#Wonderboy the dragons trap

[fridge-reviews]

Wonder Boy: The Dragons Trap - Blast Review

Developer: Lizardcube Rrp: £14.99 (Humblebundle, Steam and Epic) and £17.39 (Gog.com)

I remember when I was a kid watching a friend play the original of this game on his Sega Master System. He never let me have a go, though to be honest I can see why, I was a heavy handed child who was quick to anger when thwarted so he likely feared for his control pad's safety. It's now many years later and I finally got to have my go! Hurray!

This game is essentially a metroidvania though, due to some technicalities I hesitate to truly give it that label. The thing with metroidvania's is that when you gain a power you can easily switch to a different power. In this game that isn't the case, when you defeat a boss you turn into a monster version of yourself, you can't change out of this form into another one until you kill another boss or find an altar. However, altars are uncommon and seem to change you somewhat at random.

What this game is though is beautifully animated, it has been entirely drawn by hand giving every character a wonderful sense of personality. I spent ages just watching how the mouse-man's ears wiggle. Of course, if you want to relive those old days of 8-bit you can quickly change the game to retro mode in the options menu or with the trigger buttons on your control pad. I thought that was quite a nice feature to add especially because you can choose to just change the music or just the sound effects.

Is this game worth £14.99, honestly to me no. Thankfully I didn't have to pay that, I picked it up when Epic made it free. It's just a bit too short to justify that cost to me (as I completed it in just under 5 hours), but perhaps your mileage will vary.

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[segacity]

A preview of 'Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap' on the SEGA Game Gear. Source: Sega Shinsaku Soft Video Vol 15

[jayextee]

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (2017)

The original Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap is, without a doubt, the SEGA Master System game ever. It looks, sounds, and plays every bit like the distilled very best of SEGA's 8-bit offerings and is arguably (both by myself and many other fans of the system) the best game available for the console.

Having opened this review with such high praise, I probably don't have to say that if any remake of that game were anything less than absolutely stellar and amazing work, I would not be kind to it. I would hold nothing back, show no quarter, take the gloves off, let rip, and tear it a new one. Luckily, it's absolutely amazing and stellar work.

Essentially that's because this is an emulation of the original Master System ROM with a pretty new skin running over the top of it. Okay, maybe a bit more complex than that, but the game logic running here is basically 1:1 with the SMS version even if, and this includes the game with retro visuals and sounds enabled, there are some changes elsewhere.

Good changes, mind you -- what the kiddies like to call 'quality of life' stuff. Really though, how quality do you need your life if your biggest worries are what creature comforts and conveniences a videogame offers you? But I digress here, there's a whole-ass separate button for special weapon usage and the equipment menu is a much more pleasant-to-navigate affair. And, mercifully, they've got rid of that fucking 'charm point' system that I personally felt was an idea that didn't service this game style as well as it would a more-conventional RPG. And, in essence, all it meant was exiting a shop to remove the Goblin Mail, re-entering, seeing the stuff for sale that should've been for sale anyway. Yeah, that tedium's gone.

There are some small layout changes as well, presumably to even-out the challenge a little. But this is all piecemeal stuff compared to the aesthetic overhaul. Oh, wow, the aesthetic overhaul. Let me, frankly, gush.

Imagine a retro game not just upscaled, not just redrawn, but completely reimagined with the utmost passion, respect, and care for the source material. That's The Dragon's Trap right here.

It. Is. Fucking. Beautiful.

Featureless flat areas with naught but trees are now expansive meadows featuring a memorial to a battle long-since passed, continuing onto a valley with a tower hidden inside a forest by the lake. Standard platform gauntlets across a body of water are now a set of tropical islets in a luxurious ocean that culminates in a shipwreck telling a tale of caution and intrigue before the great offscreen unknown. And there's a little stool outside a hut by a lava lake where the owner has carelessly left some impaled marshmallows to toast in the heat. There is so much attention to detail here, and cute little touches, and visual storytelling, it's tough not to fall in love all over again. The game that was my adventurous escape in childhood, is equally so if not more in adulthood.

Music's amazing, too. Not a single piece feels wrong or updated without the full knowledge of what made the original tunes 'pop'. Particular favourites of mine are the desert and jungle themes, both of which have instrumentation that perfectly encapsulates their host environments and makes the adventure connect on an even deeper level.

I am, however, overlooking some of-its-time "flaws" in this game. I don't care. I even put "flaws" in those scare-quotes because, fuck it, they don't make games like this anymore so there's no reason to change it to be more like games they do make. That one Steam reviewer who says the controls are slippery and the coins bounce over the player's head, you're wrong mate. Couldn't be wronger. Maybe a dragon cursed that guy and he's typing with tiny mouse hands that can barely reach the controller buttons?

Anyway, my recent 2.5 hour afternoon playthrough of this game made me fall in love with it for like the hundredth time. Here's to a hundred more.

5/5

[zenir-arts]

Finaly beat this game and collect all 6 stones. I've probably spend more time on the rat-man unknow level than in the rest of the entire game

[frogy-bandit]

My all time favourite game. Simple, elegant and playable. Every time you kill a boss monster you get transformed into another creature. - Wonderboy III the Dragons Trap

[tarripup]

VS Zombie Dragon

May's Patreon Workshop piece, where I am pitted against a zombified dragon. Thanks, guys. xD

Game is Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap. The mouse is in da house.

My art is not to be reuploaded or used in AI art in any way.

Posted using PostyBirb

[princesseblade]

Watching a cuphead pt and I knew the shop pig reminded me of something xD. 

@genocidershodan

[flojocabron]

My Sega Master System Wonderboy games.

[orangewolfy]

The Lion-Man!

[indieretronews]

(via Wonderboy The Dragons Trap - New gameplay footage shows off switchable classic graphics )

[cocosjaguar-t]

Sketches!

[rimedown]

Mouseman

Day 1864.

[d-artist]

Best indies characters

[modo7]

Análisis: Wonderboy the Dragon's Trap

Análisis: Wonderboy the Dragon’s Trap

Jugar a la remasterización de Wonderboy: The Dragons Trap (Lizardcube, 2017) es toda una experiencia. Su jugabilidad es muy fina y está tremendamente bien medida; su planteamiento, mezcla de metroidvania ligero y juego de acción con plataformas con destellos de RPG es estupendo, y en cuanto a diseño presenta un delicado equilibrio entre sencillez jugable y profundidad en su justa medida. De…

[tarripup]

Seafood

Another poll in what to draw on Patreon. Again, didn't say what the game was, just picked a game, said it was going to be a Tarri, and listed some locations. Beach won. Among the suggestions in Discord, I liked Scuba Diving. It was Wonderboy 3: The Dragon's Trap. I added a fish. :3

Posted using PostyBirb

[randomisedgaming]

The great cover art drawn for the Lizardcube, 2017 remake of the classic Sega and Westone title:

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap / モンスターワールド ドラゴンの罠

Art by Ben Fiquet

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