Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – Friends to the End expansion revealed

Yesterday, WayForward posted the latest Kickstarter update for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, and this one has some pretty juicy stuff for fans: it reveals Friends to the End, the next major expansion for the game. If you’ve been following the game for a while, this expansion was previously known as the “friends mode”: it’s the one that adds Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops as playable characters.

This new expansion is actually part of the “official canon”, and takes place chronologically in the middle of Shantae’s storyline. Here’s what the story is all about:

Shantae has been turned to evil by the foul Risky Boots by way of a polarity-swapping machine, and is reborn as Nega-Shantae! Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops must enter Shantae’s mind in order to rescue her consciousness from the “Nightmare Realm”; a series of twisted memories designed to swallow Shantae whole.

This will not be an easy task for the three adventurers, who lack both genie magic, and the ability to get along.

This new mode offers three new characters, a brand new stories, altered memories (basically, revamped versions of existing levels), and a showdown against Nega-Shantae.

The interesting thing about the three characters is that you get to control them at the same time. Of course, you won’t need to grow an extra pair of hands to be able to play: you can swap freely between the characters, to make use of their special abilities to overcome certain obstacles for example.

Here’s the 3 new characters:

• Sky (voiced by Karen Strassman)

Sky is quick and agile, and can make long jumps by using her bird Wrench as a glider. Sky attacks by throwing seagulls, which are somewhat weak, but can hit at long range. Her special ability is to toss eggs, which explode into instant platforms! Finally, she can spend Dream Magic to summon an orbiting flock of birds for extra defense! Sky is definitely the best character!

• Bolo (voiced by Nathan Sharp)

Bolo deals heavy damage with his spiked Bolo Chain, which offers medium range and decent speed. He can also fire a Spring Claw at odd angles to knock away annoying airborne enemies. His special ability is to latch onto certain objects with his Spring Claw, which lets him to swing around freely like some sort of bionic ninja! To hit distant enemies, Bolo spends Dream Magic to toss a pong-style Spike Ball, which bounces diagonally at high speed. Bolo is definitely the best character!

• Rottytops (Cherami Leigh)

Rotty attacks by removing her zombie leg and using it as a club, dealing massive damage at short range. Her special move is the Head Toss. Rotty can aim her head freely in any direction, and toss it through certain barriers and over or under obstacles. Anywhere her head safely lands, she can reform. By spending Dream Magic, Rottytops can eat a brain to replenish her Hearts! Rottytops is definitely the best character!

The Friends to the End expansion for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero offers a unique power up system, without any sort of menu or inventory. Basically, you can collect Gems to level up your characters, increasing their attack speak and power, but if you get hit by enemies, your power level gros down. Enemies and bosses have been tailored around that, which is why they drop health and Gems.

Here’s various pictures for the expansion:

All this sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? The good news is development is already complete, and the expansion is currently being prepped for submission to the various platform holders (including Nintendo). If everything goes well, the expansion should be available in time for the holidays! If you backed Shantae: Half-Genie Hero on Kickstarter, you will get it for free. If you didn’t, you wll have to pay.

The Friends to the End expansino for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero should be released before the end of the year, in Europe and North America.

Source: WayForward (Kickstarter)