Wonder Boy (1986)

Look: 7/10 Arcade-quality good stuff. Cute and good colors. It got a bit nauseating with how fast you move on the skateboard tho. And at no point was I particularly enthralled or in love with the backgrounds etc. Oh, great UI tho

Sound: 7/10 Fine enough, cute tune. Nothing great tho.

Play: 7/10 As one would expect from an arcade game--tight controls which allowed for last minute dodge jumps or kills, consistent mechanics, etc. I wasn't in love with the gameplay, never a huge fan of the forced scrolling type mechanic especially when on the skateboard, but maybe I'm just crabby tonight. I can't really fault the gameplay, as it is a high-quality arcade side scrolling platformer, but I can't praise it either. Cool power-ups tho. And I like the simplicity of the bosses :-p (I watched a video and see that even the final boss is just a slightly more convoluted version of the first boss's simple mechanics :-p )

Feel: 7/10 This feels like I should like it more. Cutesy look, spawned a series, lots of good level settings with arcade-quality Looks, but it's missing that addictive factor and it's missing that sentimental tune to push me through more. I mean, I did hear some great even borderline sentimental tunes like during the clearing of an Area, but something was just missing I dunno.

Attachment: 7/10 Welp by the time I beat the first boss, I was pooped with the gameplay. And then I saw how the "new area" was just the same thing again, probly with more enemies etc. The boss was obnoxiously easy, especially compared to some of the jumps I dealt with to get there. That being said, like I mentioned, not having the skateboard tends to actually make things easier ha, it's just fun to be on the skateboard :-p This wasn't great, but by no means was it bad. I stopped at this point... at least I reached my goal of clearing one Area :-p (of which there are 7... with a bonus 8th one if you get all the Dolls, which is a nice touch)

I may return to it, but in sum, it's a game that should be great but I felt underwhelmed by. I bet if I was the right age when this came out (and had access to it) I'd sing a different tune tho!

Completion: To Area 2 Round 1, Score 71, 450 Playtime: ~30 mins

It's quite astounding this was the first wonder boy game, after playing Dragon's Trap I was quite surprised by the 'vitality' meter, some of the jumps were very annoying, and the bosses were exactly the same each level. Nice skateboarding segments though, and I think that it was a good effort otherwise. Plus, how could you hate this little face?

Wonder Boy is the start of a very exciting series, but its repetitive gameplay and frustrating control take some of the wind out of those sails.

Captured by a dark king, Wonder Boy's girlfriend Tina needs rescuing across ten (in the Master System version) areas with four rounds (with four checkpoints each). The game is a runner of sorts, where Wonder Boy moves forward at a quick and slippery pace. The player can throw hatchets and jump either short or high, the latter requiring jumping while the hatchet button is held down. It's an awkward control scheme but the system is making do with little buttons. The player has a vitality meter which winds down steadily and can be reduced by running into rocks but powerups like milk, mushrooms, secret candy bars and fruit can keep it up. This is a particularly weird system because nearly everything else in the game kills the player on contact, rendering it useless as a health bar. The player also can use a skateboard to move more quickly and smoothly but cannot slow down or turn around, running into a variety of obstacles and often the player's death.

The stages are relatively repetitive - the checkpoints are particularly grueling (though with a variety of challenges at times like moving platforms, stair steppes, springboards) and pull through a variety of locations like islands, caves, forests, temples, more islands, more caves, more forests, more temples... the Master System is notoriously longer than the arcade counterpart and the fatigue sets in. Even more painful is the secret dolls (one for each round) that the player has to find in order to unlock the final world and the ending. Some of these dolls are in plain sight but a lot involve bumping into rocks and open flames that seem incredibly counterintuitive.

The graphics and music are cheery enough - the exact same theme repeats over a multitude of levels with a pumping final round theme for each area to get you going. A variety of cute little creatures like octopi, flying squirrels, owls, eagles, spiders, and...racist caricatures will jump in your way and need hatcheting. Problematic last mention aside the enemy set is mostly inoffensive.

Wonder Boy is a fairly rough game. While not broken, the game is not too well designed and results in a repetitive, frustrating, and hard to control experience.