Sega and M2 have been bringing some of Sega’s best games to the Switch lately, and along with Virtua Racing, we have been given the arcade gem of Wonder Boy in Monster Land. The Wonder Boy series are sidescrolling action games, but had a twist of losing health over time. In the arcades, this was to inevitably get players to put more money in the cabinet, but the experience of playing was fortunately not ruined.
Wonder Boy In Monster Land is a fun platformer that has mostly aged well. There are some issues with how hit detection works with certain bosses ( the Red Knight being able to trap you in a corner for instance), but it is still very playable. I received both this game and Virtua Racing from Sega to review on Switch, and I must say how surprised I was at how much I enjoyed this one. There is something to be said about the classics, from the old school design and gameplay mechanics, to the strange translation choices (“Someone be beyond the wall” ), that modern games cannot match.
Along the way, there will be shops to visit and picking the right equipment is key for getting a successful run. This leads me to the first big change in the Sega Ages version, namely a New Game+ mode that has been added. This mode will allow you to keep your items and equipment into a new playthrough of the game. There are also a variety of other modes such as two challenge modes to test out in this version. One will see you face off against the Sphinx and one is a time attack challenge to see how fas you can make it through the final dungeon. The third is possibly my favourite and is the Fireball Challenge. You have infinite fireballs to take out enemies but will die in one hit. Playing this challenge was extremely fun and I recommend it to everyone.
The controls are for the most part spot on, aside from some floatiness when jumping. It is not too bad though, and the responsiveness works properly most of the time. The Joystick rattle from the arcade that lets you get more gold is back, and can be mapped to a single button this time. This will enable you to build up your gold supply much faster. Lastly, the game has a large amount of save states so you do not have to worry about messing up. You can even have multiple playthroughs of different modes at once under different save files.
Overall, this is an amazing package. Sega and M2 did Wonder Boy in Monsterland justice and I highly recommend checking this out. This is the definitive version of the game.