Area 1: Same as the others, Hypershot still required.

Area 2: Same as Gunvolt/Ekoro, her hair can destroy blocks, so you go to the second last seen (big area) and then go up to the top right and get the crusher. Yes, crusher shot is required, see Area 7/8 for information.

Area 3 Same as the others, get hover, defeat boss, Save & Quit warp.

Area 4 Same as the others, get a key after defeating boss then Save & Quit warp.

Area 5: Can almost skip Dive Gear but in the final room before Area 6, Shantae doesn't have the tools to make a huge leap to the other side, so Dive Gear is required.

Area 6:

Although she cannot whip her hair upwards, there is a small window that her hair can destroy blocks above her. Early Wall climb is not possible because, at the very bottom part of the room, Shantae cannot jump high enough to break the upper 2 ice cubes, Sophia is required and the route is identical to Jason

Area 5 > Area 4 Use Dive gear, same as Jason.

Area 7: Same as Jason in terms of 2D route. The dungeon segment can be done by abusing the elephant's invincibility frames when performing a dash attack. You can even change back to human and then elephant right afterwards to perform another dash ASAP (freezing gameplay when Shantae performs her transformation dance).

Area 8: Use 2 clouds and elephant charge to defeat Antibody cell. Use elephant charge against Underworld Lord's lightning bolt attack. Use elephant charge against Multi-dimensional Overlord's green forme. 2 charge attacks can destroy the meteors and green overlord is defenceless.

Overall this is the first DLC character who does not have a shorter route due to her on-foot abilities being less broken than Gunvolt/Ekoro. Her combat is pretty weak as well, so her damage per second isn't as good as Jason when it comes to boss battles. Good target, for now, is sub 53 minutes.

well, i finally got around to doing some Shantae Any% runs..... First attempt was a 48:35. Did one more run before I had to cut stream and got a 45:01. :D

Now for how low I think this category can go? I could see a 43 or 42 happening, not sure how much lower than that it can go.

Some additional notes on Shantae, its absolutely worth the time to go get the Mother Brain transformation, as it makes Antibody Cell, the Underworld Lord, and the Multidimensional Over Lord much, MUCH faster, in addition to allowing you to skip through the area 5 dungeon by floating over the water, skipping waiting on the floating platforms. I plan on writing a Boss strat guide, but for now you can see my current boss strats when i upload my run in a little bit. Now if only someone could find a faster strat for Ancient Freeze, we would be set. My current strat is kinda slow, but by far the fastest I was able to figure out.

Tons of new strats for Shantae have been developed recently, shaving a LOT of time off of the run. Im going to list them in a moment, but first i have to give shoutouts to hcfwesker for most of these strats, and Mathwe for the A6 skip.

Area 1:

Mother Brain quick kill: Stand below MB, throw out 3 clouds, switch to scimitars and activate them, rythmically mash your hair whip.

Area 2:

Crabullus quick kill: Same as MB, stand below Crabullus, throw out 3 clouds, switch to scimitars and activate them, rythmically mash your hair whip.

Area 5:

Quicker Descent: After grabbing the Mother Brain transformation, it is much faster to hop out of the tank and swim down with Shantae and kill the wall monster with her hair whips. Shantae swims downwards MUCH faster than the tank sinks, and the wall monster drops to just a couple seconds of hair whipping.

Zoidberg one cycle: Enter the room in elephant form, at the start of the fight, dash 3 times, which will put you behind Zoidberg. Throuw out 3 clouds, switch to and activate scimitars, and rythmically mash your hair whip. Step away from Zoidberg after 4-5 whips to minimize damage taken at the cost of a few tenths of a second.

Area 6

Major skip: Now that tank summoning via pause menu has been added to the game, Shantae can actually take the back door route to get the Wall Climb upgrade early, just like Gunvolt! summon the tank and use it to shoot out the ice wherever neccessary, and use the monkey transform to scale the walls.

Area 8:

Antibody Cell quick kill: make sure you enter the room as close to dead center horizontally as you can. At the start of the fight, throw out 3 clouds, then walk straight upwards until you get just past the mid point of the room. transform to Mother Brain, aim downwards and hold fire.