What’s In the Box: Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero Ultimate Day One Edition

Having missed out on the Limited Run releases of the last two Shantae games, I was damned if I was going to miss out on this one, particularly as it looked like actually rather a nice edition.

And what do you know? It is! It was also no more expensive than buying a “normal” game, which is always nice, particularly as the only thing it’s lacking when compared to something like the Gal*Gun 2 or Cyberdimension Neptunia limited edition is a “big extra” like a plushie or something. I can live without that… although I won’t lie, a plush Shantae to cuddle is fairly appealing in its own right…

Uh, anyway. Here’s what you get in that mouthful of qualifiers for this (presumably) limited edition of Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero’s “everything in one box” rerelease, which will be part of June’s Cover Game celebrations here on MoeGamer.

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So here’s the box itself. It’s quite a nice box, although the outer sleeve is just the usual fairly thin cardboard, a bit too easy to crease or squash for my liking, particularly when opening it for the first time. It’s nice and glossy, though.

The Switch version you see here stands a little taller than a standalone Switch case, so for those more anal about shelf composition than me (and I’m pretty anal about it) you may wish to bear this in mind when choosing how to store and display it.

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The back of the box promises Shantae’s greatest adventure ever in four different languages. Germany doesn’t appear to get any love this time around, but then they’ve been kind of rubbish with regard to PQube’s releases recently, so it serves them damn right. Not that Shantae has anything offensive in it whatsoever (you’ll notice that despite our heroine’s boobylicious nature, there is no “Sex” content descriptor by the PEGI rating) but… eh. I’m not sure where I’m going with that.

Bad luck Germany, I guess, not that I imagine you care all that much, given that any time I’ve attempted to speak German to a German they’ve always responded in English.

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And here’s the complete contents of the box. As you can see, it’s a relatively simple lineup of goodies, consisting of the game itself, a softback artbook and a soundtrack CD.

img_20180429_153123-5829794The CD is just in a cardboard sleeve rather than a jewel case, which is a bit of a shame, but if you keep it in the main box rather than elsewhere that won’t be much of an issue. Plus if you’re anything like me you’ll just rip it and listen to it digitally anyway, so the CD ends up being just a nice collectible.

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Here’s the disc art, highlighting the fact it’s from the “Ultimate Edition” rather than any other source, and sporting the “Risky Beats” album name, as well as a rather fetching picture of Shantae herself. Isn’t she lovely? Yes, yes she is.

img_20180429_153251-9057687-scaled-6627931This doesn’t show up great on camera, but the back cover of the artbook is adorned by a bunch of these adorable little sketches of Shantae doing all manner of different things. (No, not dirty things, you filthbucket, get your mind out of the gutter.)

I wasn’t originally sold on Shantae’s slight redesign for this game when I first saw it, but it’s grown on me a great deal. She’s packed full of personality, which is exactly what she should be!

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The book contains a number of sections, including in-game artwork, large colour illustrations and concept art/sketches. The “Illustrations” section on page 94 is a bit feeble, however, consisting of nothing more than two variants of the main cover art. Still, the rest of the book makes up for this underwhelming conclusion.

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One nice little touch is that the corner of each page features a little flick-book animation of Shantae shakin’ her hips like she does so well. So if you need a dose of belly-dancing on the go and do not have access to some sort of device that will display a GIF… well, now you have it.

img_20180429_153416-4014750-scaled-6864890Look at her. Look at her. She’s so lovely. I love her. Look at that wink. And everything about this picture. She even has a stripy bikini just to keep the shimapan fans happy.

img_20180429_153439-4354292-scaled-5476251Of course, Shantae looks great whatever she’s wearing, and the artbook emphasises this point — as well as reminds us that the “Ultimate Edition” of 1/2 Genie Hero features all the game’s DLC to date, which includes a number of new costumes accompanied by corresponding gameplay tweaks.

img_20180429_153507-9967546-scaled-9829612Of course, Shantae herself isn’t the only fine-looking lady in the series; Risky Boots has her fans, too, and it’s not difficult to understand why.

img_20180429_153545-9889418-scaled-3550891My podcasting co-host Chris Caskie is also madly in love with Rottytops, so here is some Rottytops. Sadly, she doesn’t get a big illustration like Shantae and Risky Boots do, but there’s still plenty of putrefying goodness to enjoy here.

img_20180429_153707-7986557-scaled-8132465Once you’re past ogling the beautiful ladies of the series, there’s a bunch of art depicting the various locales, initially in summary form before moving on to more detailed explorations featuring sketches, in-game backgrounds and related artwork.

img_20180429_153726-1689667-scaled-3419517The book closes with some more pencil sketches of Shantae doing all manner of things, including some bust (stop it) shots as well as sprite poses.

img_20180429_153751-6522272-scaled-2967466And here’s one of the two illustrations from the slightly feeble “Illustrations” section of the book. Sure, it’s nice to have a clean version of the cover art, but it would have been cool to see some more large images of the characters.

img_20180429_154018-6093804-6015658The actual game case is a little disappointing, too; Switch cases are transparent, so it’s an ideal opportunity for companies to include either reversible cover art or just some cool art inside. So far, it only seems to be first-party Nintendo titles that bother with this — Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has a particularly nice one. Missed opportunity for a nice inside-pack shot of, say, that “Shantae in a bikini” image from the artbook. For example.

Anyway, it’s a pretty nice edition all round — and it’s nice to have a physical edition of a Shantae game that doesn’t cost three figures… at the moment, anyway. You bet your life I’m hanging on to this!


More about Shantae

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6 thoughts on “What’s In the Box: Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero Ultimate Day One Edition”

  1. A lovely edition. I’d love to have that artbook.
    I can’t afford a copy at the moment, due to a deluge of other Switch games on my docket for May (Hyrule Warriors d.e., Battle Chasers Nightwar, & Owlboy) that I don’t already own physically on other platforms – but I’m sure I’ll get a chance to snag a copy later down the line, since it’s not a special pressing or anything. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the actual game.

  2. That is a nice special edition, especially at regular game price. I prefer the “art book+soundtrack” style affairs over the “have a massive dust collector of a statue and a box you’ll need to find a place for” monstrosities any day.

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