Game Club 199X #7: Wonder Boy (Monster Land & WB3)

[Deleted]

The podcast is up! www.dropbox.com/s/37orppaxf1fyemn/Episode%207%20-%20May%202012%20-%20Wonder%20Boy%20in%20Monster%20Land%20(SMS)%20_%20Dragon's%20Curse%20(TG16).mp3

Wonder Boy in Monster Land
& Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap/Dragon's Curse

A first for Game Club 199X: This month, May 2012, showcases a double feature of two of the more prominent entries in Westone's legendary action/adventure Wonder Boy series!



First off is Wonder Boy in Monster Land, the second installment of the series released for the arcades and eventually ported to a plethora of systems. Its Sega Master System version is arguably its most well-known. Here's what the Wiki says on it:

The game is the sequel to the 1986 game Wonder Boy and takes place eleven years after the events in the previous game. After enjoying over a decade of peace on Wonder Land following the defeat of the evil King by Tom-Tom, later bestowed the title "Wonder Boy", a fire-breathing dragon called the MEKA dragon appeared; he and his minions conquered Wonder Land, turning it into "Monster Land". The people, helpless due to their lack of fighting skill, call for Wonder Boy, now a teenager, to destroy the monsters and defeat the MEKA dragon. Players control Wonder Boy through twelve linear levels as he makes his way through Monster Land to find and defeat the MEKA dragon. Players earn gold by defeating enemies and buy weapons, armor, footwear, magic, and other items to help along the way.

Here's a gameplay video of the first three stages: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwsleCKZQdk



The other game is Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, at least that's the title by which it is known via its original SMS release. It was later ported to the Turbografx-16 with better graphics and sound under the title Dragon's Curse... or, bafflingly enough, Adventure Island in Japan. Here's the Wiki's description:

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap takes place immediately after the events of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy travels into the Mecha Dragon's lair in order to slay him. (Some sources refer to this creature as the "MEKA dragon".[2][3]) However, upon doing so, he is inflicted by a curse that transforms him into "Lizard-Man". In the game, the player controls Wonder Boy as he tries to undo this curse by journeying across the land, defeating other dragons, and defeating finally the Vampire Dragon to obtain the Salamander Cross – the only object that can remove his curse.[4]
After completing the first level in the game (which is the same as the final level in Wonder Boy in Monster Land), the player begins as Lizard-Man from Alsedo, a town in Monster Land, and the gameplay becomes nonlinear.[5] From there, the player explores and finds items and clues needed for Wonder Boy to access different parts of Monster Land.[6] Gold and additional secondary items can be found by defeating enemies and opening treasure chests. With gold, players can buy additional items and better equipment in shops and restore their life meter in hospitals. Shops are normally designated as doors with windows on them, located in town or in caves. Items with question marks displayed cannot be bought unless the player has "charm", which can be increased by collecting collect Charm Stones or by equipping certain items.[7][8] The Status Screen shows how much attack and defense power, and charm Wonder Boy has, all of which depend on what items are currently equipped.[9][10]

Here's the opening area of Dragon's Trap on the SMS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqekqoF1LuQ
And here's the same scene (and then some) in the TG16 Dragon's Curse: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaQLczTm9yQ

A caveat to note: The Wonder Boy series is infamous for having the most confusing and arbitrary policy for naming sequels, such as two completely different games both being named Wonder Boy III. The one we are playing specifically for this month is Dragon's Trap/Dragon's Curse, the nonlinear adventure title, as opposed to Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, a sidescrolling shoot-em-up (of all things) originally released for the arcade. Further frustrating matters are how the very first Wonder Boy game was retooled and released on the NES via Hudson under the name "Adventure Island," which then blossomed into its own series... although the Japanese version of Dragon's Curse is called Adventure Island somehow.

Confused yet? When in doubt, just check out the gameplay videos I posted above. Any version of WB in ML is acceptable, from the arcade to the SMS one (even the SG-1000 one if you're so inclined), and either version of WB3, be it Dragon's Trap or Dragon's Curse (even the Game Gear version of DT) is viable. Nearly all of the Wonder Boy games are available on the Wii's Virtual Console (with the arcade Wonder Boy in Monster Land and Monster World IV due to be released next week after this post!), and emulation for the games' arcade, SMS, and TG16 versions is spot-on today. Remember: No looking up guides or walkthrough videos (the videos above are okay, but those are the only freebies you're getting) and no using savestates to cheat, unless you need to bail from playing either game and want to come back to it later. Happy adventuring, Hu-Man!

