Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (Switch)

Finally, it's been over a year!

Finally, the latest Monster Boy game after the remake of Wonder Boy III, which I played back in 2017 as one of the early games I got for the Switch. And it was a fun ride. An action-adventure plattformer with Metroidvania elements. Works fine for me. Story is that one morning Jin's Uncle Nabu, the court jester goes on a rampage and turns everyone in Monster World into antropomorfic animals, including Jin who was turned into a pig. You got to collect 5 orbs to uncurse everyone, but each orb gives you a new animalform which lets you explore more of the world. Turns out that the kings advister, Mysticat have been planing to resurect his evil master and needs the orbs and dominates your uncles mind to instigate a hero to getting the orbs for him. It's rather satisfying looking around and such for chest and power-ups. 

The game looks like the remade version of Wonder Boy III and that looks fantastic. Still does. Music is pumping, They clearly tried to emulate that game, but knew what to do in order to make it better for the player. For example the lions sprint attack makes traversing the thundercloud areas acceptable (I remember in Wonder Boy an open field with thunderclouds was horrible since you just died all the time), you get a teleporting staff halfway through which means you can travel and buy supplies and return to the same place. All improvements. Then we have the call backs to the other games. Now, I only played the fourth game and the remake of Wonder Boy III, but it was pretty much enough for the important parts. In two parts you get the grapichs of the original games, you get to gather important items from the first three games and the heroes are displayed at the local sanctuary. Also the blue flying creature from Monster World IV is here looking for the green-haired heroine of that game. He never finds her, but the ending shows her standing in a fire... is that a hint of Monster World IV remake or so? I also belive they had some reference I didn't quite get. There is some runner and mercenary who I don't know if I've seen before and the one he protects in the beginning look like Sparkster from Rocket Knight, but older and without armor. It could be that they are the same animal. 

20 hours gameplay... but then I used some guides to figure out some of the placements of chests and puzzles. Well worth the play, wonder if there will be others, or maybe ports or remakes for the swift so I can play through the whole story. Of course, I think I got some of the games on the Wii Virtual console.