This one has a bit of an odd story behind it. It began development in 2002 as a followup to the first Shantae game on Game Boy Color, but was shelved when WayForward wasn't able to secure a publisher. Many years later Matt Bozon streamed the unfinished prototype to see if fans would be interested in seeing the game get a wider release, and positive reception led him to dust off the twenty-year-old source code and finally release the game, both as a limited-printing Game Boy Advance cartridge and an enhanced digital version across modern platforms. So while it's the sixth game to be released, it's the second game chronologically. Fittingly it feels much like Risky's Revenge, though with a slightly different gimmick - you cross through doorways that take you between foreground and background layers, and there are large actuators you can hit that rotate the foreground and background to change the layout of the levels. Transforming is also considerably quicker (you just hold down the button and press a direction), and each of your forms also gains several upgrades throughout. With all that on the table, it's more Shantae - charming Zelda-likes with a solid (and often risque) sense of humor and some very polished gameplay and animations, and more of that format is no bad thing in my book.
Developer: WayForward
Publisher: WayForward, Limited Run Games
Released: 2025
Platform: PC, Switch, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, XBox One, XBox Series, Game Boy Advance