Wonderboy / Monsterworld review retrospective
When it came to 2d action-adventure games the Wonder Boy games were one of the leading series in its genre at the time. The Wonder Boy games were known for having great music colourful graphics cute monsters and carefully balanced level design but it's also one of the more confusing series with many ports and rehashes on competing platforms under different names so we should probably start from the very beginning to understand why Wonder Boy got so much attention the original Wonder Boy made its debut in the arcades in 1986 and was the first game developed by the three-headed company known as Escape in this action platformer game you control a boy named Tom Tom whose girlfriend Tanya has been snatched away by the evil Wood King clueless of his whereabouts tom tom has no option but to search the entire island consisting of countless stages and environments.
Wonderboy is a fast paced game and you constantly grab fruit in order to replenish your life bar Eggs provide you with useful items like a skateboard and to reach the final levels the player is required to collect all the hidden dolls wonderboy was successful in the arcades and got ported to pretty much every gaming platform including Sega's Master System complete with classic box art The blond-haired cave boy was also used in various Sega Flyers and promotions although ceqa trademarked the name Wonder Boy all rights to the games were owned by Westone who allowed Hudsonsoft to port Wonder Boy over to the NES replacing the main character and renaming it Adventure Island a game that spawned numerous sequels of its own which were entirely unrelated to the Wonder Boy series with the success of Wonder Boy the developers were able to fund the next chapter.
The company was renamed to Weststone and they were able to hire more talent when game designer 2 Ryuichi Nishizawa began working on the sequel he decided to give the series a slight RPG s spin the new product Monster Land is a unique mix between platforming and arcade action it made its debut in the arcades but had the most success on Sega's 8-bit Master System According to the manual the game takes place 11 years after the events of Wonderboy the player must travel through the 12 levels of Monster land while the clock ticks away like in RPGs you can buy armor shields and boots but you can't revisit levels to grind for gold so you must carefully plan on which items you want to spend your hard-earned cash there are many secret doors in monster land some leading to members of the resistance and if you find them all they'll be rewarded with an item to help you beat the final level.
The game is challenging but a rewarding sense of accomplishment will keep you coming back for more. Monster land introduced many elements that made their way to future games such as the Meka Dragon, the quiz loving Sphinx and the maze filled nightmare castle.
Since the game was so different from its predecessor they gave it a different title in Japan: Monster World all future games with RPG elements would be part of this series although the focus of the series was always on Sega platforms most of the games made their way to competing PC engine consoles and to make it even more confusing there were also special ports released in Brazil using characters from the local comic book series Turma da Monica.
Wonder Boy 3 monster lair was a bit of an oddity in the series. it still has the familiar monster world theme but gameplay wise returns to the arcade feel of the first game the game debutted in the arcades in 1988 and got ported to the Mega Drive and PC engine you control a new character named Leo through a number of side-scrolling stages at the end of each level you fight a boss while you ride your dragon in a shoot-'em-up style In the two-player mode the second player controls princess Purapril a name which you might recognize from a future titles.
OOerall Monster Lair is a fun play through despite being a somewhat shallow experience a completely different wonderboy 3 was developed for the home console market starting with the Master System released in 1989. Wonder Boy 3 the Dragons Trap is a direct sequel to the 2nd Wonder Boy game and it begins in nightmare castle the lair of the dreaded mecha dragon luckily this time around it's much easier to navigate through the maze after defeating the dragon our hero gets cursed and turns into a lizard man and the only way to lift the curse is to find a salamander cross needless to say it's not an easy journey to complete.
After the introduction you start your grand adventure in the main town called Alsedo which acts as a hub to the various regions of the land. In lizard form you can only access a few areas but after defeating the dragons of monster land you gain access to more useful forms such as Mouse man who has the ability to climb chequered blocks or piranha-man who's capable of swimming underwater.
The various shops in Monster Land sell you all kinds of upgrades a unique features the Charm point system each piece of equipment requires a certain number of CP in order to be purchased this prevents you from buying the strong equipment early in the game unless you'd rather grind for charm stones Wonderboy 3 was the first game in the series to feature nonlinear gameplay and was developed directly for the home console market.
The graphics and music are both outstanding and combining that with addicting gameplay qualifies it as one of the best games for the Master System Wonderboy in Monster World released in 1992 again for a variety of consoles starting with the Mega Drive.
Mr. Nishizawa one of the main forces behind the series was not involved in this title since he was busy porting wonderboy 3 over to the Game Gear. But despite his absence the game retains the same monster world feel and happens to be one of the strongest titles in the series.
Monster world opens with a nice throwback to Wonder Boy 2 nd continues to reference the earlier games with the appearance of the Sphinx and nightmare castle. Our blue haired hero Shion is set on the task to bring back peace to monster world. The game continues the RPG adventure gameplay from Wonder Boy 3.
You once again travel through a variety of lands and various items are required to progress further into the game for example a trident allows you to swim underwater to meet Poseidon himself with the pygmy sized equipment you can shrink in size and enter the volcano In the towns you can relax a bit and listen to awesome music or stop at the local shops for goods and equipment and all shop owners have their own unique personality in every town there's also a little companion who will join Shion on his quest the game has bright and colorful visuals strong art direction and great music by mr.
Sakamoto who composed the music for all Monster World Games up to this point wonderboy in monster world is the perfect game to pick up and play on a rainy afternoon a stripped-down version was also ported over to the Master System Shion's adventures continued in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series although the art style is a big departure from the monster world cuteness fans may be used to wonder boy in monster world ended with a "to be continued" message leaving many players waiting for the final chapter in the series Monster World IV but unfortunately it was never released outside of Japan until 2012 The story is set many years after Shion's adventures while the game still has an established monster world feel the game designers made several changes to the formula to keep it fresh.
With the most notable inclusion being an Arabian Nights theme and a female lead by the name of Asha. Cute creatures called Pepelogoo play an important part in the game as they seem to be quite the rage in Rapadagma the main town in the game. But are they really as cute as they look?! Asha befriends a rare blue Pepelogoo and her trusted companion helps her overcome many obstacles and puzzles in the game.
The gameplay also got a big speed boost as asha is able to run and automatically dodge enemy attacks depending on her stats. however the game is structured to be more linear compared to the two previous games the action and puzzle solving largely takes place inside the dungeons and there's only one location to do all your shopping but overall monster world 4 is still a fantastic title to commemorate Monster World for an Asha figurine was released as part of a Sega gals line all the games in the series are conveniently bundled in the monster world collection for ps2 complete with a limited edition soundtrack but sadly it was also only released in Japan luckily most games were made available on PlayStation Network Xbox Live and Nintendo's eShop.
