Wonder Boy - Arcade Gameplay - (2K 60fps)
0Wonderboy is without a doubt one of the finest franchises of 8 and 16-bit gaming. Easily capable of holding its own with classic staples like Zelda and Mario, the Wonderboy games have gone woefully unappreciated, not because they’re inaccessible, but simply because so few have even played them. Those that have experienced the backbone games of this series know that it is truly one of gaming’s greatest. So to them, I offer this retrospective to look back and reflect on this amazing line of titles. To those who have yet to play these games: sit down and let me fill you in.
One of the problems in documenting the Wonderboy series is that it isn’t really a coherent “series” at all. It is essentially two or three related series, merged into one, and the seams show. There are two Wonderboy 3s, no Wonderboy 4, and the last game in the series stars a girl. The two main series at work here are Monster World and Super Wonderboy. the problem is that there isn’t always a clear division between the two. Some games are a part of the Wonderboy series, some are a part of the Monster World series, and some are a part of both, but in the US they were all merged into one series. In my view, the Monster World series is greatly superior to the other games and is my main reason for doing this, so keep that in mind.
Confused yet? Well it gets worse. The Wonderboy/Monster World games were not developed by Sega. They were done by a small developer called Westone (also known as Escape in their early days), and published by Sega. Sega owned the rights to the names, bosses, and main characters, but Westone retained the rights to the games themselves, which they sold to Hudson soft, which resulted in ports on the PC Engine or NES with new names, bosses, and characters. The best known of these was Adventure Island. Some of them were downright hilarious. You’ll see them all as we move on to..
Wonderboy’s beginnings were humble. In 1986 Sega published an arcade platformer from newcomer developer Escape (who would later change their name to Westone). The game was released on Sega’s System 8 hardware in the wake of Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers, and featured a blend of addictive linear arcade platforming with colorful, well drawn visuals and catchy music. Sega ported the game to their new home console, the Sega Master system, and Hudson published a clone with new characters on the NES known as Adventure Island. Adventure Island and Wonderboy are in fact the same game. The NES port gained more popularity than the original, and spawned several sequels of it’s own, none of which Escape/Westone were affiliated with. While Wonderboy may bear little resemblance to the games which would later bear the name, it still laid some of the groundwork, and helped gain some notoriety.
This game was not only the second game in the Wonderboy series, but more importantly it was the first game in the Monster World series, which is what I really want to get at here. Like the first game, Wonderboy in Monster World originated in the arcades on the System 8 hardware. Despite it’s arcade routes, this entry took a hard left turn, for a more console styled design. While still a platformer at heart, Wonderboy in Monster World abandoned the tropical Island trappings of it’s predecessor and began fusing the game is RPG themes and elements. Although it was an arcade game, you could go in houses, talk to villagers, kill monsters for gold, buy items and equipment, and explore dungeons. There was a timer however, so you weren’t free to wander all you’d like just yet. Still, this is very much where the primary foundation for later Monster World games originated, and a great game in its own right.
The game got a home port on Sega Master System called Wonderboy in Monster Land (Super Wonderboy in Monster World in Japan), which fared fairly well and was one of the few arcade ports on the system to retain the brutal difficulty of its parent. There was also a mutation available on the Turbo Grafx 16 and Famicom, again by Hudson. It was called “Bikkuiman” which translates literally as “Astonishing Man” a bad play on the original title character. The character designs in this variant were not only absurd, they were ugly beyond reproach. But it seems to be the pattern that the bad mutation would gain more attention than the original, and Bikkuriman not only spawned his own spin offs (including one on DC!) but an anime as well. There’s no accounting for taste.