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Wonder Boy is definitely worth the high barrier of entry. | pigking188 - YouTube
Channel: pigking188
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So I first became interested in the Wonder
Boy franchise when I got a look at Wonder
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Boy: The Dragon's Trap forever ago, an interest
that was only reinforced when My Life in Gaming
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named Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom their
game of the year for 2019.
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Unfortunately, this is a bit of aā¦ complicated
series to get into.
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HappyConsoleGamer did an excellent video breaking
it all down which Iāll link down below if
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you want to check it out, but to summarize
as quickly as possible, Wonder Boy, the first
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game in the franchise, is an action platformer
based off an arcade game of the same name
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released on the Sega Mastersystem..
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The game then got ported to the rivaling NES,
but since Sega owned the rights to the Wonder
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Boy IP, the title and characters were changed
to avoid legal issues.
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You might have heard of or even played the
resulting game, adventure island.
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Fascinatingly, the two games diverged from
there, with the adventure island series carrying
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on the torch of the first wonder boy game
on Nintendo systems, and the wonder boy series
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adapting from action platformers to action
RPGs with the release of Wonder Boy in Monster
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Land for the Mastersystem.
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Anyway, Iāll probably talk further about
the inner workings of the series at some other
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time, because it gets really hard to keep
straight in your head pretty fast, but you
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already know everything you need to know about
the first game, so Iāll stop wasting time
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and get into it.
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Letās take a look at Wonder Boy for the
Sega mastersystem.
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So in wonder boy, you play as, well I think
Wikipedia sums it up best when it says: āThe
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tropical wonder boy himself Tom Tom must save
his girlfriend Tina from demons and monsters.ā
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Yeah.
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So as Wonder Boy, you have the ability to
run, jump, and jump slightly higher.
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You canāt do much with your default move
set.
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Luckily you can pick up this hammer powerup
from eggs which gives you the ability to throw
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hammers and kill enemies.
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The game itself looks really good.
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It was really interesting to play an 8-bit
game that wasnāt released on the NES.
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It felt largely the same but you could definitely
tell it was made on different hardware with
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some strengths and some weaknesses the NES
didnāt have.
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Sega dropped out of the console wars almost
twenty years ago, so I can play a game released
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for a Sega system without it being considered
blasphemy against Nintendo right?
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I mean, I got it on a Nintendo console.
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Eh Iām probably fineā¦.
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Just in case.
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So how does it play?
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Well, the answer to that question isnāt
exactly straightforward.
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Something I immediately picked up on is that
your character seems to be optimized for non-stop
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movement, the thing that immediately sprung
to my mind was that dinosaur game in google
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chrome, your jumps carry a lot of momentum,
and once you get going itās kind of hard
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to stop.
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This isnāt a bad thing, in fact, it would
have been awesome to play a fully fleshed
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out platformer that uses such a mechanic,
but unfortunately this one canāt seem to
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commit.
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While I was doing research for this video,
I actually found that the designers did intend
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at one point for this game to feature non
stop movement, but it was scrapped somewhere
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along in development.
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To me it kind of seems like the physics of
the player and maybe a few of the enemies
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were developed with this idea in mind, and
the rest of the enemies and level design were
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built after the change, with little consideration
to how they might fit together.
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As a result, you might find yourself on platforms
that seem too small and spaced too closely
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together, or you might find yourself being
asked to rush down a long section of quick
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and precise platforming, only to reach a single
moving platform that you need to stop and
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wait for, or more accurately go tumbling into
a bottomless pit, which is then followed up
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by even more fast paced and precise platforming.
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Honestly, I think this game suffers from consistency
problems as a whole.
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Mainly regarding what is expected of the player
and how well itās communicated.
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For example, probably 90% of the time the
best way to get past these frog enemies is
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to charge past them without slowing down,
except when it isnāt and trying that will
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get you killed.
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Itās almost the exact same thing with these
falling icicles.
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Basically it leads to you feeling like you
have to memorize each individual level before
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you can complete it, which can seem pretty
daunting considering there are 36 levels and
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no saves in this game.
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This is a pretty difficult game in my opinion,
even without taking design inconsistencies
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into account.
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Fortunately this game employs a life system
thatās actually very similar to modern tough
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as nails platformers like super meat boy or
Celeste.
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There are four checkpoints placed evenly throughout
each level, which you'll restart at until
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you get a game over after losing more than
three lives, which throws you back to the
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start of the level.
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.This allows you to quickly get back into
the action without fear of losing progress,
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which is awesome.
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Personally, I think the game would be better
off ditching the life system all together
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and permanently place you at your last checkpoint,
but itās whatever.
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And you know what else they seemed to borrow
from recent extremely difficult indie games?
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The lack of frustration.
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I know games like these can easily send people
into a controller smashing rage, and while
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Iāve never been one for destroying my own
property, I too consider myself to get frustrated
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with games quite easily, but something about
games that let you easily and quickly retry
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a challenge over and over again have always
been much easier for me to cope with.
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The same applied to Wonder Boy.
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Instead of screaming and getting mad after
dieing for the bazillionth time at the end
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of a super hard stage, I found myself filled
with determination, I was so close, Iāll
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get it this time!
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And instead of just being like, finally, when
I would finally get past a level I had been
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stuck on, I would celebrate!
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I felt accomplished!
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Like I had overcome something!
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Honestly it was one of the most lighthearted
and upbeat gaming experiences I can remember
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having, just laughing off stupid mistakes
and generally having a good time.
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And you know, the more I played, the more
the platforming seemed to grow on me, Once
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I put in the, admittedly hours it took for
me to learn the quirks of the games controls,
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I was performing pixel perfect jumps and taking
out enemies that werenāt even on screen
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yet no problem.
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Learning to use my momentum to my advantage
was an extremely fulfilling experience, so
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much so that I opted to move over to my CRT
for another playthrough which only served
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to further confirm how much fun you can have
with this game once understand how it controls.
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The level design I once found to be unintuitive
and poorly optimized for you movement soon
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became second nature, and provided some of
the best precision platforming in recent memory.
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So should you play Wonder Boy?
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Well the short answer is yes, the long answer
is only if you can go into it prepared for
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a bit of a learning curve and are willing
to put in the time to get good at moving your
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character where you want them to go.
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Itās definitely not something most people
will be able to pick up and master, but if
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you can, itās so worth it.
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Unfortunately, this is quite a hard game to
find these days.
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From what I can tell the only re-release it
ever got was on the Wii virtual console, which
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is now shut down, so unless you want to emulate
it really it looks like your only option is
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to hunt down a cartridge and an original console.
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But apparently this game got a full remake
on every system but the Xbox One, something
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I only learned about a few minutes ago as
of writing this.
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I obviously havenāt played it but besides
the awful translation of the games description
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it looks really good, definitely going on
the ole wish list.
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See what I mean when I say this franchise
is complicated?
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So I guess thatās an option, or you could
just play the much more accessible adventure
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island on the wii u virtual console.
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Yeah thatās probably the better option.
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But thatās a video
for
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another day.
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