Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

I never played the original so I don't have any nostalgia for whatever it was. Graphically the game looks wonderful, a lot of work went into the sprites. Game-play however is lacking, it definitely feels like an old NES game and not in a good way. Your character is painfully slow, jumping is slow, entering doors is slow. your jumps are weighty and there's a lot of inertia. takes time to get going , takes time to stop. even playing at 60fps it *feels* like you're playing at 15 fps, like your character is always in molasses. It's a keen reminder that the good ol days weren't always good and a nice graphical overhaul isn't a substitution for good fundamentals. In an age where amazing indie platformers can be found in abundance this game falls flat.

*Contain spoilers* Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is not a new game for me, having owned the original game since the early 90's. I've always enjoyed the game, even more so than Wonder Boy in Monster Land which I always found too punishing and rewarding secrets too much. The game itself is good, even by today standards. However I wish they would modernized the combat slightly, making it more responsive. This remake is no difference and is definitely an enjoyable experience, but I must admit I didn't find the additions to be enjoyable. Charm dungeons were either way too easy/short or relied on annoying/tedious mechanics too create challenges. A design choice I've always found lazy. Hard mode added various changes around the game that didn't make much difference, except two places. One 100% game on normal and another completed game on hard mode, resulting in 100% completion in achievements, in less than 8 hours is not really a lot of content for the price compared to that of other games. There is another difficulty options which I again think belongs in the tedious category and I have absolutely no desire to go through it. TL;DR: I don't believe the full price is justifiable, even for new players, since the game is lacking in the content department and other games offer more and that includes games in the same category.

I never had this sort of game when I was a kid. My gaming career started with the gamecube. That being said Wonder Boy (or Wonder Girl as I played) Is a great game for anyone who likes platformers. The art style for the redone graphics is beautiful, and the music feels epic. Being able to switch between retro and modern graphics and sound really shows how far games have come in the past few decades, The gameplay is simple and grows naturally as the game progresses. The only gripe I had with the game was the controls felt a bit floaty, however all that took was a little getting used to, and I was able to jump with ease.

The game also had difficult adjust that make it very hard for experience players or very easy for kids.

I never played the original game when I was a kid but after beating this remake I wish I did. I would have loved this game back then. The levels are challenging and finding all of the collectables and progressing your character is a blast. The music and artwork are fantastic and the fact that you can swap between the 8-bit and modern styles on the fly is really cool. You can tell that a lot of love went into making this. The only sort of bad thing that I can say is that there are a bunch of enemies that are really annoying to deal with at first but even then, you just need to learn how to use the tools that the game gives to overcome them.