Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut

Shantae: Risky's Revenge is a solid game. Inoffensive gameplay and a light challenge paired with pleasing retro art and music blend to create a thoroughly pleasing experience. The game isn't particularly innovative or surprising, but at the end of the day, it's good fun. Given that this is a slow period for new releases, you could do much worse than shaking your booty to this.

All told, Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut is a solid update to the DSiWare classic. While there may not necessarily be enough here to justify a double dip for those of you that picked it up the first time around, there's never been a better way to experience this game. For those of you that have never played it, we'd give this game a strong recommendation; it's creative, clever, and colourful. This is a retro action game you won't want to miss out on.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge: Director's Cut could have used some help with its map system, but literally everything else is spot-on. Much like Shovel Knight and Mighty No.

Shantae: Risky’s Revenge clearly isn’t as featured-filled, polished, or exciting as its more modern counterparts, but it’s still well worth your time if you’re curious about the wonderful history of the Shantae franchise, or if you’re just a fan of 2D platformers in general. Why did this specific version need to have a brand new PlayStation 5 build is beyond me, as there is very little in here that justifies it being a “next-gen” game, but that doesn’t affect its overall quality.

I can understand that Shantae: Risky’s Revenge Director’s Cut is an upgrade of a nearly 20-year-old game, but if you play this after Shantae and the Seven Sirens, you’ll have a hard time enjoying this one. While the platforming is quite solid, the rest feels archaic; especially navigation which is can be confusing at times and frustrating as you waste time going around in circles. A must-play for those looking for a true-to-form old experience; otherwise, this is a pass.

Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut. It was a fun little Metroidvania-style adventure that took me the majority of 10 hours to complete. I collected all of the Magic Jams and got all of the abilities and perks from the shop. I had a lot of fun with the game, and it still holds up pretty well by today’s standards for the most part. The biggest flaw is probably just that it could use a better map system. You can download a copy from the Nintendo Switch eShop for $9.99. Can you put a stop to Risky Boots’ evil plot in order to save Sequin Land, Scuttle Town, and your uncle?

Part culmination of old-school classics, part a simplistic form of them all, Shantae: Risky's Revenge is not exactly the best title in WayForward's, otherwise charming, line of platformers. If a fan of Shantae do check it out, but you won't miss much by skipping it, and simply trying any other instalment - 2002 original included.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut brings back an old school and very challenging platformer, improving it with a new hi-res presentation layer. Other than this it doesn't change or improve the original game, but it remains a suggested buy for all lovers of the saga and action-platformers in general.

Shantae Risky's Revenge is a fun, challenging adventure. Filled with difficult boss battles, tons of tricky puzzles, and all kinds of magic spells to learn. While it may be a little outdated, Risky's Revenge will always be fun to play.

Risky’s Revenge is a traditional Shantae experience, on a smaller scale. This is indeed a fun metroidvania with all the humour and charm of the latest Shantae games, a well-built world, and a unique cast. However, it’s difficult to forget we’re face to face with an old game, as compared to later entries Risky’s Revenge features less variety, an annoyingly simplistic map system and, of course, the several small improvements that WayForward made to the series with this game’s successors.