2022 was the 20th anniversary for the Shantae series. I streamed my first playthrough of all games minus the latest one (Seven Sirens). Needless to say, I grew fond of the series for its colorful world, enjoyable characters, catchy music and fun gameplay. Feels like a Zelda + Metroid mashup.

After playing the games, I knew I wanted to make some kind of video to express my love for it. I first thought of making a retrospective or review but there are already a lot of those out there. So I decided to make a music tribute, and the song Dance Through The Danger instantly hooked me when I heard it.

It gave me the opportunity to try out a new tool, namely an AI Software that can remove or isolate certain aspects of a song. In this case, I removed the original vocals as there is no official instrumental version of this song that I can find. Then I did some trickery to remove the original guitar solo. The result is not perfect but it sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it?

Speaking of the guitar solo, that was the main idea at first; just do a cover of the solo and that's it. But as usual, that wasn't enough, I then decided to add another solo section where I could write my own piece and put my spin on it. You can hear my cover of the original solo in the very beginning. Here's a timestamp for my original solo: 2:04

Then I went even further and made a full vocal cover of the entire song. It was really fun and challenging, easily the hardest vocal cover I've done. However, I realized that most sections of the song, specifically 2:44, had too high notes for me to hit properly. It ended up sounding pretty forced. I don't mind it too much, it's not supposed to be a perfect vocal cover, that was just for fun. The real thing I'm proud of is the guitar playing!

I felt it would make for a pretty boring video if it's just a picture and the music. So I tried my best making an animated music video with some fancy effects and transitions. It serves as a look through the generations of Shantae and my experience with them. All footage was recorded and edited by me.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who watched or listened to this cover. It means a lot! Please let me know what you think in the comments or on the Discord server or catch me live over at: twitch.tv/Narokath_
I'll be streaming more Shantae soon enough! Here's a playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF6cLPRsseRENpF0CPqvF3Z3iCeojiO9a