Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989)

Preliminary: The controls aren't great, your movement sort of lags to stop, but I got through what I think is the first level? Pretty quickly? I became a dragon? The boss was intuitive and I like the RPG elements with the boss dragon having hitpoints and the UI of the menu but uh, I'm quite confused on what most of the men means. I will have to do some research it seems. I wish there were more info about this online but I now found a gamefaqs guide so that should help. A bit confused how to grind for money but I'm loving the town music and despite the slightly laggy/glide-y controls, I'm getting into it :)

With greats like Castlevania III and Super Mario World coming up, I really shouldn't be pushing through this. The Look is cute with nice colors and the Sound is good but I dunno it just feels like of the 80s while I'm all geared up and ready for the 90s :-p I can't deny the action RPG platformer hook thoooooo

The collision masks are tight and tho I wish opening doors was better-done, it is of a high quality even if it does feel very 80s. Most importantly, I like that I haven't had to use savestates at all (yet). Let's hope this shakes off the era of 80s overly hard and welcomes in the 90s doability. And it says something that I started the game over after reading up that I was supposed to avoid the blue flame at the start for as long as possible to collect those coins. I was wondering why I had no money for the first store :-p Time to stick to this guide that I now have found (it is, indeed, not a straightforward action game like I expected, and was hoping even after discovering you "gotta go the right path" -- a level design I do not like mind you, even when in Mario etc -- that I could just use a map and nothing else).

What the heck... I know I got a key from my journey to the islands... but now it says I don't have one. I'm enjoying this but not sure if I wanna go back through that...

Day 1

Welp, I did haha. And yay I discovered in the Desert that you can shoot away projectiles. Always love that.

Hm neat idea with the multiple versions of yourself unlocking different parts of the areas. Sorta like a Metroidvania. But I didn't end up loving the "Mouseman" part nor the Forest I was exploring heh. Getting to that tedious difficulty. And I feel like every time a retro game tries to do a "cling to the walls/ceilings" power, it just messes with the controls and isn't good. Good thing the music is so good tho.

Day 2

Uh oh. Even tho the Dragon boss took a lot of hits I was mostly having fun but then I went back into the mouse man area as piranha man and dropped down some where and um... I think I'm stuck. And the enemies wont respawn so I can't kill myself.... Cmon now.

There was no way I was doing that Jungle Tower again. No. Fortunately the gamefaqs guide I'm using had a password to start as Piranha Man right after where I was! With the same number of hearts etc since following their guide. Phew. Still, a bit annoying that it's designed that way. Time for a break but I am now Lion Man and I think I'm over halfway through the game so I suppose I will push through despite the setback. Good thing the music is so good and it has platformer, adventure, and RPG elements--all of which tend to hook me in games even with slippery controls and some design frustrations.

The difficulty is getting more and more frustrating. And the collision masks really can be poor at times. But I like that there are "Legendary" equipment like in RPGs. And I like that I'm switching between "characters" to get through the final palace. And that I accidentally discovered some of the fake walls on my own :-p

Ok this final palace is ridiculous. Why was the late 80s so obsessed with obnoxious difficulty and secret doors and whatnot. And the slippery controls really take a toll. Outright savestate abuse time. But I'm so close to the end Imma push through. Thank goodness for the Hades Armor "bug" (probly intentional knowing how hard the end is heh).

Finally! Ugh. That final boss was awful. But cute starry night ending finally as a Hu-Man again, with great credits music after (and I love the hearts in the credits lol cute) and a great bass sound in the credits music.

Look: 8/10 Cute, great colors, nothing spectacular but top-of-the-line for its year

Sound: 8.5/10 Another highlight. Nothing moved me or anything but it was consistently great and kept me pushing through the frustrations.

Play: 8/10 Great ideas, has everything I want in an action RPG platformer hybrid, but wound up feeling repetitive with many of the level designs (most of the build-ups to bosses were the same screens set with slightly different enemies) and the difficulty got too high. But this really could be an 8 because it's a hybrid I love and it does it quite well. (Finnnne I bumped it to an 8 because I was at 7.9 and I felt awful not giving it a 4 star lol with how close that was lol... smh, Some definite faults here, but a quality game for its time and deserves recognition above my sea of 2 and 3 star games)

Feel: 8/10 These Monster Land Wonder Boys have been much more my thing than the arcade Wonder Boys. Seems like a series I will continue to explore. Not much to a storyline, but great ideas Look and Sound.

