I couldn't afford a computer but I did spent time on the high school's teachesr computer to finding informaiton online. During my break I wanted to play genie game and Trendmaster's I dream of jeannie was one of them. (huge fan)
I know not many are aware of this but back in the 90's we had a search engine that dominated platforms, yahoo, msnsearch, infoseek.. They are great but nothing beats askjeeves as they changed the way the websearches was made. Every search results is always a what, who and a where. It was difficult for me to write the proper words from "Where can I find" to "is there any".
So within those results it mention wayforward and the tag "genie" was in that line, so I checked the site and was amazed by how the game looked. I was certain this was going to be a pc game but was told it was meant for the playstation console instead. So I contact voldi and matt bozon and drew some fanart for them to give them my support. Granted my work wasn't amazing, At least i wanted to show them how much I am looking forward to playing this game.
Then came Altavista, a much more better version to find information regarding about shantae but it lead me to no where. Yahoo never mentions shantae, not even msnsearch, nor info seek. The closet i got was Eden from aladdin and I dream of jeannie, That was it!
Then came the Nintendo power Magazine issue - 154 (march 2001), the one most of you talked about. it is the ONLY earliest advertisement People knew about Shantae. Only a handful knew about this games existance because of this advert.
Soon I graduated and began to preorder the game at eb-games, Depostied $5 and began to wait..Soon i was checking magazines and saw the reviews...
Then came the reviews::
GamePro Issue 163 (April 2002)_0066
Game Informer Issue 109 ( May 2002)
Nintendo Power Issue 157 page 14 (June 2002)
I finally Got my very first copy of shantae and gameboy advance... Played the game, enjoyed it, check gamefaqs, saw people needed help so I made a firefly guide and heart container guide.
matt had his first interview but i wans't sure if it was from that website..but this was the closest i can find that he mention to me about on the email!
I Also got a response from matt and said he released a brand new website. I checked it out, the website had more artists to support him. The biggest one is obviously: Andrew dickman. Nice fellow but we all know what he is heavily known for : His megaman animated shorts and his amazing Rockman neo's animation. (The song that inspired alvin's Controversial SMBZ animation)
He and his wife also started to sell their very first merchandise. I didn't had money back then but my only purchase was the Shirt and the tote bag. Worth every penny even though the quality was okay-ish.
International reviews came but it was that difficult to find out about this game::
Nintendo World - Número 47 - (July 2002)
Matt updated the website so now geniegirl(dot)com was released and shantae(dot)com was made. Either way it redirect to shantae(dot)com regardless..
more intternioal news made headlines::
Club Nintendo Año 12 Nº 05 (México)_0018 (May 2003)
And then came 2004...
I went to see a relative in chihuahua mexico, and I had my games and console on my Travelours pouch ( Fanny pack). Then something happened, The zipper was open and I lost it all.
Gameboy advance artdeco Gold
Pokemon Crystal
and of course..
Shantae
I never forgive myself from that day.
As I went back in hopes the stores has another copy, I found out that all the copies sold out and decided to focus on the newer games.
I was heartbroken and crushed. There was a guy who cheered me up and gave me a blank Toys' R Us Ticket, printed the barcode and all...
it wasn't the same but it was a reminder that There are second chances when oppurtunity comes.
I am sharing this experience to you all to show you how difficult it was to finding information about Shantae's GBC era. This is literally the complete segment from that year as things got much worse for the shantae franchise. I know Alex is another person who I finally met and wanted to thank him for sharing his collection he has.
How bad was it?
Capcom doesn't want to produce another shantae again...and we already know the reason why!
wanting to thank Gameboyclub and Sethweber for the Magazine scans.
Becuase of those two, I unlocked pandoras box and found ALOT more Magazine scans you guys never seen before!
-End of part 1 -