Wonder Boy Returns Reviews

The controls make this game so difficult to play. I loved the original, and have clocked many many hours in it. And while I love the visuals of this game, I can't recommend it, because of the controls. They just feel lazy. When you attack, that is also your run button, so if you're in the air and you attack, you'll either go up faster, or fall faster, making it so much harder to plan for attacking enemies. If this weren't the case, and it didn't effect your jump speeds, then maybe I would be more okay with it. But not with the way it is.

Compared to the attention the remake of 'Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap' received, this 2016 remake of the original Wonder Boy seemed to have completely slipped under the radar. However, this is a solid remake of a classic game which, like 'The Dragon's Trap', clearly had a lot of love put into it. Many of the reviews here criticise the game for being too difficult, even after a patch was released which made the game easier. When I first tried the game on Normal mode, I found it too difficult, but after completing it on Easy and then going back to Normal, I no longer found the difficulty to be a problem. If anything, I actually found it too easy. The only problem I have with this game is that the character slides around a lot. I don't remember if the original version was like this and if the remake is just being faithful to the original by including this issue, but whatever the case, it's extremely annoying. But, aside from that, this is a great remake of a classic game, good enough that I completed it twice (something I rarely do).

"Rien ne sert de courir, il faut partir à point." ( Oui, malgré le Pouce-Rouge de circonstance -le titre ayant été retiré du catalogue, et plus directement le défaut d'avoir des Boss de fin de niveau trop capillotractés, ce jeu restera au final pas si déplaisant, et tout de même préférable, de loin, a ce monument d'ennuis qu'est Doug & Lily... Bref... En l'état, je refuse de juger ce jeu, en qualités ou défauts. :/ Plus qu'à attendre l'arrivée du second remake, pour résumer la situation "premier-dernier" de ce titre... Et peut-être enfin pouvoir en rédiger une critique décente, aussi. ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ " In this rush to revive old game series, again, slow and steady may wins the race ? " ( Yup, despite this present Red-Thumb, and some unbalanced Bosses, this game has proven itself to be better than it may have looked, and anyway still way better than the all the Yawn-Fest-of-Boredom from Doug & Lily... Well... By now I refuse to give this game a real appreciation. :/ Still waiting for the new-"remix"-remake : This way I finally may be able to edit a proper review, instead of this. )

Light, entry-level platformer. Easier, more forgiving and naturally a bit fancier than the original. Wonderboy is the first digital hero of my childhood, so I may be biased but also more critical regarding fu©kupz. Not the worst start if you want to dip your toe into the genre. If you're a proper Pixel Grognard, buy it for your kids or nephews or play it with them, taking turns on the gamepad. Verdict: sweet and innocent like the best part of the 80s 3/5 stone age damsels don't mind being rescued by blond, stone-axe throwing savages

Wonder Boy was a hard game on Sega Master System. But with this remake, it gets insane. Even at the easy mode, i died several times in the 1st World. Boss-fights are crazy, because you only can get hit 1 time and than you´re dead. The Leveldesign is okay, but there would be more possible. One annoying part is the music. It´s too loud. Even on Level 1 of the musicoptions, it´s too loud. Another one is, that you cant time a jump. It´s just impossible. Wonder boy slippers around like on a soapstick, jumps too short or too long with no reason. 8 € is too much for this, 5 € would do it fine. I wait for Dragon´s Trap or Monster Boy.

You remember those stages in Sonic where you can’t run fast, but has to slowly move through the stage, waiting for timed jumps and precision platforming? Welcome to Wonderboy Returns. When playing this, everything screams for you to go fast. You can move fast. There are long stretches of empty platforms. Heck, you can’t even stand still when you have the skateboard! But unless you know every stage by heart, the only way to play it is to inch forth in small steps. If you move too far too fast you move into a death zone where a seagull will kill you from an angle you can’t avoid. You remember how Super Mario uses an arc of coins to show you where to jump? Wonderboy Returns uses the same method, except in reverse. Here you are tricked into jumping into enemies. A piece of fruit is placed exactly so that if you jump into it, the timing matches exactly with when a dolphin will fly through the air, killing you. Or Sometimes an enemy will appear while jumping over a rock or fire, killing you when you try to land. It’s not challenging, it’s just cheap. How to survive? Inching forth. It’s not even just a cheap way to beat the game. Some jumps can literally only be cleared by slowly moving closer to an obstacle until the enemy on the other side are triggered. But it IS also an easy way to beat the game. Once you realize this, you’ll complete every stage in your first try. And it’s a damn shame, because if the stages were designed to be completed by running at almost full speed all the time it would actually be really fun. But that will always get you killed eventually. You could argue that it’s just a matter of quick reaction, but the character is so slippery. If you try to change what you are doing you’ll slide all over the place. The controls are horrible. The music and SFXs gets the job done. Nothing spectacular. The graphics are sub par, reminiscent of a flash game, but again gets the job done. A pet peeve of mine is that you can see lines in the backgrounds because the textures aren't adjacent with mathematical precision. That’s just sloppy. The enemies and stages are a bit lacking. There are no coherent theme. You switch randomly between forest, temple, jungle, ocean and more. Each theme always have the same enemies. After the first two worlds you have seen everything. The difficulty increase is also pretty flat. This game could have been pretty good with just a little more effort. 4/10 Conclusion: Infinite lives in modern gaming has become an excuse for bad game design.

