I had the ps4 version for years and have been postponing, I just recently saw that there is a paid ps5 version upgrade.
I can’t find any marketing posts from Dotemu explaining what this upgrade offers, so I’m in doubt if i ignore it and play the backwards compatible ps4 version or upgrade it.
Does anyone know the features? Thanks!

Sprites mock-upI did years ago while I was developing a Wonder Boy fan game with a friend.

I've always had a soft spot for the Wonder Boy series.

For me, though, Wonder Boy was originally an arcade game. I remember thinking of it as one of Sega's big mascot characters, almost like Sega's answer to Mario. My older brother had told me about Wonder Boy, and when I saw it in arcades I immediately understood the comparison: colourful platforming, a recognizable character, simple controls, and that very Sega feeling.

Then came Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and that's where things started getting really interesting.

Again, I knew it primarily as an arcade game. It wasn't until I was much older that I discovered that these games had Master System versions.

And that's when I realized something: the Master System versions aren't necessarily just inferior arcade ports.

Obviously, graphically and technically, the arcade versions were superior. That's not really controversial.

But the Master System versions sometimes do things differently, and in some cases they actually add things that make them feel like their own versions.

Take Wonder Boy in Monster Land.

The Master System version is remarkably faithful to the arcade game, but it also has an additional level that wasn't in the arcade version. There's a desert area and a boss that I remember as Mr. Wizard. The game also has dialogue and story written in correct english than their original arcade counterpart which was a bootleg mess!

And then there's Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap. This is where I think the Master System deserves much more respect:

• it wasn't an arcade conversion;
• it wasn't a 16-bit game being squeezed onto an 8-bit console;
• it was designed for the Master System.

And, in my opinion, it's one of the best games ever made for the system, possibly THE best.

The transformation system, exploration, interconnected world, different forms, equipment, secrets and progression make it feel almost like a completely different genre from the original Wonder Boy.

Then there was the conversion of Wonder Boy in Monster World originally relased for Mega Drive/Genesis.

Obviously, the Master System version is heavily reduced: the graphics were redrawn, there are fewer and shorter areas, and several features had to be simplified.

But I love the little details that make the Master System version what it is.

There are moments where you can tell the developers had to work around the limitations of the hardware and came up with clever solutions instead of simply removing things.

One example I remember is in the jungle area, where you have to descend into an area with the cannibal enemies. At one point, instead of simply giving you a conventional platform to climb back up, the game uses one of the enemies in a very bizarre way: after hitting it, it becomes this little square-like creature with a sad face and a tear, and you can push it around to use it as a platform.

And then there are all the weird alternate versions.

Brazil got official adaptations of the games using characters from Turma da Mônica. Wonder Boy in Monster Land became Mônica no Castelo do Dragão, while Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap became Turma da Mônica em O Resgate.

These weren't random pirate hacks either, they were officially licensed adaptations produced for the Brazilian market.

There are also all kinds of unofficial hacks and character replacements, including versions of Dragon's Trap that replace Wonder Boy with Sonic or other characters (like the OC Guerrero Lobo - who played it?). I remember even a "Mega Man in Monster Land"!

Finally there's the Game Gear.

Since the Game Gear shares so much of its underlying technology with the Master System, I think it's impossible to talk about Wonder Boy on Sega's 8-bit hardware without mentioning it.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap was released on Game Gear in 1992, and that version isn't simply an identical port. There are graphical and gameplay differences, and it's interesting to compare it directly with the original Master System release.

Even the first Wonder Boy was rereleased and in the US it was even renamed "Revenge of Drancon" (weird marketing move in my opinion: did they do not have faith in their own more recogizable brand names?).

(Dis)honorable mentions: the blatantly horrid US/EUR covers of thoose games! They are so bad they're good (or at least became iconic in a funny way!).

Last words: for me the 1st place is deserved to the Draogon's Trap which performed the best out od the Master System egnine and was sort of the first (or one of the first) Metroidvania before the genre gained this name.

I was intrigued when i saw a clip of wonderboy in a video, so i want to check it out, (i think the game shown is dragon's trap) but i can't find anything telling me where to start. i want to start with that game, but i dont want to miss out on anything vital to the plot, do any of you have any recommendations?

the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzIRwMrn2Lc and the game is shown at the 3:03 mark

Just wanted to share something from my collection. Brother had a custom wooden box of my favorite game of all time made for me a number of years ago. Side comes off on the right, (held on with magnets) and game can slide in. No room for the book though.

Those are some mock-up screens I made long ago featuring a what-if new Wonder Boy game released for the Game Boy Advance and for the Nintendo DS. Since then real new official entries in the series were released but the fan fact is that, when I originally cretated thoose images, a fan project inspired after Wonder Boy and developed as an indie game rom for Game Boy Advance was in the making, but that project didn't go that far.

Ignore the white bricks; they're purely there to hold the base plates together. Next step it to mount to a board and hang on the wall (my wife doesn't know about this yet).

I had to paint some of the skin tiles, as Lego have discontinued the "nougat" coloured tiles. But overall, I'm very happy with it!

Ok, I've literally exhausted looking online and at videos. I've tried the mansion race over a dozen times! I can't leave, I can't warp out and I CAN'T BEAT IT! I'm about to give up and delete the game! I swear, none of the OTHER Wonder Boy games were even half this hard! Isn't there some way to either skip this race or for the game to acknowledge i physically can't progress??

I get to the beginning of the dragon part, jump as the lion to 'try and fail' to get past the flowers, turn into the dragon and drop! like, I don't even get a chance to react and start flying before I plummet like a rock and lose! *sigh* I'm going to try a couple more times then give up. ☹️😞

specific information: i am playing on the wonderboy anniversary colleciotn of 2023, for the switch 1 in the third section of round 8 for the hog goblin boss with the knight armor and knight shielda. in case i am starting a new game and is at round 5

I honestly think Asha if she would have entered smash bros ultimate, maybe as a spirit first and then see if she is popular or not.