Attachment: 7.5/10 The fact I did restart and kept pushing through the travails, even getting stuck, says a lot. But it also says a lot that I even got stuck or had to restart haha. Some design issues for sure that I read the remake did away with. How often I would want to play through to the end of this, with all its complexities and the overly hard last bits, is unlikely, but it's a good game and replaying the first half could certainly happen again.

Overall: 8/10 Tho really a 7.9/10 :-p

Completion: Main Story

Dragon's Trap decides to go the route of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, tighten the experience and make it more accessible. And they succeeded! Dragon's Trap is a great improvement on the Monster Land formula.

Cursed by the Meka Dragon after the events of Monster Land, Wonder Boy must take the form of various animals to fight four other dragons to gain the Salamander Cross to lift the curse. The gameplay is largely similar to Monster Land, right on down to the attacking, jumping, spells, and equipment. The player can find health containers to increase health and may also use a password to save their game.

The big draw, however, are the various forms. The player can breathe projectile fire, climb walls, swing in a large arc (good for breaking bricks), swim through water and fly through the sky. There presents a fairly effective nonlinear element where the player can attain areas they may have not been able to reach before using newfound forms. Their equipment and other abilities (including weaknesses) are also affected by these curses, meaning the player must keep on their toes.

Enemies are as cute and colorful as ever. There are quite a few frustrating segments (fireballs, fire from the skies, most things involving fire) and cryptic secrets but the game is more forgiving than Monster Land's rough edges. The music is supremely good for a Master System game, presenting some absolutely catchy tunes that stand up as the finest that the system has to offer.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap is another solid III from the Wonder Boy series, deciding to stick with the Monster Land formula and sharpen it with some fun abilities and nonlinear exploration.

Like a lot of TurboGrafx 16 games this game has a few alternate titles and I picked it cause it had a high rating and was somewhat short. This one is particularly confusing though, becuase depending on what era and what platform you play it on. It goes by different names. The US version is called Dragon's Curse and it turns out it's Wonder Boy III: Dragon's Trap/Wonder Boy: Dragon's Trap (which I had intended to play the new remake.)

Here's a screen of the Japanese version just for giggles: "Adventure Island." Oh, and even though its by the same developer... its not related to the US localisation! Also the game is a sequel to the other Wonder Boy III game by the same developer. And on some consoles it goes by the name of Monster World II (as compared to Wonder Boy II: Monster World). Well, nunna that is confusing at all!...

Are you a bad enough transrator to defeat the 5 ghostly goons and rescue the Precedent?

Aside from the stupid naming stuff and the outlandish translation of the narratives., this TG-16 version is a solid game. In fact it's probably the best old school Japanese Action RPG i've yet to play (i've not played a whole bunch of them that I have on my list but I have gone through several by now) I highly do recommend this game (and that genre). Whether you play the TG-16 title or the SMS, both are great looking platform games from this era that look fantastic on their respective systems.

I really did like the route this went with the Japanese ARPG style. It feels like a mix between some basic design of Faxanadu with powers (somewhat like Kid Chameleon) You can upgrade your character's heart containers, buy equipment and find other things that make you stronger. While you can do things to your character like this, its still kept quite simple. Your stats are equip based but you can do a few things to tweak it around. Environment also can affect your armor rating. What this means is as you get the gear in the game your experience playing it becomes less difficult. So, it just translates well into the 'action' dynamic.

Exploring is fun and rewarding. It's a relatively small world consisting of a seamless 2D maze of sorts. It's got some very clever platform puzzles, many which are a bit subtle. Gameplay is not terribly grindy. It's slightly wandery and I did resort to a guide (and maps) around the 60% point because I was wanting to get a checklist of the equipment that I was overlooking that hadn't become unlocked in the shops. (I also wasn't sure how that worked) Well, your access to the equipment is more or less based on these less than common drops (the stones) which slowly earn you reputation (CP = Charisma points), but you can also 'cheat/boost' this stat by equipping certain gear at a certain point in your journey which will basically break this gate and allow you access to everything.

While the game isn't perfect its quite nice, cute, charming, original, has an excellent PSG (not redbook audio!) score (there's not more than about 9 songs but like many TG-16 games they are all really quite nice), looks and plays quite smooth, has very good controls for a platformer as well. The game has flaws however, main one being that the boss fights are extremely mechanical and boring and most fairly easy to exploit. Charisma points were also a bit convoluted and not that explanatory, leaving me wondering what it was I needed to do to access equipment from shops.

I can only imagine that the remake is well worth one's time after playing the original. Dragon's Trap is basically the game that Zelda II The Adventure of link SHOULD have been!

Play some version of the game if you are curious about classic JARPGs. It gets everything right. This game is pretty fun and accessible and hasn't aged horribly. I got through it in an evening!