Half Genie Hero deviates from the usual metroidvania formular that the previous titles (and the following title Seven Sirens) use.
Half Genie Hero is more like a level-based action platformer. However you do go back to previous levels with new powers, unlocking further powers or obtaining items to proceed story.

The game is quite short. It took me ~5.5 hours of ingame time to complete the game with 90% of items collected. I guess if you want to 100% the game, it'll probably last ~7 hours. If you want to go for all achievements, you'll have to replay the game at least twice (likely 3 times), giving you a good few hours more.

The game is definitely on the easier side, but the Shantae games never aimed for a high difficulty anyway.
Shantae's wiggle when crouching looks even more cute with the new art style 11/10.

Aside from the quite small main menu text, the game plays flawlessly on Steam Deck.

its a cute game but the flappy bird like level in the main story is stupid and annoyiing and idk if ill ever finish this game cus of that but its still good and worth it if you think you wont get too angry about the flappy bird spikes level

Many people highly regard these games and I've heard some say this is their favorite Shantae. Gamplay is alright I guess, but falls short to other platformers.

For the story, I didn't know what to expect but it immediately failed to grab my attention in any way and was entirely forgettable. The best part about this is the art and music, but that's where the praises end.

Would.