It is ok
Growing up in the 90's and early 2000's I was looking forward to see much better graphics and improvements over what we had back in those days. Some people feel nostalgia for that era, and like games done in pixel art form. Personally, I am not one of them. I think this game would benefit from having hand-drawn art style, like Streets Of Rage 4. In the cutscenes where dialogue between characters takes place, there is character portrayal done in hand drawn artsyle, as well as the entire user interface. It is such a stark contrast to see these two collide in a game. They should have gone for the same style for the rest of the game. Now, regarding the gameplay. It is ok. It reminds me of Metal Slug and Jazz Jackrabbit 2, which are some of my favourite PC games of all time. This is a solid Platformer game, but I don't think that the complexity introduced in this game fits the genre well. The inventory system, backtracking, talking to various NPCs to obtain certain items, in order to make progress through the game, which can be seen in Action, Adventure and RPG games, it simply is not good for Platformer games. I am not into this Shantae thing, you know, whipping enemies with purple hair and all. It might be good for kids nowadays, or girls, or some anime perverts. I say anime perverts, because the female characters are portrayed in cartoonish 2D style, with a dose of mild eroticism. It is a good game, but nothing that I would recommend.