Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Review

Price: £29.99 Physical
Developer: LizardCube
Publisher Dotemu
Players: 1

Before Sonic, alongside Mario and a host of other early platform heroes, there was Wonder Boy. Sega's earnest hero, courtesy of creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, battled through Monster Lands, Lairs and Worlds, before ending up in the Dragon's Trap on the Sega Master System.

Not to be confused with FDG's Monster Boy, Dotemu's homage is a thorough reworking of the Dragon's Trap, with a choice of modern or retro graphics, sound effects and music, that you can flip at the press of a button. In its modern guise we have a fantastic, hand-drawn world of immense charm.

The game starts out with Wonder Boy battling an impressive dragon. Tricked and transformed into a rather feeble dragon himself, Wonder Boy must defeat all the other dragons, across a series of charming worlds populated by fierce or bumbling creatures. At the end of each area one of the big dragons will provide a stiff challenge.

Modern additions include some secret areas to find, a wider range of difficulty and easier weapons changes. The world looks charming and exotic, with plenty of detail while keeping the charm of the originals, and each area or level has a few secrets to find. From pirate-infested shores to the pyramids, each level is packed with charm and ludicrously jolly themes.

Things start getting tricky once you're up and running beyond the first few levels, with Wonder Boy able to change into different creatures with some benefits and limitations. Careful bouncing and battling is required to get through some spots, and you might want to try different characters if you get stuck, rather than plugging away.

There are plenty of hearts to keep your health up and a range of special weapons to help you out of tricky spots, while coins can be spent at your piggy pal's stores for better armour and weapons.

With lots of clever character and enemy design touches, none of which I'll spoil as the game is pretty short, there's always something new to chuckle at or admire. While many Switch players won't buy anything without a Nintendo badge on the game, or some just want to shoot things in Fortnite and Doom, hopefully there's a great audience for this loving update that will inspire other great efforts, rather than cheap cash-ins on our gaming memories.

Score 5/5