Shantae/YMMV

""My Mom dressed up as the Pirate Lady for Dad. But I'm not allowed to talk of such things.""
 * Base-Breaking Character: Is Holly Lingerbean an interesting idea for a rival character that deserved a bigger role, or a forgettable, inconsequential waste of space that has little relevance to Half-Genie Hero's plot?
 * Breather Boss:
 * Risky's Oceanic Tinker Tub is fought twice in Risky's Revenge, and while it is a bit tougher in the second bout, it has nothing on how much stronger Shantae is.
 * Steel Maggot in Pirate's Curse. Its only attacks are to either walk into you, or to shoot a spread of projectiles if you shoot the wrong button on its back, both of which are easily dodged. It's a "guess the sequence" type of fight, but there are only three buttons to shoot and the sequence never uses repeat buttons, so you really have nothing to fear.
 * The Wheel Beast in the first game. It's damaged by hitting switches on the wall in spider form to drop it into pits. Not only is it very easy to bait the Beast into falling into a pit, wall-crawling keeps you free from damage with no consequence.
 * Wilbur is a relatively simple puzzle boss at the end of Tassel Town, coming hot off the heels of a rough chase up the Tassel Tower and the player's first real experience with platforming over bottomless pits.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: which you can listen to right here for free, courtesy of Shantae's composer Jake "virt" Kaufman.
 * Generally, any game with a Virt soundtrack is guaranteed about nine separate instances of this trope.
 * Special mention should go to "Burning Town". Like others, it came back in Risky's Revenge, but the remix (available at the composer's site) takes it Up to Eleven, dipping into the GBC version at times just for extra impact.
 * Through the Trees combines this with one of the lushest, most visually stunning levels in the game.
 * Cult Classic: The first game bombed on release and the sequel spent years in Development Hell because publishers didn't want anything from WayForward that wasn't a licensed game or a casual downloadable title, but still manages to have a sizable fanbase most other smaller games could only dream of, to the point that it was successfully crowd-funded to become one of the sleeper hits of 2016.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Everyone seems to love Rottytops.
 * Even Better Sequel:
 * While Shantae 1 and 2 (Risky's Revenge) were definitely well-received games, Shantae 3(Pirate's Curse) was where Wayforward was allowed to really cut loose and do whatever they want with improved technology included, and the results show.
 * Half-Genie Hero, while not quite as universally loved as Pirate's Curse, is also quite well-liked and considered an improvement in several aspects.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Risky Boots. In-Universe an NPC boy comments.

""When I was a little boy with a full beard...""
 * Foe Yay:
 * Invoked between Shantae and Risky. The opening scene of Pirate's Curse alone, with the bathtub, seems to indicate Risky has an interest in Shantae. Shantae, on the other hand, keeps trying to turn Risky to her side. While such personal level interest is part of the genre, Shantae and Risky seem to cross the line. Especially as Risky's very plan in Pirate's Curse seems to hinge on Shantae being Shantae. Indeed, the ending of Risky's Revenge seems to play with the concept. Risky is talking about stripping Shantae of her powers, but with the line break being where it is, it becomes "Strip you(line break)of your powers." That has to be intentional, since there is more than enough room to put the line break anywhere else.
 * While barely anything of the sort occurs between Shantae and Risky in the story of Half-Genie Hero, the very first two pictures in the first Fan Art room of the art gallery features the two of them and are quite shippy.
 * Game Breaker: Fighting the final boss as plain ol' Shantae? A nightmare..
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
 * The game has a not-insignificant Japanese fanbase despite never officially being released there. The combination of Animesque-Kawaii-Fan Service-Metroidvania likely has something to do with it.
 * And then there's this piece of fanart, released in hopes of encouraging WayForward to get hopping on the worldwide release of Risky's Revenge.
 * Goddamned Boss: Dagron in Pirate's Curse has a really simple pattern: you use a dash attack on the switches to drop platforms, and you jump on the platforms to hit Dagron in the face. Unfortunately, Dagron's hitbox lurches back and forth so much that the "jumping" part of that sentence is liable to get you hit and knocked back.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight:
 * In Half-Genie Hero, Ikki the Chest Monster is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Nikki, the cute host of Nintendo's discontinued Swap Note application. However, since then Nintendo has released a new version of the app called Swapdoodle, in which Nikki is back as the host; in other words, Nikki/Ikki lives again!
 * It's Short, So It Sucks: The main criticism toward Risky's Revenge. The map is quite small and there are only two dungeons. Half-Genie Hero also got such complaints, as well as being too easy.
 * It's the Same, Now It Sucks: The biggest complaint about Pirate Queen's Quest in Half-Genie Hero is that it's a barely modified version of the base game, just with Risky at the forefront.
 * Moe: Cited by Destructoid in their review of Risky's Revenge: your first instinct on seeing the female main cast is probably not so much "Whoa, that's hot" as "Aww, that's cute".
 * That doesn't stop the fanbase's artistic views, however.
 * Needs More Love
 * One-Scene Wonder: Tuki, the "sneaky, snakey seller of magical secrets" is a naga merchant that Shantae can find at certain areas of the game, designed by a fan backer. Despite appearing only briefly in the fourth game, depictions in fan art and fanfiction expand her role greatly (Snakes Are Sexy, after all).
 * Sophomore Slump: Risky's Revenge has better controls, better difficulty curve, and superb graphics, but barely half as much actual content as the first game. Pirate's Curse manages to avoid the content issue while still having better gameplay and graphics than its predecessor, to the point that players and even reviewers are calling it one of the best games on the Nintendo eShop.
 * Squick:
 * Rottytops, a (cute) female zombie, manages to break into a ruin -- in order to allow Shantae access -- by temporarily removing her left shin and jimmying the lock with her tibia. Still cute, but rather disturbing.
 * In a conversation with Bolo (had while you are searching for the Zombie Caravan), he asks you to tell him if you meet any cute zombie girls. That's right, Bolo is a not-so-closeted necrophile.
 * Considering Rottytops, being that sort of 'necrophile' in the Shantae 'verse is entirely understandable
 * How Uncle Mimic explains how he prevented triggering a pressure trap: by switching the treasure with the contents of his bowels.
 * One of the fishermen:


 * That One Achievement: The "Run, Run, Rottytops!" segment in Pirate's Curse may take some trial and error but isn't overly infuriating... unless you want a trophy in the console and Steam ports by clearing the entire thing without taking a single hit!
 * That One Attack: Pirate's Curse's final boss can launch a row of gigantic bouncing cannonballs. There's almost no room for error in dodging the damn things since they have faster gravity than everything else in the entire series.
 * That One Level: The entire overworld is harder than most dungeons!
 * Tough Act to Follow: With the overwhelmingly positive acclaim of Pirate's Curse as the best game in the series, Half-Genie Hero had an uphill battle, nevermind being one of the most indie titles on Kickstarter. While general opinion is that it's a good game with many fun moments, the storyline is disjointed and lacks the consistency of Curse. It also shows why having too many good ideas can be a downside, as one of the biggest gripes is Holly's minimal screentime and a rushed endgame with Risky. The DLC characters may very well fix at least some of these complaints.
 * What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: Part of the game's commercial failure is sometimes attributed to this. The art and story are cute and comical, and there's a definite hint of Girls Need Role Models behind the mostly-female, all ass-kicking cast. But the crap gone past the radar, the difficulty during the later stages, and the sheer sexiness of the cast seems a bit odd.