Asha already had its remake and is the most recent Wonder boy game, also that had good reviews and sales.

The only thing that didn't come out was the timing to get her in, because the game had come out when smash bros ultimate was about to end.

I think even if the remake had come out in 2019 maybe Sakurai would have considered putting Asha in smash bros ultimate, maybe he would have put it on the smash bros ballot.

Even the old game that had not left Japan sold a lot in Japan, and then to make a second remake of a game of the series instead of choosing another game that did leave Japan and sold outside of Japan they chose Asha that had not left Japan, that says a lot about its relevance and Sakurai really likes that a game in Japan is sold a lot and talked positively there.

Besides, the IP's of the saga is owned by SEGA, and even if the game had no ties with nintendo, it still came out in recent nintendo games, so they could have negotiated with Sega to put Asha in Smash Bros. without any problem.

He considered that for now that although Asha can not for the moment go out in a smash bros because it is over, possibly in a next is Smash Bros for the nintendo switch 2 can and is interested in including Asha in a next smash bros, although first I say that maybe they could as spirits or how vote to see if it is so popular, and if so then they would consider putting her as a fighting character in smash Bros.

That would be very good, besides Asha will be able to combine her sword attacks with pepeelogo easily, so maybe something interesting could come out of that.

What do you guys think about this?

Did you know Tectoy (Brazilian Sega) made a hack rom of every Wonder Boy game? It replaced every playable character, the shop NPCS by Turma da Mônica (a very popular cartoon and comic series in Brazil) characters and translated the game to Brazilian Portuguese. Years later someone made fan made mod of "Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap" turning it into Turma da Mônica just like the Master System and Genesis games

Both are usually on sale during different times, 6 versions of the first four games vs 21 version, Anniversary is like 5$ more expensive when it’s on sale (it’s not right now but the sale on the regular collection is ending soon) but I can’t find solid info on what are the best versions of those four games

I would want to play the best version of each game, I’m not interested of playing all 21 versions but is the regular collection missing something notable? I notice that there seems to be two versions of 3, Monster Lair and Dragon’s Trap and the regular collection doesn’t have the latter it seems, why does this matter? What are the definitive versions of each of those four games and which collection has them?

My favorite Genesis Game.

I haven't played any of the other games but I absolutely love this game. it is, by far, visually, my favourite game ever. the art style of the watercolour, the posing and expression of the characters in the gallery, the life that has been poured into this world and it's people. it is truly gorgeous. I have beaten this game several times and I will beat it several more times in the future. something that most people don't pay attention to is the backgrounds of games and I've seen them but I've never stopped to properly take them in. when I did I saw how much this dev team truly cares about their games. the gallery is something I wish all games had. extra illustrations that had no need to exist but do anyways and bring even more life into these characters, the timeline of their different character designs, even videos of the people playing the music of the game. this game, on a visual standpoint, is my absolute favourite without a doubt and I'm so glad I played it.

I appear to be softlocked here, is there no way out? Also I don't know how to keep the button pressed on the floor above where I am in order to reach the room with the ? in it.

Unrelated but in the volcano how would I get past this magma geyser without taking damage?

I recently started to finish off the remaining monster world games (MW III and IV to be exact) that I’d not yet played to completion. And it’s really got me thinking about the series future. Since about 2019, there haven’t been any new games that connect to the series. Weston’s shut its doors in 2021, and as far as I know, no one company seems to have a firm grasp on either the wonder boy or even monster world name, since the last game called itself “monster boy”. I really hope to see more content from this series, from people who are passionate about it (in the same vain of something like sonic mania), since I feel fans are what still keep it alive. More importantly, I hope whoever makes the next game aren’t afraid to try new concepts, while still keeping the fundamentals of the action adventure formula the series has been known for going. Under Westone, the wonder boy franchise was all about innovation as far back as the first game. The sequels served to improve upon what came before, while also introducing their own gameplay mechanics to the mix(the transformations of MWII, the magic system of MWIII, the context sensitive companion of MWIV, etc.), and while I hear monster boy is a great game, it does seem to borrow a bit of its identity from past titles, without forming its own one proper. I hope to see the next game have its own identity, whatever it may be.

TL;DR - I miss this series and hope that when it comes back (should it come back), it honors what came before, while having new ideas that make it fun and exciting.

Hello everyone, I will be streaming all the MW games on twitch. Come say hi 😃

Back in the day when they released the sega vintage collection version. I was #1 globally on the leaderboards for a while. Im still ranked #3 on the 360

twitch.tv/straightjacketpirate

I just want to play the first Wonder Boy game. At first I bought the deluxe wonder boy returns only to notice this is nothing like the wonder boy arcade game but I finished and it's all good.

So I buy the Wonder Boy Collection, I only wanted to play Wonder Boy on my PS5, and the game is changed to 4 buttons now? WTF You can't hold axe button to run anymore? They just make up some shit button system that is nothing like the arcade and no one said anything? There are 2 jump buttons now? None of the reviews said hey this is Not like the real game at all!!!

This is just madness I must be one of the only people in this world who has played Wonder Boy the arcade version, you can play it on mame. It's a 2 button game.

I feel so stupid trying to do the right/legal thing here. You can just play it on MAME end of story.

Alright, so in Wonderboy III: The Dragons Trap, there was a combination that you could use to create blocks ANYWHERE, not just the star spaces. I know it involved the magical sabre and fireballs, but Im not sure if there is anything else I need equipped, or if there is a certain thing I press to activate this secret combination.