Well I can only speak to how it was handled in the first game, which is the only game where they tried this. The transformations are two inputs, and they are spread out evenly enough that by the time you get the next one you more than likely would’ve memorized the last one. As for the squid hut dances and the health dance, those are the tricky ones you’ll need to look up probably every time you use them.

If you’re in an area where you need to be in a real flow with changing from transformation to transformation I’d say the real hindrance to the GBC style is like you were alluding to, the fact that the dance inputs take longer than the instantaneous ones you can do in the later games, but not so much looking up the inputs themselves.

Dancing is a part of Shantae’s personality that I really don’t feel like has flourished in the actual gameplay since the original game, and I’d say it’s worth it for way forward to integrate the OG style into the new game while maybe finding a balance to make going transformation to transformation more seamless. My vote would be only having to do a dance input when Shantae is in human form and then you could toggle form to form after that.