Also, here be the original post from the voting phase:

Note: The square brackets I put in account for the current running tally of votes. I'll try to update it whenever possible until the polls are closed.

The voting for the next Game Club 199X game is up for May now with the following choices:

Mechwarrior (DOS) [6 Votes]
Suikoden (PS1) [11 Votes]
Wonder Boy in Monster Land/Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (SMS) [12 Votes]

This is a rather interesting triumvirate. The forefather to first-person mech shooters, one of the defining RPGs of the Playstation era, or a duo of games from the fantastic yet confoundingly-named Wonder Boy series?

Just to confirm on that last one, Monster Land is the second one of the overall series that was ported from the arcade to the SMS, though you can play the arcade version too. Dragon's Trap is the non-linear more adventure-ish installment which many deem to be the series' high point which was later ported to the Turbografx-16 as Dragon's Curse. Should this entry get picked, you can play Dragon's Curse on the TG16 instead of Dragon's Trap on the SMS. There's really no difference aside from punched-up graphics and music.

Okay-dy, voting shall be up until 11:59 on Thursday. Friday at midnight is when the next game shall be declared, so get to voting!

For reference, here's the previous podcasts up to now:

Game Club 199X #1 - Snake's Revenge (NES)
Game Club 199X #2 - Wasteland (PC-DOS, C64, Apple II)
Game Club 199X #3 - Dai Ma Shikyou Galious (NES)
Game Club 199X #4 - Vagrant Story (PS1)
Game Club 199X #5 - King's Quest V (PC, NES)
Game Club 199X #6 - Landstalker (GEN)

And of course, I'll remind you of the IRC channel:
Server: irc.psigenix.net
Channel: #gc9x

[Weasel]

Being a complete Mechwarrior nut, I'm going to of course vote for Mechwarrior - though admittedly I have never played the original game, I did spend some time with the SNES remake. Mechwarrior 1 is really more akin to MW2: Mercenaries, in that you take missions to earn money and then spend it to buy new Mechs and weapons. Also, it was developed by Damon Slye of Dynamix.

[NamelessFragger]

Gotta vote for MechWarrior.

Unfortunately, it predates mouse/joystick aiming, so all up/down aiming and torso twisting will have to be done with the keyboard keys. Make sure you have the manual handy.

Also, there's a particular quirk to the singleplayer I'm not sure I want to spoil yet, at least in the way it's structured.

[Allie]

Suikoden 1. I'm sure a lot of people would be disappointed that it's not 2, but the original just has an atmosphere around it that pulled me in.

[TheGunheart]

I vote Mechwarrior, since I actually have that installed right now. Mind you, it's amazing how incredibly broken it is...

[The Great Klaid]

Suikoden, It might encourage me to finish the damn thing

[kal]

Wonder Boy in Monster Land/Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap

[muteKi]

Wonder Boy, because I have it and I like never touch it and that's a damn shame

[Sketcz-1000]

Suikoden.

It gets a bit of a negative rap in comparison to it's bigger and better sequel, but in many ways I prefer the first one. It's cohesive brevity makes it a joy to replay on occasion, and many RPGs could learn that less is more from Suikoden. Also, there's some epic plot events which I think are better than Sui 2, which descended into dull political babble at times.

I've also got it off PSN, which is handy. It'll be MUCH easier to get into than Vagrant Story was.

[megatronbison]

Suikoden- much like with Vagrant Story I would like the extra incentive to play through this- and much like Vagrant Story I can play it via a portable! I'm sorry I couldn't partake in Landstalker in the end - things in real life conspired against me, bah.

[retr0gamer]

Dragon's Trap for me. Played the other 2 to death already.

[susanismyalias]

Suikoden/Palin 2012

[Ike]

wonda boi

[Feynman]

I've played Suikoden several times, same with Mechwarrior. However, despite completing and enjoying both Genesis Monster World games, I have never finished Dragon's Curse. So I vote for that one!

[Warchief Onyx]

I'm going to vote for Suikoden. I liked the original quite a bit, much moreso than the second game (which is sort of a heretical opinion in the fanbase). The gameplay in Suiko II is better to be sure, but I prefer the first game's plot and especially the main characters. Especially Jowy. Ugh. I also don't have the hard-on for Luca Blight that the rest of the Suiko fanbase has.

Suikoden also has a real easy to abuse infinite money trick that you can do very, very early in the game. Though it is very tedious.