Most of my experience with the original Wonder Boy actually stems from its NES adaptation entitled Adventure Island. With the exception of the main character being changed to Master Higgins, the games were very similar from an enemies, maps, and overall gameplay standpoint. That said, I'm fairly pleased to see what developer CFK Co., Ltd. has been able to do with those games some 30 years later. Though it's clear that this is an HD re-imagining of the first game in the series, I can certainly appreciate the direction and care taken in regards to the visuals. While they've certainly been brought up to current standards, CFK has managed to retain the charm found in the art of the original release. Additionally, being able to play as the classic Wonder Boy sprite is an added plus for me. I'm not sure about licensing concerns, but the addition of the Master Higgins sprite in a future patch for us Adventure Island fans would be a nice bonus as well. The gameplay in Wonder Boy Returns hearkens back to the original games... sometimes slippery and at other times blatantly unfair. Some of the boss battles immediately spring to mind and present a similar level of challenge as I remember from the original. Bear in mind that Wonder Boy represented your typical quarter-gobbler when it was released to arcades all those years ago. The goal was to be incredibly challenging, but engrossing enough so you would drop just "one more quarter" in hopes of finally achieving what might've originally been envisioned as impossible. Much like the visuals, Wonder Boy Returns retains this aspect of the game successfully. While I also thoroughly enjoyed the musical tracks on offer in each level, the individual character/enemy sounds definitely border on the weak side. Sadly, they're mostly a collection of squeaks and shrieks that almost seem out of place in a game that was obviously given a lot of attention to detail in other areas. My mind doesn't quite recall what the original Wonder Boy sound effects were like, but I do remember Adventure Island quite fondly. For the day, those sounds effects were far better pronounced and much better implemented than what's on offer here. My only other complaint with this release is in regards to Xbox One controller support when using the Microsoft Wireless Adapter. I've found that for reasons unknown, Wonder Boy will constantly pull to the left under this specific configuration. Moreso, the entire game behaves as if the left analog stick is constantly being pulled to the left. In addition to making an already challenging game that much more difficult, this has the added effect of making things like options and level selection essentially impossible. Though wiring the Xbox One controller directly to the PC via USB works fine, I play games predominantly on my living room couch where the distance between myself and the TV makes a wireless controller essential. It's more than a bit disappointing that I can't play Wonder Boy with the same setup I utilize for literally every other game touting "Full Controller Support" on Steam. Overall though, Wonder Boy Returns manages to recapture almost everything about the original game (or Adventure Island for that matter) and contemporize it into a current release. If you have fond memories of these games from decades gone by, Wonder Boy Returns will undoubtedly rekindle them. Even if you don't remember (or perhaps weren't even alive) when the original games released, Wonder Boy Returns can still provide hours of enjoyment if you're simply looking for a fun but at times very challenging platformer.

This is a remaster of the original Wonder Boy. The game plays exactly the same and has you running to the right, riding skateboards, throwing axes and avoiding enemies, while picking up food to extend your hunger meter. There's also dolls to pick up throughout each level (3 per level) and it looks like there's some unlockables as well. I recommend this one if you're a fan of the original, but if you've never played wonder boy you might be left disappointed as the gameplay here is pretty shallow. It's over 30 years old though so what do you expect?

As a fan of the original arcade game, I am enjoying this new remake. The graphics are colorful and fun, which is in the spirit of the original. It is also great to be able to play new areas and fight new bosses. Nice work! [b]EDIT[/b]: In the latest update, the difficulty level of the game has been improved and the game is actually playable now, with improvements to monsters such as the jumping frogs, more lives in Easy and Normal modes, and many other tweaks and fixes.

They re-remade this game on the Switch, just get that version instead -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Wonder Boy series is back more powerful than ever and wants you to know it!! This game is a remake of the original Wonder Boy with hd cartoony graphics, completely new levels and brand new bosses. If you are a veteran of the series [spoiler] how many of us are left I... wonder[/spoiler] then this game is a must as it's a completely new experience while being nostalgic at the same time. If you are not, then this is a very good game to start with. Wonder Boy is slowly coming back with both the first and the third game recently being remade as well as an official sequel planned to be released later this year. However, there are some problems I found that hinder this game. First of all, as I was playing through the game the screen would occasionally spazze out for a few moments without a reason. In addition, [spoiler] that's more of me nitpicking but anyway[/spoiler] the game gives you the ability to play as the retro 16 bit Wonder Boy but doesn't do so for the background or the music, which is really a shame. Overall: [spoiler] good effort, would play again 7/10 [/spoiler]