Wonder Boy Returns PC Review

Description:

A Classic Arcade Masterpiece!
Wonder Boy Returns With High Definition Remake!

Boy, our protagonist is at the beach spending time with other girls behind his girlfriend Tina’s back. That was when Tina confronts him and Boy gets punished for his behavior. While being disciplined, a red devil suddenly appears out of nowhere and kidnaps Tina.
“Hold on Tina! I will save you!!!”. In order to save Tina and repent for his mistake, our Boy sets towards for a difficult adventure…

A classic action masterpiece arcade game Wonder Boy has been remade into HD!

Food is important for a primitive man! Collect all food before your health gets depleted, defeat all enemies, avoid all obstacles and head over to save Tina!

Features:

Rough terrain– Breathtaking moments of dodging action

Interrupting enemy– Gratifying feeling of killing enemies

Items to assist your game play– Satisfaction of earning items

Boss in every last MAP of the STAGE– Activeness by killing Boss

Higher score for better play– A desire to challenge for higher score

Earning hidden items on each MAP– Inspire to repeat play for all CLEAR

Available on Steam for £10.99

Wonder boy Returns in HD but is it anywhere near as good as the classic from 1986?

Originally Wonder boy hit the arcades all the way back in 1986 and was developed by Westone and licenced by Sega. Wonder boy’s first game was a massive hit and developers decided to also sell a PC version of the game called Adventure Island with the only difference being the main character in the game.

Wonder boy Returns promised to be the same game as the classic just improved. As soon as the game gets started you can clearly see that improvement over the old classic with vibrant, clear and colourful graphics in the menu as well as retaining the nostalgic and fun music in the background.

Being officially licensed by Sega nothing is missing from the original, it has all the same levels, power-ups and feel of the original classic from back in 1986, only Wonder Boy Returns improves on the old classic with improved graphics, but it isn’t just a better looking copy of the original. The game features new levels, enemies, bosses and power-ups.

Plenty to unlock along the way

Players have the chance to unlock levels as you progress through and even new characters including a little trip back to the old game with the chance to unlock and use a pixelated Wonder Boy and also the female character Lucy.

There is a total of ten stages with 4 levels in each stage giving players plenty of levels to play through.

Nostalgia?

Onto the gameplay and it very much feels the same as old, with players guiding their character of choice through the level, dodging enemies and jumping over gaps all while trying to collect fruit and items, keeping the health bar at the top of the screen from running out. Bonus items like dolls that need to be collected will appear as players progress through the level, if missed the player won’t be able to turn back to get it as there is no going backwards any futher than where the screen stops.

Levels can be difficult at times!

Difficulty can actually prove pretty challenging, each time you start the level you will start with a generous amount of life’s to restart the level if you die, where things get challenging is one hit is enough to kill the character and take the player back to either the start of the level or the last checkpoint in the level that was reached. Players will find enemies will conveniently and frustratingly be in the place you will likely land after a jump or come up on a moving platform that you can’t dodgy if you did miss with the axe shot before, while this adds to the difficulty and makes accuracy really important it really can frustrate at time! There are however three different levels of difficulty to choose from so if players are struggling the option is there to make things easier.

Controls feel like old times

Controls are very basic as would be expected and only need four buttons in total which control left and right movement, jumping and throwing the trusty old axe! The game plays very much like the old classic and the physics may take time to get use to for some players. I personally found the controls fairly sluggish and sometimes a little unresponsive but after a while I did get used to them. Wonder Boy’s controls really benefit from a controller as using a keyboard proved tricky when trying to accurately make a jump and land.

Verdict:

Ok for fans of the Wonder Boy series this remake of the original game will certainly bring back many memories and should feel massively improved. For players new to the series the game may not be quite up to scratch for the games on offer today, while the game isn’t bad some players may struggle to look past the very basic gameplay and controls that sometimes feel slow and unresponsive. Wonder Boy Returns is a nice remake but sadly it is showing it’s age.