The history of the iconic platform RPG franchise Please visit my Patreon at / pdbowl Follow me on Twitter at / pdqc1971 Follow me on Facebook at Patmanqc-His...
Understandably). Hands down, WBML marks the sweet spot, and in my view remains the best of the franchise - while most of the others shown are really good games. The music, graphics, animations, the RPG elements (stores with quirky characters, store & in-level upgrades, boss rooms, secrets, magic items, the story & narrative) are lovely, witty and harmonic to an extend, for me it crossed the border from being a video game to experiencing a fantastic and lively world shown through the window of an arcade machine. Even though I was a youngster when I first played it, not many other games achieved that impression.
Same...after years I've been able to get more than 3,000,000 in wbml in just one ocassion but never 4M or more by some bada$$ players through the world. Hugs from Chile, South America 🤗. Enjoying here second half of Spring in November (Christmas here's in *summer* rather than winter 😅)
Hello everybody, sorry for the delay we were without power for three days due to the horrible storms that ripped through Iowa and Illinois last week. I tried to be as comprehensive as I could With the entire franchise but it's possible I missed a few. Hope you enjoy the video.
I authorized only four ads. Are you serious when you said there was a dozen? When people complain about a few ads they need to realize his videos take between 20 and 30 hours to produce with me myself and I Doing every single thing.
The first Adventure Island was developed by Westone under the license of Hudson as a port of Wonder Boy. The rest of the series were developed by Hudson themselves as their own franchise, that's why they branched off as their own series. New Adventure Island for the Pc Engine was a sort of remake of the first Adventure Island but fully developed by Hudson this time.
So when I saw this vid pop up I immediately watched it as Im a fan of the series and have logged tons of time on the original arcade version. And I got to say, whoever did the game play for your footage is a fricken ace player. This game is hard and requires perfect timing under constant "moving forward" pressure.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I built a mortal kombat 2 full size cab and i'm using Mame and Wonder boy is in there with a bunch of other games, its not an original Wonder boy cab but it gets the job done ! Cheers !
Without any doubt, Wonder boy, Monster Land & Monster Lair are my favourite platform games of all time. Wonderful charm and wonderful score attack games. Thanks for another great video PatmanQC, take care and stay safe sir.
Excellent history lesson on Wonder Boy; I just knew you could do it! My mind is at ease now, knowing that Hudson's Adventure Island was not a Nintendo rip off at all. I was pleased to see that you pointed out all those Wonderful extras for PS4 and Steam too. You really came through thoroughly on this Wonder Boy history. I am really glad that you did Btw, that joke about knocking on more doors in W.B.I.M.L than a jehovah's witness was pretty funny. I liked that one. I'll remember it. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for the kind words. I tried to be as thorough as I could but it's possible I missed a couple of things. Glad you enjoyed my sense of humor :-)
@@hjames78 That is very nice of you to say, Gaming historian Has put out some fantastic videos So to be put in the same breath as Him is quite an honor
RU-vid got it right when one of ‘your history of ‘ videos was recommended a few months back. Great channel. Brings back a lot memories and learn the history of the games, most ones I loved as a kid
RetroVin Monster Land is basically the first “RPG” type game I played. I was like 12. It lit the fire inside of me for games like final fantasy.Going from playing the 2600 to monster land blew my little mind!
This is an excellent retrospective on one of my all-time favorite game series. Thank you for putting it together. I've played every version of Dragon's Trap/Curse, and I'm currently playing the HD remaster! One tiny nitpick is that you didn't talk about the Master System version of Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I personally prefer that version over the other ones. Maybe because it's the first version I ever played.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I totally understand and you really did a fantastic job capturing the huge scope of this decades-old franchise. It must be really hard to put something like this together because everyone has that one game that is especially meaningful to them.
Thanks to you , an over 20 year mystery was just solved. I used to play Wonder Boy in the back of a store in the mid nineties. When I first discovered MAME back in the early 2000's', I wanted to play the game again, but could not remember the name. I described it to my friend and he was sure I was talking about Adventure Island. Now that I know, I can finally play it again!
