I love the shantae franchise but I gotta be honest,this game kinda sucks.
It feels very obvious that the game is rushed/has cut content/or no proper focus.
Such as the boring and repetitive padding with 20 billion items to grab and backtrack for,the basic platformer level structure being so simple/different,and not well thought out items/powers (broken bubble shield,worthless spider venom upgrade,etc)

The game is sorta divided into 9 campaigns for the full experience,most of which are not good/fun.

Main story:pretty bland,story isn't good,things aren't fleshed out,lots of padding. 5/10

Hero Mode:I know its just the same as the above but with half of the transformations unlocked from the start,but its better than the base story because some of that awful padding is lessened,still not great though. 6/10

Pirate queen:You go through basically the same stages as the above again but now with a slightly different character,kinda like pirate's curse moveset but not as fun. Its meh. 5/10

Hardcore mode:same as the first two but now things do way more damage and certain hazards are instant kills (like the whole carpet race part) it helps make the base story less of a pushover but most of the difficulty comes from either the game not being made with this mode in mind from the start and the huge difficulty spike in the first stage because no upgrades but you can buy everything after the first boss lol (or before if you have extreme patience) 5/10

Friends to the end:was about to post the review then I remembered this mode existed lmao.
Similar issues as below modes,same stages and so on.
Levelling system drags it down too.
Could be fun but its not really,unfortunately.
Final gauntlet was the peak. 3/10

Ninja mode:This mode would have been great if your attacks weren't ♥♥♥♥ and you had health higher than like 3 hearts. The barons and final boss single handedly ruin the mode and piss me off.Same stages as the first two modes. 0/10

Beach mode:essentially the same problems as ninja but now you have a crappy timer constantly ticking down until you die,needing to constantly grab arbitrarily floating sunscreen items to survive. Same stages as the first two. 0/10

Officer mode:this mode for some reason is actually enjoyable to me,more than every other mode (even the main story) has the same stages as the first two modes but it has the block changing mechanics from another wayforward game ;). Its fun to quickly go through the stages and swap back and forth quickly as I think on the fly. 8/10

Jammies mode: to put short,another bad mode,similar issues as the other modes. Same bland stages. 0/10

So mode average:3.6/10
(Extra for which it applies to:the levelling gimmick sucks ass and makes the modes more annoying. And having collectibles for the sake of having collectibles is lame,ie the dream squids and equivalents)

The music is amazing as usual for this franchise.

The characters are still the loveable cast we know and enjoy.

The game has its moments,but after completing it,not only do I have no desire to go back anytime soon,but most of the content is bad.

Copy and pasted stages to a degree that even the "dreamcast era" of sonic games don't even touch it in terms of regurgitation.

Getting all achievements is torture,having to do multiple speedruns of every copy pasted mode is maddening. Probably would have taken me longer if I didn't already play this game last decade on switch I think it was.


As an extra note.
No I didn't take into account this was originally a kickstarted game. I didn't even know this game existed till after it already came out,so none of it matters to me for my perspective.
You could argue some of this game's issues can be excused because of the above fact but I disagree and don't care personally.

Tldr:game has more downsides than upsides. Could be better if you ignore ever completing the game and only play Hero mode,Officer Mode,and maybe Pirate queen quest.

(i decided wait to 100% this game before posting this review and writing my thoughts on a notepad as i progress, and the lyrics truly did not lie when they said "they saaay we live in the daaarkness...".) (post 100% note: this notepad was FULL of yappery, so i deleted most of it to include only the "main" points.)

fellas, have you ever had that problem where you had a monster girl transformation kink but all rule 34 artists made the sequence either grotesque & disgusting, "permanent", or unnecessarily hypnotized, causing "identity death"?

well, fear not! Shantae is here to grant all your (my) wildest transformation dreams with a simple belly dance!

harpy, drider, mermaid, even dryad! no lamia though :( (but there is one lamia NPC AWOOGA. 10/10) (when looking back at this? it ain't a lot, 5/10, Shantae, should've gotten a batgal transformation).



TL:DR: if you yearn for fun, the main game and pirate queen's quest DLC alone are the only good parts about this whole package. the other gamemodes encourage self-harm if you're trying for 100% achievements.



PROS:
music. (have to put this first because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! for such a small game, it seems half the budget went into the music.)

metroidvania (main game and pirate queen's quest only UNFORTUNATELY).

transformations (main game only).

human women and monster women alike being sexy (DLCs provided scorpion gals and batgals, thanks wayforward).

concept art gallery (main game only).

beautiful graphics that don't eat your computer's memory.

hardcore mode. (main game only).

some good DLCs.
pirate queen's quest (played 3rd): the actual qualifier for "DLC", and is the most enjoyable out of them (mostly because of the fact that this DLC retains the food mechanics from the main game and the metroidvania gameplay, UNLIKE EVERY OTHER DLC).
officer mode (played 5th): passable only because it enforces platforming instead of giving you tools to bypass them, still miserable with only 3 hearts and the stupid gem leveling system.



CONS:
the main game only has 5 levels + very annoying final boss level that are going to appear VERY often if you attempt to get all achievements.

some useless powers & relics (main game only). (stuff like the bat transformation's echolocation that is used once only once is poorly thought out, and the drider's and the mouse's attack relics that feel unnecessary, as well as the flamethrower power which looks cool, but you'd be at the point where a single normal attack out-damages this thing.)

some borderline miserable DLCs.
(note: all DLCs aside from pirate queen's quest have this garbage gem leveling mechanic that means if you're max level and you get hit once, you get leveled down and have to collect gems again, plus, those modes give you only 3 hearts, skyrocketing the difficulty for no reason, which is why i found most of them unenjoyable.)
friends to the end (played 1st): kaizo difficulty for a seemingly innocent-looking DLC.
beach mode (played 2nd): play as a vampire cosplaying as Shantae (this DLC has the worst mechanic in which you need to collect sunscreens, or else you get burnt alive, and the funny thing is: there is a nighttime-themed level, and this mechanic is still used).
ninja mode (played 4th): play as a poorly playtested ninja power up.

one-off characters. (giga mermaid and holly could've been and deserved better, but only appeared in one stage and never seen again. could've been DLCs about them but naaah... "lets make Shantae wear a ninja suit and a swimsuit and have her replay the same levels. that will help with our worldbuilding." said a cheeky wayforward employee.)

Gameplay : Monkey
Graphics : Cute Half-Genie Monkey
Music : Eargasm
Plot : Infinite Power
Audience : Teens+ ?
Bugs : Not a lot it's not Hollow Knight, but crabs and mermaids for sure
Performance : Can you open Undertale ?

On a serious note, this ultimate edition doesn't have card drops on Steam, but for the price I'd say it's worth it. You can just buy the cards instead.
You get to play with a blue chroma, a 1st game color palet risky, ninja, bikini, galaxy cop and even invite friends to a slumber party.
(I never bought the normal edition I don't know what you get from this in bonus)