Welcome to Let’s Play Wonder Boy In Monster Land! Who, you ask, is Wonder Boy? And what’s he doing in Monster Land? Good questions! The real answer is sort of complicated, so I’m going to explain it as I understood it as a kid: Wonder Boy is the guy from Wonder Boy except now he’s a teenager and he has a sword and shield! Monster Land used to be Wonder Land, but it’s full of monsters now because the MEKA dragon took over! Time to save the day!
Some of you might remember the original Wonder Boy from the NES version, Adventure Island. As a Sega kid, I’ve never played that game, but I think it’s the same game with a different character. That seems to happen a lot to Wonder Boy/Monster World games. To stick with explaining it as my child self knew it, the Wonder Boy series has three main games, all on the Sega Master System: Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. There’s also maybe a game called Wonder Boy in Monster World, but I never saw the Master System version anywhere and if I ever saw the Mega Drive version it was before I had a Mega Drive. And once I saw an arcade machine version of Monster Land at the mini-golf place! Then there’s Adventure Island, a series which totally rips off Wonder Boy but is obviously not as good because it’s on the NES with crappy graphics and so on.
All three of my main games are on the virtual console, as are the Mega Drive versions of Wonder Boy in Monster World and Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (which is not the same game as Dragon’s Trap on the SMS). There might be a few more from other systems, too. Rumour has it that Monster World IV will be coming to the VC soon, and in English! Exciting times.
Anyway, let’s play some Wonder Boy in Monster Land!
Kshhhhhhhh
V-whum.
Deh-dah!
It’s a pretty nice title screen. I think the original game from ’87 is the arcade version, and the reprogrammed is the SMS one.
Here we are in Monsterland. Currently, we have a score of zero, no gold, no shoes, no shield, and no sword. All we can do is jump.
Luckily, jumping can be a profitable move in Monster Land. There’s stuff hidden all over the place, and jumping is how you find it.
We’re at kind of a dead end here. Better see what’s through that door.
Oh man! A monster!
Or not. According to the manual, this person is the Mayor. According to a different page of the manual, she’s a fortune teller. I guess a person can have two jobs.
Seems like Wonder Boy doesn’t wanna see the Mayor again, ‘cause he’s nailed the door shut. Anyway, we now have a sword. And a way forward! There’s only one thing to do!
Use the sword as a guitar! Rock ‘n’ roll!
Instead of moving forward, we jump on the Mayor’s roof.
There’s more gold up there! WBiML is a platform-adventure-action-RPG, I guess. Or at least the beginnings of one. The sequel, Dragon’s Trap, is pretty much a metroidvania, but Monster Land lacks the exploratory element of that game style. The RPG elements come in the character advancement, and I guess the sidequest. There’s two ways to improve your character: First, each 100,000 points you score gets you an extra heart of health. Second, you can buy or find new gear. The points pretty much take care of themselves, but to get enough money to keep up with equipment you need to spend a lot of time jumping anywhere that looks like it might hide something. Like that tree, or the Mayor’s roof. Enemies also give money, but only the first time you kill them. When they respawn they drop items, which are mostly only good for points. The amount of money you get is random, but tends to increase as the game goes on.
Here’s my current status, by the way. This is the pause screen, which is inaccessible before you visit the mayor. At the top are your health and wealth. Below that, your equipment. The helmet, gauntlet, and wing boots are temporary boosts: the helmet doubles defence, the gauntlet doubles offence, and the boots stop you from falling. The revival potion is a single use item that restores you to full health when you die. You can buy a replacement (though you can only carry one at a time), but they’re kind of expensive. The key is needed to reach the next stage. The bomb, tornado, fire ball and thunder flash are offensive magic. You activate them by pressing down. The Master System’s square d-pad meant that I usually wasted any magic I obtained pressing down accidentally.
Combat! Press button to replace enemy with money. You might notice that Wonder Boy gained three gold between starting his swing and connecting with the SNAKE. That’s because I accidentally deleted the screenshots I took on my first run through. Being so close to the start it was no big deal to just play the first twenty seconds again and get the shots again, but those randomised money drops meant I couldn’t hide it.
Those red SNAKEs just stand there and go down in one hit. That yellow fellow is a bit more dangerous. I better psych myself up.
