Retro Review: Wonderboy III – The Dragon’s Trap

by Staff October 22, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

Review written by community member KerzaPlanes.

This time around I chose a game that was my favorite when I was a kid and which still has a spot in my heart, Wonderboy III on the Sega Game Gear. This game was developed by Westone (formerly known as Escape) and originally released in 1989 in North America and Europe on the Sega Master System, but was ported by other companies to the Japanese PC Engine and TurboGrafx 16 in 1991. European gamers would get a re-release of the game on the Sega Game Gear in 1992. Most recently this game has been released (along with its predecessors) on the Wii Virtual Console. If you have a Wii, trust me, this game is well worth putting some cash into. Also it has dragon pirates and ninjas. What more can you ask for?!

Plot:

This game picks up where Wonder Boy 2 left off. You’re in the Mecha Dragon’s castle and your objective is to slay him. It’s really surprising if you go into your inventory and notice that you are completely maxed out, you have the best sword, armor and shield right off the bat. To Wonderboy’s surprise just as he beats the Mecha Dragon, he is cursed by the dying dragon that turns him into a Dragon! After escaping the castle, you find that you have also lost your equipment and now, not only must you regain you regain your equipment, you must also find a cure for the curse by slaying all the other boss dragons and their minions in the game.

Gameplay:

This game mixes action, platforming and a bit of role playing all into one neat package. This game plays excellently as a action platformer, you go around and slash things while jumping all around to get where you need to. The controls are very responsive and you won’t have any trouble playing this game at all. However, the game also brings to the table a few tricks from the RPG genre: after becoming a dragon you start off with one heart and you can collect more hearts to gain more health as the game progresses. You will also find shops where you can buy swords, shields and armor that you need to progress in the game and also cure yourself at a fairy shop should you need to. The graphics are also very good for a 8 bit game. Actually they might be the best I’ve ever seen. One thing I found annoying about this game however is the random spawning of enemies that sometimes just vanish off the screen when you’re chasing them and in their place appear others that weren’t there. The game also has varied locations so you will never be in the same place twice, which is pretty good.

Music:

The sound effects and the music are awesome. You have varied tunes, credible sound effects and most importantly, you won’t get tired of them anytime soon. The music fits all the scenarios and dungeons pretty well. After playing this game I found myself whistling and humming some of the games tunes all the time in my daily life. They’re that good.

Difficulty:

This game isn’t very hard to play if you are careful enough and get used to it. The learning curve isn’t very steep but the game will challenge you at times like when you get to the Samurai Dragon dungeon where the game will send hordes of ninjas and samurais that are hell to kill and will take lots of portions of your health away. It is most likely the hardest dungeon in the game, significantly more so than the final dungeon, because when you get to the final dungeon you can have the Legendary armor, sword and shield again which will ease the difficulty.

Cons:

The game does have it’s share of flaws. For example the password system is boring as hell and the game can sometimes glitch for no reason. I won’t spoil it but there is a glitch I found in the game that lets you do something very useful if you want to be very prepared for the final dungeon. I’m not even sure if it’s a glitch, I’m just saying it is because sometime it works and sometimes it doesn’t… It’s pretty weird. Also the game has a lot of secrets, might I say too much and unfortunately not all are easy to figure, most I dare I say, impossible.

Conclusion:

All in all, Wonderboy III is the perfect end for the Wonderboy trilogy. It’s fun, challenging and it will leave you with a great feeling of accomplishment when you do beat it and closes with a very fun credit roll. I tried searching around for more information on Westone, the developer of the game, but could find nothing so I’m guessing they’re a defunct studio. It’s a shame considering this game was really good, and I think is one of the true retro games that has aged very well. If you can, buy it either for the Wii or Playstation 2 as it’s well worth it.

This is Kezra signing out and wishing you happy gaming.