@@GameOfDepth Alright, I take that back. I never played the SG-1000 version. I did play all the Master System versions, the Arcade, NES and if I remember right a TG-16 version. Oh yea, this game was a must play during NES days. Good stuff.
I didn't discover the Wonder Boy arcade machine until 1988. And I was super addicted. I have the MAME rom on my Super Retrocade. Small bit of info you didn't mention that some may not know are the hidden 1ups on certain levels that look like tiny TomTom dolls. I can't remember where they all are, but you get them by throwing your axe in key spots much like the hidden letters.
U collect little letter blocks that are hidden in certain spots on each level. They appear if you hit the area with an ax or jump right by the spot. The letters are E-S-C (for Escape). Then on the following level, if you hit the hidden spot, a Tom-Tom doll will appear for an extra life. Every level has one of these hidden icons.
I absolutely loved Wonderboy 1 in the arcade! It's one of the reasons that got me into gaming when I was a kid because I had a Sega Master System just for this game. I now have the arcade version on my Raspberry Pi 🎮👍🏻
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I was always gutted they never released WB1 on the Megadrive - I was always frustrated the Master System version wasn't quite arcade perfect (I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to stuff like that 😂😂) when I was younger......
One of my favourite game franchise starting from the good old days at the arcades here in Australia and then on to my first Sega master system console I remember my dad getting Wonder Boy , Wonder Boy in MonsterLand , Wonder Boy 3 Dragon Trap oh the memories it was a great time back then growing up and what made me Sega kid 👍
Wow, great review ! I loved the one from Master system and also the RPG one, monster land and dragon's trap. One important thing that was missing in the review was the custom brazilian version of monster land and dragon's trap, made by TecToy, a Sega brazilian local reseller, which used the characters of "Turma da Monica" kids comic book (veryyyy famous comic HQ, by Mauricio de Sousa, since the 70's up to today, read by kids, teenagers and even adults from the eighties and nineties). The comics has been exported to the US and is know as "Monica's Gang" or "Monica and Friends" . The sword of the main character was switched by Monica's famous blue bunny cuddly toy.
Thanks for another great review, Patman~! I used to have Adventure Island 2 and my daughters and I just loved it; we found the cartridge one day while out for a walk as it lay underneath a dumpster we were passing by. One of my girls said: 'Look, there's a game under there!' and I was amazed to see that she was right! Took it home, cleaned it up, and we had a perfect new game~!
My dad loved playing Wonder Boy in the arcade when he was young. I really enjoyed Wonder Boy in Monster Land. That was a very fun game to play on emulator.
FUN FACT: Adventure Island 4 was the last game released in Japan for the Famicom. Although it was never released outside of Japan there exists fan made English translations on NES carts. I own 3, each with its own label variation. I just checked eBay and there are people selling it on NES carts with a 4th label variation. So Adventure Island 4 has at least 4 label variations, even though it was never released for the NES.
Wonder boy 3 the dragons trap on Sega Master System was my favorite game for a large chunk of my childhood, the nostalgia is rather vast! I never had much money, my cousin was spoiled rotten and his parents would buy them so many games, lucky for me, my cousin was happy to share with his less fortunate relative. I used to open up the posters that came with most Sega games, you would open it up and it would have lots and lots of pictures akin to thumbnails next to the title of the game, clever marketting by Sega, i always wondered what these games were like. Having played Wonderboy 3 extensively made me wonder what these other titles were like, the poster advertised Wonder Boy in Monster land, or monster world, whichever was the Master system game, i never knew that the Dragons trap was a sequel, and it makes the intro make a lot more sense. I did not play the remake of WB3, however it looks very very loyal, so i doubt there is anything new to see except for the graphics, let me know if this is wrong! I used to get sad at the end of the game when the adventure was over, WB has defeated the Vampire dragon and the Salamander cross has returned our hero into human form, you return to the village which is now beautifully set at night, the 1 house you could not enter before now has a door, Wonder boy goes in, the door vanishes behind him, and the screen scrolls up with text to detail the ending. This used to make me really sad, not because the game was over, but it felt like WB was retiring, without rescuing a princess! Wonder boy seemed to have no family of his own at this stage, and the town seems rather ungrateful for our heroes efforts. I wished they would turn these 2 games into a movie! Also, all of the hidden rooms used to drive me crazy, as soon as you find 1, you are pressing up everywhere you go and looking for them!
