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.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap

So where is Wonderboy/girl?

When the original came for the Wii Virtual Console I thought about giving this series a chance, especially after Monster World IV that arrived for the first time to Europe through the digital downloads, but I never got around to it since there was the point of choosing which version to get, which was a blessing in disguise since I got to get the enhanced remake instead. And it is beautiful. I really dig the art style, but if you more into the retro look, just push a button and it goes into the 8-bit original. It's always fun when you do that and can see the artist "real" intention compared to the limitations of the systems of the time. Story is that Wonderboy (or Wondergirl which I guess is a new addition for this version) is about to end the mechadragon, the final enemy of the last game and battles their way to the end of the castle and confront the dragon. After an intense battle the dragon is defeated, but defeating it unleashes a curse upon our hero that turns him/her unto a lizard. You escape the collapsing castle and later have to set out on a new adventure to free yourself from the curse.

There they all are!

Simple premise. You use the lizard to find another dragon that turns you into a mouse that can walk on walls and ceilings. Find yet another dragon to turn into a pirahna-man that can swim. Defeat the next dragon and turn into a lion-man. Repeat the dragon slaying and turn into a hawk-man that allows you to fly into the castle in the sky and fight the last dragon that turns you into a human again and then... the game ends. A bit anticlimactic I gotta say. Overall the game have its highs and lows. It was really enjoyable at times figuring out where to go and find the hidden doors or areas to get another heart or gold to buy new equipment. But some things really irritated me. The character is slippy, it feels like I'm gliding around when jumping or running and that gets me when certain areas really need precision jumping, doesn't help by throwing in certain characters gimmicks like the mouse climbing. Also, the enemies are a pain to hit with certain characters and not until the lion-man did I feel comfortable fighting against them. And don't get me started with the damn weapons and special armours that doesn't explain what they do so I have to guess what the Tsumarusa blade or what's it called actually does. Or that the lucky sword increase the amount of gold I get from defeating enemies when that is equipped.

Is that... is that the mouse transformation? How can you tell that it is a mouse?

Also the music... it isn't much of it. You can change from the remake music or the retro feeling by pressing down  the control stick. Is it like 4-5 tracks on the whole game? The dungeons all seems to have the same music? Also, I got lost once, mostly because I forgot that I hadn't searched the sea with the piranha-man and actually had to replay the game to get that I missed it... on easy as a girl... not because girl must be an easy mode, but since I played the boy on normal I wanted to see what the girl was like and I choose easy and actually finished the game with her. Funny enough each time I died the game told me to go see the pig fortune teller and all he did was to refer me to different animal transformations so I don't get what that was about. Overall a fun game and I'm rather excited for the new game Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.