YMMV / WayForward Technologies

• And You Thought It Would Fail: When they released the first Shantae game in 2002 many people dismissed it in large part due to it being released on by then outdated hardware and having a largely female cast in a time when this wasn't common for a western-made platformer. And while it certainly took some time, after a sequel was released in 2010 its popularity has been growing ever since.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The late 2010s saw their output of new home console games, both licensed and original, being severely reduced in favor of mobile games and porting the previous Shantae and Mighty games to various consoles, even their Goosebumps game of all things got a port, though it did get better in 2019 with the release of River City Girls and the first part of Shantae and the Seven Sirens.
• Awesome Art: From their first games for the Game Boy Color they immediately set their mark for having some of the most detailed and fluid pixel art on the system which then carried over to their Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS titles. And then they started to work with hand-drawn animation...
• Awesome Music: One thing that's consistent across most of their titles is that their soundtracks are usually very good, the fact that Jake Kaufman has been involved in almost a third of them certainly helps.
• Cult Classic: The Shantae and Mighty series in their entirety. Also some licensed games like Wendy: Every Witch Way and Aliens: Infestation.
• Growing the Beard: The quality of their output generally improved in the late 2000s - early 2010s as they started to work on home console games, their licensed titles became more lavishly made, they started to make more original games like the Mighty series and resurrected the Shantae series.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A very recurrent complain about their games is they tend to last between 3 to 5 hours max not counting 100% Completion
• Just Here for Godzilla: If you ask someone why they would consider them one of their favorite companies, chances are they will say it's only for Shantae, maybe Mighty Switch Force if you're lucky.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: They've earned a positive reputation for developing licensed games that are genuinely fun, and not carelessly mishandled for the sake of profit.
• Periphery Demographic: Some of their licensed titles tend to be brought to the attention of retro gamers for incorporating certain elements from or being directly inspired by various 8 and 16-bit games.
• So Okay, It's Average: Their lower rated licensed games are usually considered generic but still competently made at the very least.
• Sophomore Slump: They made three Adventure Time console games, the first and third ones are generally considered solid titles while the second is seen as one of the worst in the company's history.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Usually this happens when they have to make a tie-in game for a critically panned movie like Space Chimps or The Smurfs 2, where even if the game doesn't turn out good you can tell they at least tried to make something out of it. The Mummy Demastered even became notable for being considered better then the film it's based on.

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