Step one: Money. Bags of cash are always worth more than single coin drops.
Step two: Booze. Apparently Sega just did not care about impressionable young minds. Lucky that eleven-year-old me didn’t know what ale and mead were. They each restore a little health, and the bartender will give you some information.
See, he says come again, but then he locks me out. Most stores in the game will close as soon as you buy something, or if you go in too often without buying anything. Bars will let you buy twice.
The yellow snake (ANACONDA, according to the manual) takes a few more hits to kill.
And a little bit longer to disappear. Gives about the same amount of money, though.
Wonder Boy is totally hardcore, jumpswording that SNAKE like that.
Oh hey, an hourglass! Hourglasses are the second-worst thing in WBiML. You see the one in the top right of the screen? It’s full at the moment, because I just got drunk, but it’ll gradually run out. Whenever it does, you lose a heart. I estimate at least half of my runs in this game are ended not by enemies but by the time limit. I guess it’s a holdover from the arcade version. Anyway, you pick up an hourglass to reset the timer.
Behind this door is DEATH MASTER. That’s the guy the barkeep was talking about!
It’s not a particularly tough fight. He swoops down at you, you swing the sword. The first hit turns the yellow dot on his robe red.
The second hit makes him cry.
Well, this is awkward.
Then he explodes. Much better.
He leaves behind the key, and a bunch of coins. When you get the key you leave the room, so make sure to get the coins first! It’s actually a bit tricky in level one, because you’re bare-foot and so you can’t jump very well.
There’s just an ANACONDA left before the end of the stage. Easy-peasy.
Oh no! I swung too soon on my second hit! The creature continues to advance, and I’m trapped in the recovery animation!
The hit sends me flying. How embarrassing!
I finish it off with no further trouble, and remember what the barkeep told me. Jump, the last tree on the right-hand side.
Awright! Free health! I’m back in top shape, just in time to finish the level. Why Wonder Boy knocks when he just got the key from the Death Master, I don’t know.
At the end of the stage, you get points based on how much health you have left, with a bonus for perfect health. If you don’t have full health, you get back one heart more than you had.
Well, that ends Round 1: City of Wonder Land. Behold: The whole stage!
Join us next time for Round 2: Whatever it’s called!
TL,DR:
Some of you might remember the original Wonder Boy from the NES version, Adventure Island. As a Sega kid, I’ve never played that game, but I think it’s the same game with a different character. That seems to happen a lot to Wonder Boy/Monster World games. To stick with explaining it as my child self knew it, the Wonder Boy series has three main games, all on the Sega Master System: Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. There’s also maybe a game called Wonder Boy in Monster World, but I never saw the Master System version anywhere and if I ever saw the Mega Drive version it was before I had a Mega Drive. And once I saw an arcade machine version of Monster Land at the mini-golf place! Then there’s Adventure Island, a series which totally rips off Wonder Boy but is obviously not as good because it’s on the NES with crappy graphics and so on.
All three of my main games are on the virtual console, as are the Mega Drive versions of Wonder Boy in Monster World and Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (which is not the same game as Dragon’s Trap on the SMS). There might be a few more from other systems, too. Rumour has it that Monster World IV will be coming to the VC soon, and in English! Exciting times.
Anyway, let’s play some Wonder Boy in Monster Land!
Kshhhhhhhh
V-whum.
Deh-dah!
It’s a pretty nice title screen. I think the original game from ’87 is the arcade version, and the reprogrammed is the SMS one.
Here we are in Monsterland. Currently, we have a score of zero, no gold, no shoes, no shield, and no sword. All we can do is jump.
Luckily, jumping can be a profitable move in Monster Land. There’s stuff hidden all over the place, and jumping is how you find it.
We’re at kind of a dead end here. Better see what’s through that door.
Oh man! A monster!
Or not. According to the manual, this person is the Mayor. According to a different page of the manual, she’s a fortune teller. I guess a person can have two jobs.
Seems like Wonder Boy doesn’t wanna see the Mayor again, ‘cause he’s nailed the door shut. Anyway, we now have a sword. And a way forward! There’s only one thing to do!
