Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

I enjoyed this game from beginning to end. You are transformed into a pig in the beginning. As you progress, you gain more animal forms as well as more equipment. You can switch between these different forms and equipment as the situation demands. I enjoyed expanding my abilities. Exploring older areas with my new abilities and forms made me feel powerful. It was fun to hunt down secrets to get every last item and power-up. Sometimes, you have to go back to older areas to find more secrets. But when you can fly or double-jump over everything, it's so much easier. The music is amazing. On that note, this series seems to love its callbacks, and I'm all for it. I played Wonder Boy in Monster World in my childhood, so the ocarina callback was one part I loved. I do have a few complaints about this game. The golden equipment was so expensive that I had to grind for the money. I spent about five minutes fighting the same enemy over and over just to buy the very last thing. It felt unnecessary. A few puzzles near the end were so confusing, I caved in and had to look up some clues. I was that close to 100%, so I refused to leave them unsolved, but I was stumped. I also struggled with the volcano a bit, but once I got the ice equipment, it got much easier. These problems weren't enough to detract from my experience. This game was a blast from beginning to end, and I love it.

Compared with other Metroidvania games, this one falls short. The combat system feels kinda mushy, and you don't want to know how often I've accidentally cast a spell when trying to perform another action. Add to that the fact that the difficulty is quite tough, and there's no way to lower it, and you have a game that at the very least is not very enjoyable for me.

I liked the start but the game soon became too cumbersome for my liking, I love the dragons trap and this game really raises the difficulty bar compared to that game. What frustrates me is not that its actually "hard" its that it is often too tricky to figure out what to do to procceed, that in combination with doing it wrong meaning that you die and saves that frequently require you to replay short but annoying parts was to much much for me. After playing through maybe 70% of the game I noticed I was more often than not annoyed and not enjoying myself so this is it for me. The start of the game was fun but the kind of "hard" they choose to go with in this game is not for me.

much less sophsitaction than the previous release. this is more like the "Wonderboy in Monster Land" which is such a great game. the coin jingle is so satisfactory. that's how you make this game. the changing to monster is less my taste. but the game is real fun, and has a nice plot to go along(whihc you skip real fast). TL DR: buy it if you liked the arcade game. that's the real deal, so far.

WonderBoy 3: The Dragon's Trap was the ultimate game on my Master System back in day. I loved it. The open feeling, the fun character's, finding the code in the manual by accident, all of it was amazing to my young brain. I then found the remake here on GOG and it. was. AMAZING. Perfect in every way, down to the last minute detail. That then led me to find Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom. It's everything it should be. I love they brought the shopkeeper pig from WB3 and made him a playable character. I love the new character forms. I love that when you equip a new item, you see it on your character. The difficulty level is right in the sweet spot of challenging is places, but overcomable with a few attempts. I love it's not just a side-scrolling platform hack and slash. It takes amazingly simplistic gameplay and mixes in puzzle-solving and lost-vikings style teamwork...all with one character. It's just awesome. All of the little easter eggs from previous Wonder Boy games are there as well; some very easy to spot and others cleverly hidden. My personal favorite is the underwater statue of Mer-Man from WB3. Meka-Dragon on the walls in one of the dungeons. The Wonder-Boys/Gal in the Sactuary. It's all there with the memba-berries you could ask for wrapped in an actual quality product...not just a nostalgia laced cashgrab with zero soul. Needless to say, I would highly recommed this game. PS - the Volcano Level can go play in traffic...