I quite enjoyed this game when all was said and done.
+ Graphics were fantastic, love the hi-res fully animated sprites even if they are "flash" style
+ Music was great as it always is , the transition to higher quality samples didn't diminish the charm for me one bit
+ controls were still on point as they've always been.
+ The megaman style structure actually worked quite well for me , made the game flow a bit faster compared to metroid style
+ Magic system replacing item system , it's just better having spells that you upgrade, makes them more likely to get used
- Finishing the game with an auto-scrolling level was a very very bad idea. If I've beaten the final boss , I don't want to have a frustrating section closing out a game, especially one that lacks checkpoints. It really kills the mood going from "yeah, I beat the game" to "oh wait ... there's this annoying shitty stage to suck the life out of me and kill the afterglow of beating the final boss by dying 35 times 80% of the way through". Put stuff like this in the middle of the game , not at the very end.
- The only weak boss fight design gets used 3 times
- The game is too easy to break , I suppose you could choose not to make yourself OP by the end but why would you do that ? You have access to unlimited magic if you complete a certain task and unlimited magic also means unlimited money which means you can max out your spells easily which means you gain access to a shield that makes you impervious to all damage.
+ That said, the final level forces you to use a lot of transformations that you can't activate that spell for so it ends up still being challenging at a couple points at least ... although you can also give yourself unlimited health through 2 separate means so it's not as though you'd actually get a game over
- Finally, this is more of an issue with how big this game was clearly intended to be - the base funding amount back in 2013 looks to have included only Scuttle Town, Mermaid Falls , Hypno Barons Castle and I'm guessing what became the final stage. The stretch goals were - Rival genie Chapter, Magic Carpet Races Chapter (both funded) , Nega-Shantae chapter and finally what looks like an epilogue chapter with Risky Boots. Following the megman lead rather than wonder boy - each stage is set up to have a transformation and I can imagine the basic intent was to have the transformation from stage 1 be required in stage 2 and so on. Given that a couple levels were cut due to funding goals not being achieved though ... coupled with all the intended transformations making it in anyway , you end up with a game that has a dozen forms but only a use for half of them. I mean, I've put this in the minus category but it's more of a frustration that Shantae didn't make enough crowd funding cash to be "finished" in the way it looks to have been planned.
On the flipside though ! in much the same way that Pirates Curse feels like the other half of Risky's Revenge - I'm hoping that Wayforward plans a sequel to 1/2 Genie hero that makes use of those 2 cut stage ideas , turning them into a bigger title. WF could probably pull off a full blown metroid style game - 1 big dungeon with various items / bosses/ transformations and possibly even the ability to play as Risky OR shantae throughout the entire thing.
Overall I enjoyed 1/2 genie hero quite a bit , I'd say it's just behind Pirates Curse but had it been fully funded I feel it would have been the greatest one. One thing is for sure - I wish I'd spent 0$ on mighty number 9 and put it all on this instead. This game is 10 times better than MN9 could ever hope to be.