Wonderboy: The Dragon’s Trap
A classic title for Sega Master System released in 1989. The game has just been re-released for modern hardware and plays exactly like the original with revised graphics and sound. It also gives you the chance to play an 8bit version of the game at the press of a single button anytime during gameplay!!!.
You can start off as a Wonder Boy or a Wonder Girl. Just like the original game, you are cursed by the very dragon you went off to defeat and are tranformed into a ............lizard. The only way to break the curse is to find an item called “The Salamander Cross”. This "horrible curse” gives you access to various forms as the game progresses, namely the lizard, the mouseman, the fishman, the hawkman and the lionman. Each form has unique abilities e.g. the mouseman form enables you to walk on walls. Essentially with each form you gain you are able to access areas that you could not with your previous form.
Apart from your basic attacks you also have access to secondary weapons. However the most powerful of all is clearly the boomerang as it passes through walls and obstacles (???) to defeat enemies and makes some parts of the game a lot easier to defeat. Speaking of difficulty there are different difficulty modes to enable players who are not accustomed to the totally unforgiving gameplay of the original to experience the game without having to visit their local psychotherapist. Also, the absence of a map may alienate modern gamers.
Compared to the original, the graphical and sound updates of the game are welcome. Graphics have a hand drawn feeling and are filled with details instead of the generic backgrounds of the 1989 version. Enemy animations are also very detailed and look as if inspired by a children’s comic book (adding up to the nostalgia factor of the title). Also the ability to switch secondary weapons on the fly compared to the original pause-change-resume is also an excellent addition enabling a non-stop action experience.
Score: 7/10. A faithful recreation of the original with graphics, sound and functional updates. Despite some frustrating moments its an old school platformer still fun to play after all these years.
P.S. No PC version? :’(
