Wonder Boy/Monster World

[Lord Dalek]

This is one of those oddball Sega franchises that, despite growing obscurity manages to stay alive somehow. The first game later mutated into the Adventure Island franchise on the NES while the rest of the series started doing this sidescroller action rpg thing (except for WBIII: Monster's Lair which was a scrolling shmup/platformer hybrid). I've been recently playing an English translation of Monster World IV (which only got an official US release last year) and its surprisingly harder that I expected it to be.

Anybody else familiar with these games?

[Spark Of Spirit]

What are your thoughts on all the different versions out there? There's so many.

But yeah, I'm a big fan. Wonderboy, Monster Land, Monster Lair, Monster World, Dragon Trap, and Monster World IV are all awesome games.

I actually experienced this series for the first time with the Wii's Virtual Console, and was hooked pretty fast. It's one of Sega's lesser known gems like Alex Kidd In Shinobi World, 8-bit Castle Of Illusion, or the 8-bit Sonic games.

[Lord Dalek]

What are your thoughts on all the different versions out there? There's so many.

Well my first exposure (albeit indirectly) came from a rental of Hudson's Adventure Island (for the record it was too damn hard) which was one of the last games I rented before selling my NES (which I still consider one of the worst mistakes I've ever made). Then I got my Game Gear (which I STILL HAVE) and one of the games was of course Revenge of Drancon, the conversion of Wonder Boy SMS, and at the time I thought, because I was 8 years old and didn't know better, "HEY THEY RIPPED OFF ADVENTURE ISLAND!!!" Of course, Wonder Boy came first but I wouldn't see an actual arcade cabinet for another three years.

Also I had one of those Genesis and Game Gear secrets books and they talked about Wonder Boy in Monster World III in there. So I was sort of aware of Wonder Boy at the time.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh yeah, the whole Adventure Island spinning off of Wonderboy 1 thing! As much as I enjoy the original Wonderboy and Adventure Island, I do think the sequels improved a lot on it while Wonderboy went off into its own style.

I like how every installment in the series went into its own sort of niche, from platformers to Metroidvania, to action RPG, to adventure game, to sidescrolling shooter and everything in between. Every game was its own thing!

Have you ever played the Game Gear version of Dragon Trap? I assume it was a decent port.

[Lord Dalek]

Have you ever played the Game Gear version of Dragon Trap? I assume it was a decent port.

The SMS and Game Gear were practically the same hardware (outside of the screen resolutions) so its nearly identical.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So, uh, this happened and stuff.



Odd turn of events.

[gunswordfist]

i didn't even know there was an 8 bit castle of illusion (and i just heard about duck tales 2 yesterday) and 8 bit sonic is another game that should have been on sonic's genesis collection.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Dragon's Trap remake announced.

Coming to consoles/PC.

Really like the new graphical style.

[gunswordfist]

Yes, it's beautiful. I hope it's on Vita and/or Steam.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Monster Boy footage.

They really nailed the feel here. The music is also great. With this and the Dragon Trap remake it looks like the series is going to have a great year.