

Used copies were too expensive, and the game was not friendly to emulators, so there were very few options for new fans. Many fans had the opportunity to play games two through four, but only a small group had ever experienced the original.
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Matt: On the WayForward side, fans had been asking us to port or re-release of the original Shantae for many years, ever since the series started gaining popularity. At the time I didn’t know what game they were looking at (I hadn’t signed the NDA yet) but I’ve always wanted to break into the games industry so I jumped at the opportunity and said yes. However, a month or so later I received an email from Joe, the development director at Limited Run Games, specifically mentioning the Diablo video and asked if I’d be interested in building an emulation engine to support older Game Boy and Game Boy Color games for the Nintendo Switch. I wasn’t certain if this would be a problem, as it may have gotten Nintendo’s and/or Activision’s attention, and possibly resulted in some DMCA takedowns. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, but it ended up getting picked up by some media outlets and the port got a ton of attention. MVG: Back in 2019, I released a homebrew port of Diablo for the Nintendo Switch. I was very familiar with MVG already as a fan of his content, and he struck me as the type who would be both skilled enough to pull this off and passionate enough to care about the quality of the end product. The first step was finding a development partner. In general this sort of work was a dream project for me and I was very passionate about finding a way to make it happen.
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Giving our development partners an opportunity to revisit their legacy software is something that was brought up at LRG a handful of times, and when the conversation started to explore options to deliver on this I became very invested. Joe: There’s a lot of interest in retro games and legacy hardware at Limited Run. Why was Shantae ported to the Switch, and how did this collaboration begin? Shantae running on Switch (image courtesy of Modern Vintage Gamer) Here’s what our correspondence over email looked like. We spoke with Joe from Limited Run Games, Dimitris, and and Series Director/Co-creator Matt Bozon from WayForward. We immediately sought out the team that brought the Carbon Engine to life and we were overjoyed that all three parties agreed to this article.

Many of the members in our community have the hope of the games we develop being ported to consoles, and this was proof that it was possible to do so. While many of us might have been satisfied with this release, the team then one upped themselves with yet another shocking announcement – having hired the expertise of Dimitris Giannakis (best known as Modern Vintage Gamer from his YouTube Channel), Shantae would now be available as a port for the Nintendo Switch!Īs you can imagine, this was an extremely exciting announcement for us at GB Studio Central. Collaborating with Limited Run Games, a physical run of the original game was announced allowing many players to be able to own an official copy that runs on original hardware. Many of us only dreamt of being able to play an official copy of Shantae, but last year the team at WayForward surprised us. It later turned into a highly sought after cart, with online auction prices for a complete in box unit exceeding that of a modern console. Developed by WayForward, the game featured amazing graphics and gameplay, but it’s release late into the Game Boy’s life cycle caused it to mostly become a missed gem. Shantae for the Game Boy Color is one of those games.

Enthusiasm for the Game Boy and its games lives long after its release more than 30 years ago, and there are certain games that almost command a mythical lore to them.
