The Curse of the Dragon
The greatest merit of the developers was that he did not reinvent, modernize, and thus disrupt the original work, which remained unaltered in the feeling and kept his aura of sacredness.
The story resumes from where Wonder Boy ended in Monster Land , with the defeat of the Meka-Dragon inside the castle.
The protagonist, after defeating him, suffers a curse that turns him into a half-man and mid-lizard, before the five transformations into anthropomorphic animals that the protagonist will have to endure. In The Dragon’s Trap , in fact, we will have to leap over an interconnected gaming world and consist of great thematic areas in search of a cure, resisting the nausea that the terrible enemy has hurled us at the exact time of his departure.
Each mutation – in addition to a different appearance – brings with it several abilities and weaknesses: the lizard man can not use the sword but can spit fireballs to strike at a distance, the mouse man can walk on special blocks and reach new areas and, more generally, one needs to understand how to act and what direction to follow depending on the transformation that has undergone.
Also consider the importance – especially for a game of the time – that it had the equipment, divided between swords, shields and armor, which changed some gaming dynamics and highlighted the need to customize their alter ego depending on different situations.It then needed to have good mnemonic skills to remember where the new skills acquired could be used and how to progress, with the possibility of discovering secret gates scattered along scenarios.
All that was brought back to this new version of the game, and the nostalgics will be able to do nothing to repent in a timeless classic, which benefits from the excellent work of restyle of the development team, extremely respectful of the original work . Those who have not been able to play for personal or time reasons should approach this series, which will be rewarded with a spiritual follow-up under development under the supervision of Nishikawa.
Beautiful Monster Land
Beyond the marginal addition of the female character, Lizardcube recognizes the great sensitivity of comprehending the spirit of the original work to the full, realizing a truly outstanding cosmetic job, brushing on Dragon’s Trapas the best of clothes.
The game has been redesigned by hand with a unique style, scenery has been enriched and superbly featured with lots of details; the animations have been made from scratch, they are beautiful to see and there are not any class touches that elevate the artistic figure of this remake. The end result is simply commendable and the cure operation can be said to be very successful. You will be able to account for yourself by pressing the appropriate button, which allows you to switch from real-time to 2017 to end-80s as often as you like, choosing whether to use the old password system or not .
Another remarkable work by Michael Geyre, composer who has arranged and reinterpreted the music tracks made by Shinichi Sakamoto, with an immediately recognizable and evocative style, and a series of tools that can give a new dimension to the soundtrack. The author wanted to stay as close as possible to the catchy melodies of Wonder Boy III , rarely changing the structure of the pieces and adding the harmonies here and there, in an always discreet and original way. Great sound design work is also great, careful, accurate and able to give body to the minimalist sounds of the original work.
Those who know Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap will be able to finish it in a couple of hours, while everyone else will have to deal with some of the more difficult-to-reach areas of the usual, overtaken by memorizing attack patterns and enemy placements. In any case, you can select in this version three levels of difficulty with the most complicated that adds an hourglass that takes away a bit of life every time you fail to overcome the various sections in time.
