Ehh once nimmers plays through the game once he could probably play it for a second time blindfolded, it's not exactly "arcade 1cc" hard The remake has some good challenge modes though.
The second last boss and lead up to that always tripped me up as a kid. But certainly as an adult no problems. The game's most rewarding aspect is hunting for all the stuff and learning what the effects are, RPG style. The armour sets have interesting properties that aren't documented.
I actually really like that game. Opinion does seem to be divided - like if you go chat on Aussie Arcade, the arcade original is "the only one worth playing". The series does span a pretty big timeline, so I think it really has split fans across age groups and/or arcade versus home console. There's also the fact that the series got ported in weird ways, and the character variance. You've got Adventure Island on NES, which is Wonderboy ported by Hudson and reskinned. You've got Dynastic Hero on PC Engine. You've got weird Brazilian kids cartoon characters in Brazil. You've got that weird shmup game in the middle of it all. You've got that very Egyptian/middle-eastern inspired one with a female lead. You've got the weird naming ("Wonder Boy V: Monster World III"). The series really does get a bit weird sometimes, which is part of why I like it. Maybe I should rename this thread to "The Wonderboy Mega Thread"?
i like the idea of this thread being about the series, there really are a lot of games to discuss or highlight in it.
I thoroughly enjoyed all the Wonderboys that I’ve played extensively over 30 years, being: Wonderboy (original arcade and sega master system port). Wonderboy in Monster Land (SMS) Winderboy III The Dragon’s Trap (SMS) Wonderboy The Dragon’s Trap (PS4 remake). There’s others I haven’t played much that I’ll try one of these years.
Portuguese retro gamer St1ka does a great job of breaking down the official Brazilian ports of various Wonder Boy games.
Back in the day, Wonder Boy (the original) was part of Sega's budget game range, $20-$30 odd iirc, making it one of the most financially accessible popular titles on the platform. WBIII Dragon's Trap had to (by me) be rented out from the local video store at what, $2 per week, something like that.
the original Wonder Boy was in my local fast food shop arcade for a very long time so it definitely is my strongest memory for that reason. I never even tried any other WB games until much later as I never owned any Sega systems until the Saturn (which I bought to play Daytona and Sega Rally at home ) and the fact they are so different iteratively also confused me a little.
The original was $19.95 at kmart for years for SMS. Mum bought it for me when I was about 10 and off school sick. Random presents like this outside birthday and Christmas were rare which is why I remember it. Conversely the other 2 (Monster Land and Dragon’s Trap) were about $60ea at the same time, but I eventually got both.
One of the funniest parts of the series to me is the "Wonder Boy in Monster Land" (aka the second title) opening level. Young Wonder Boy the hatchet-throwing cave man walks out of the forest, sees a door, knocks on it, gets handed armour and a sword, and *BAM*, he's a medieval knight. Cracks me up every time. Talk about short-cutting your plot.
So I saw a tweet fly past this evening (and have since been unable to find it again) that suggests this remake will use a 3D engine. Will be interesting to see what the art style ends up looking like.
I am in this boat, although "in Monster land" did make a very short appearance at my local chicken shop when they pulled Slap Fight.. I was pretty sour about that as I thought Monsterland looked like it had very basic kiddied down graphics, so I never gave it the attention it probably deserved.. It was replaced by Trojan.. which I completly sucked at, and previously 20cents lasting close to an hour on Wonderboy, saw my lunch cash deplenish rather quickly..
Apparently the arcade WBiML was never officially released in English-speaking countries (ref), and all of them are bootleg ROM hacks. But I also remember playing one in an amusement centre place in the early 90s.
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World trailer is up. Appears to be a remake rather than a brand new game. I'm hoping what we're seeing here is early footage with room to improve, because honestly I'm a bit underwhelmed. [edit] The YouTube comments are quite ruthless.
But fair - it takes a lot of effort to take a 2D animation and make it something that looks equally as great in 3D, let alone taking a 2D game and translating it to 2.5D.
