreground & background, not unlike the jump pads in RR yet even more intricate (foreground & background seamlessly transition, no panning required). Very cool.
22:27 - Tinkerbats, Risky, and the 'world-cycling' mechanic. Again, *very* cool.
28:05 - Miniboss fight, Spanky Joe - poor Shantae.
30:37 - Pretty autumn leaves effect, owing to the various 'seasons' in the regions. Unsure which season is everyone's favorite.
34:29 - Kind of a neat puzzle. Not difficult, just keep your mind's eye open. Too much for a livestream though.
40:19 - DESTROY THE MAGIC SEAL! Or, well, maybe it was just a placeholder, haha.
51:56 - Diff'rent save guy & THE EPIC CONCLUSION! Yup, that....that happened. WHY??

So yeah, that pretty much looked like one of the greatest things ever. If anyone here ever strikes gold or wins the lottery, please dump cash into WayForward's lap so they can finish & release it. You will be loved forever.

It's great they finally recorded the GBA prototype in better quality, but I'm so used to the rock solid 60 FPS most GBA games have, that the 30 FPS of the recorded video irked me too much to watch it for very long. Which is a shame, because even though it looks like they still had more to add in the visual department, it probably looks much smoother as-is at the native frame-rate.