Use the sword as a guitar! Rock ‘n’ roll!
Instead of moving forward, we jump on the Mayor’s roof.
There’s more gold up there! WBiML is a platform-adventure-action-RPG, I guess. Or at least the beginnings of one. The sequel, Dragon’s Trap, is pretty much a metroidvania, but Monster Land lacks the exploratory element of that game style. The RPG elements come in the character advancement, and I guess the sidequest. There’s two ways to improve your character: First, each 100,000 points you score gets you an extra heart of health. Second, you can buy or find new gear. The points pretty much take care of themselves, but to get enough money to keep up with equipment you need to spend a lot of time jumping anywhere that looks like it might hide something. Like that tree, or the Mayor’s roof. Enemies also give money, but only the first time you kill them. When they respawn they drop items, which are mostly only good for points. The amount of money you get is random, but tends to increase as the game goes on.
Here’s my current status, by the way. This is the pause screen, which is inaccessible before you visit the mayor. At the top are your health and wealth. Below that, your equipment. The helmet, gauntlet, and wing boots are temporary boosts: the helmet doubles defence, the gauntlet doubles offence, and the boots stop you from falling. The revival potion is a single use item that restores you to full health when you die. You can buy a replacement (though you can only carry one at a time), but they’re kind of expensive. The key is needed to reach the next stage. The bomb, tornado, fire ball and thunder flash are offensive magic. You activate them by pressing down. The Master System’s square d-pad meant that I usually wasted any magic I obtained pressing down accidentally.
Combat! Press button to replace enemy with money. You might notice that Wonder Boy gained three gold between starting his swing and connecting with the SNAKE. That’s because I accidentally deleted the screenshots I took on my first run through. Being so close to the start it was no big deal to just play the first twenty seconds again and get the shots again, but those randomised money drops meant I couldn’t hide it.
Those red SNAKEs just stand there and go down in one hit. That yellow fellow is a bit more dangerous. I better psych myself up.
Step one: Money. Bags of cash are always worth more than single coin drops.
Step two: Booze. Apparently Sega just did not care about impressionable young minds. Lucky that eleven-year-old me didn’t know what ale and mead were. They each restore a little health, and the bartender will give you some information.
See, he says come again, but then he locks me out. Most stores in the game will close as soon as you buy something, or if you go in too often without buying anything. Bars will let you buy twice.
The yellow snake (ANACONDA, according to the manual) takes a few more hits to kill.
And a little bit longer to disappear. Gives about the same amount of money, though.
Wonder Boy is totally hardcore, jumpswording that SNAKE like that.
Oh hey, an hourglass! Hourglasses are the second-worst thing in WBiML. You see the one in the top right of the screen? It’s full at the moment, because I just got drunk, but it’ll gradually run out. Whenever it does, you lose a heart. I estimate at least half of my runs in this game are ended not by enemies but by the time limit. I guess it’s a holdover from the arcade version. Anyway, you pick up an hourglass to reset the timer.
Behind this door is DEATH MASTER. That’s the guy the barkeep was talking about!
It’s not a particularly tough fight. He swoops down at you, you swing the sword. The first hit turns the yellow dot on his robe red.
The second hit makes him cry.
Well, this is awkward.
Then he explodes. Much better.
He leaves behind the key, and a bunch of coins. When you get the key you leave the room, so make sure to get the coins first! It’s actually a bit tricky in level one, because you’re bare-foot and so you can’t jump very well.
There’s just an ANACONDA left before the end of the stage. Easy-peasy.
Oh no! I swung too soon on my second hit! The creature continues to advance, and I’m trapped in the recovery animation!
The hit sends me flying. How embarrassing!
I finish it off with no further trouble, and remember what the barkeep told me. Jump, the last tree on the right-hand side.
Awright! Free health! I’m back in top shape, just in time to finish the level. Why Wonder Boy knocks when he just got the key from the Death Master, I don’t know.
At the end of the stage, you get points based on how much health you have left, with a bonus for perfect health. If you don’t have full health, you get back one heart more than you had.
Well, that ends Round 1: City of Wonder Land. Behold: The whole stage!
Join us next time for Round 2: Whatever it’s called!
TL,DR:
Comments
Post a Comment