Shantae 2: Risky Revolution Demo

This is a sub-page of Proto:Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution.

Text ChangesWow, this game really likes to play with the fact that it's a demo!

Debugging Content#

Debug Menu#

Pressing Start + Select will send you to a debug menu from which you can choose the demo's stages or screens. It also uses odd level names.

The top selection, DOOR, allows the user to press A or B to increase/decrease the ID for which specific entry/exit Shantae will be at. Mostly suited for the Bramble Maze, but it works with every selectable stage (with varying results).

Debug Features#

Free Movement Mode#

• Holding A and then pressing R will allow the player to move anywhere in the level without worrying about collisions. Shantae can also collect gems in this state. The player will also fully recover health, as well as unlock everything in the pause menu. Pressing R again will return gameplay to normal.

Pause Menu Inventory#

• Pressing R on any item slot in the pause menu will cause its number to increase while L will cause it to decrease. Also works when highlighting dances.

Gameplay Differences#

Shantae#

• Shantae uses her default idle animation even when she's at full health.
• The R button has to be held to make the player run (B button when on diving platforms).
• Shantae only dances when the Select button is pressed. To make her stop dancing, press the Select button again.
  • The player can't magnetize nearby item drops when dancing.
  • Rather than doing one dance per button hold, she cycles through all of them.
• Interacting with signs and NPCs is a bit more finnicky.
• The player can drop down from all semi-solid platforms.
• There is no cap to how many gems the player can hold.

Transformations#

• The buttons to press for each dance transformation were swapped around;

• Although the Elephant is listed as one of the available dance transformations, it cannot be enabled during gameplay. The graphics for it don't even exist here.
• The Monkey Vision isn't in this build.
  • The Monkey doesn't have a floatier jump.
• The Crab runs faster when holding the B button! For whatever reason, this was removed in the final game, save for its walking animation increasing.
  • Holding down doesn't yet make the Crab descend faster underwater.
• The Spider is incapable of climbing on most walls, with the exception of one spot in Orc Orchard, and in "Forest".

General Differences#

Splash Screen and Menus#

WayForward Logo#

Proto	Final

• The WayForward logo splash screen featured their old logo. The final game replaces it with their current logo.

Title Screen#

Proto	No sprites	Final

• The title screen is completely different; Shantae is present on the title screen, and the logo graphics are very similar to the first game. Also, a small text saying Demo V1.0 is written below the game title.
• The title screen refers to the game as Shantae 2. This was likely an old working title, as it was already being called Shantae Advance at this time, both elsewhere in the build and even during development limbo.
• The menu has a much thicker font, and the cursor is completely different.
• The copyright was much longer and includes a shoutout to shantae.com. This was simplified to just one line and one year for the final game.
• As explained in the livestream, the additional wheels was the last thing done on the game before being put on the backburner; Their presence purely being to see what would be the right amount of wibble-wobble.

Controls Screen#

• When starting the demo build's story mode, this dedicated screen for the controls is shown.
  • The transformations for the Spider, Crab and Mermaid are unlisted.

Pause Menu#

Proto	Final

• In the background, Shantae is depicted in an older artstyle, much like elsewhere in the demo.
• Heart Holders and Quiver Crystals are given separate counters. The final game instead groups them and other items of importance together in a single "Key Items" section.
  • No Quiver Crystals appear in the final game. Going by the fact it mentions that there are fifty of them, it's likely they were replaced with Secret Squids when development resumed.
• Magic Items were simply referred to as Items.
• Dance List was the only category to have a colon (:) attached to it.
• No text appears when an empty slot is highlighted in the demo. The final game adds text that reads "You don't have this magic item/dance yet!" in such the case.

Battle Mode#

Proto	Final

• Sky's introductory speech is absent.
• The demo makes clear references to the Game Boy Advance and its Game Link Cable accessory. As the game was eventually distributed on GBA without any direct involvement from Nintendo, these trademarked names were excluded.
  • Also note that "cables" is slightly elevated from the rest of the text in the final game.

Proto	Final

• Risky Boots is also depicted with an old artstyle.

Levels#

Introbay/Shantae's House#

Proto	Final

• The layout is doubled in size to accommodate the new switch gimmick.
• The ledge underneath the lighthouse was originally a dive platform.
• The various ledges on the left wall were made uneven.
• Though not seen here, the mechanical bird on top of the lighthouse has a broken palette in the demo.
• You collected a War Bird egg here originally, instead of Uncle Mimic's toolbox.

Island01/Orc Orchard#

Proto	Final

• The level was extended lower to allow for secrets tied to the crab and mermaid.
• several small adjustments were made to the hills in the 2nd layer, however this introduced a softlock where the player can press the switch and jump over the far right wall to get completely stuck, unless they have the monkey dance or exit candies.
• 2 trees were removed from the start, and the leaves running along the upper edge were all made uniform.
• The demo obviously doesn't have caves or a crypt.
• the roots on the Bramble Maze entrance were removed as an attempt to make the palette look more consistent... instead of just making the whole entrance use the layer 2 palette.
• Several holes in layer 1 were made larger so layer 2 is more visible.

Lab01/Bramble Maze#

Proto	Final

• The most obvious change is the color. In the final game, this yellow palette was instead used for the Labyrinth in Naga Cliffs, giving them a green, yellow, red order, like a stoplight.
• All three Spanky Joe minibosses and face puzzles have been removed, with them finding homes elsewhere, respectively in the crypts and in Naga Cliff's labyrinth. Instead, the final has enemy gauntlets.
• Most of the longer platforming corridors have been shortened, removed, or moved to the other labyrinths.
• The Boss room does not exist yet. It is likely there wasn't one designed at this point.
• Overall, difficulty has been significantly nerfed.
• Interestingly, a layer exists for Monkey Vision, along with the sprite mask at the beginning of the graphics data. However, there is no way to activate it here.

It can be seen working in one of several screenshots posted on Matt Bozon's Website in 2004. According to Matt, this feature was purposefully broken when the wagon wheels on the title screen were added.

Backgrounds#

Proto	Final

• The background for the "Introbay" area had its farthest layer of clouds redrawn.

Proto	Hamelin no Violin Hiki	Final

• The background for Orc Orchard was originally an edit of a background from Hamelin no Violin Hiki. It was replaced with a completely new background.

To do: Perhaps replace the screenshot with a graphic rip.

Sprite Differences#

Bolo#

Proto	Final

Bolo's hair is much simpler compared to the final version. Also, his shirt has no animation and his bandana has some different frames.

Sky#

Proto	Final

Sky was completely redrawn for the final game. Wrench isn't perched on her arm, since that's who Hatchet was intended to be in this demo. The sprites from the demo are still in her .anm file, but they go unused outside of when she is riding hatchet.

Features Screen#

After inserting the wingnut and riding the elevator, the player will be greeted with this screen, rather than a fight against MishMash. It details many things that the game would've had if it was picked up for completion back in the day, along with a phone number for contact, would a publisher have been interested.

In comparison, the final game only features;

• 4 chapters of gameplay
• 6 towns
• 3 islands
• 3 labyrinths (and 3 crypts)
• 8 boss battles (11 counting separate phases)
• No minigames
• At least 5 hours of gameplay
• It still has the 4 player single pak battle though.

Dance#

Selecting this option in the debug menu brings up this single-screen mockup, for what presumably would've been one of the six planned minigames. Everything is baked into a single map layer. Not much else to say about it.