Dancin’ for joy!

With the might of a hundred clasping fists, I raise my hand in the air with absolute jubilee! Last year came news that the original Gameboy Color game Shantae might come to the 3DS virtual console. Wayforward’s Matt Bozon confirmed today via Twitter that the it will be released this summer. “Shantae Virtual Console update: looks like mid June-early July. Will keep you posted!” the tweet reads. This comes as WayForward continues to kick much ass on Nintendo’s handheld, prepping Mighty Switch Force 2 and Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse.

This also comes as the equally expensive Earthbound was announced for the Wii U’s virtual console last week. If you traverse the secondhand market regularly, you’ll see that prices for these games tend to be very high. Shantae here was one of the last GBC games released, becoming rare right from the get-go. The asking price on eBay usually hovers around $200, sometimes even higher. Amazon is no better. Keeping the price up was most likely the lack of any kind of re-release of this game (like Earthbound). There’s also the fact that most emulators can’t handle Shantae, with the only compatible one (that I know of) being rather terrible.

Hopefully this should drop those physical prices down hard, should you decide to go that route. I’ll be playing this on my shiny new 3DS XL!

Shantae hitting 3DS VC sometime around June/July [GoNintendo, via NintendoLife]