my favorite Arcade game of all time, i was 15 and play everyday Wonderboy in the pub of my Town with my best friend..we were soo good at the end that we can play the whole game with only one Coin.It was Amazing for 1986 and now so many years later i build my own Arcade Cabinet and play it again..nothing lost ! it feels,looks ans play great today a truly wonder..oh boy
I have totally forgoten this game until today! I used to play this arcade, thank you Patman for bringing great memories back. Greetings from Guatenala 😊
Man, that remake is good. I still gotta play through the new, direct-sequel. I flipped the visuals back & forth constantly while playing through the remake. It was solid & I played the original alot at my cousins, growing up.
Well done for tackling this game! - must be one of the most complicated game series ever. I loved Wonderboy in Monster Land for the Master System and Monster World on Mega Drive. - Sorry to hear about the storm problems.
It was probably one of the most complicated videos I've done. There were even things I left out because the video was already close to 40 minutes long. Thanks for the nice words
A very big thank you for discovering (at least to me) oodles of games I didn't know about its existence. I've written down in my personal 'to do' list to take some of my time off in order to play these jewels. I've just seen this video today and I felt a sudden feeling to play them all along this 2021!
My local post office had this and golden axe, I spent so much money on them! I even got in trouble when I got caught for using foreign coins in them! A lot of the commonwealth countries used the same blanks and I had a big collection!
Someone should make a rom hack where Tenacious D’s Wonderboy plays as the background music. I always wondered about the whole Adventure Island thing... love your videos Patman. Keep it up!
I like this game, I was 6 years old when my dad took me to a place in my home town that had these new machines (Arcade) I played this game and will always remember it. Love you, dad!
Heya Patman! I'm new to ur channel and I love it. Wonder Boy was the game of my childhood...so much fun. I literally lived at the Arcade through the 80's...was the best time of my life. I'd sure like to see a vid on Time Soldiers and Heavy Barrel, u know the ones with the 8way joystick. Ur awesome...just like the 80's =)
My mum would ask me to setup the Master System and Wonder Boy sometimes, before I would leave for school. She could almost beat it, and that game is hard.
Great video on this series from Westone/Sega. The PS2 collection is really great, one of my favorite things in it are the sketches of discarded/unused content for Monster World IV, including a male hero named Eusha.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries on that note I've converted my Nvidia shield for meme emulation and have 6,000 arcade games that are calling my name LOL keep up the good work really enjoy your videos!
@@elmartillo7931 Is it emulation just absolutely fantastic? Every single game from her childhood and more at your fingertips. Thanks for the nice words
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries and all in one place! I can leave all my old consoles in storage and play my favorites in HD on a 70" Plasma lol. Really appreciate you taking the time to comment, thank you very much! I'm torn right now between "Tiger Heli 1 and 2" and "Moon Cressida" hahaha. You should do a video about the history of the Laser disc games. MACH3, Thayer's Quest, Dragon's Layer. One of my friends from HS has them in his garage, we spent a lot of quarters playing those in the arcade back in the day lol
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I can still hear the computer voice from "Thayer's Quest" saying "choose the item you want to drop......" between the quests
Been Playing Returns, Monster World 4, Asha in Monster World and dragons trap. Very confusing history early on but still a very charming series, glad it's been going again recently
@@BlackArroToons Thanks a lot. I always thought it was a ripoff as well. Always enjoyed this game can still recall playing it in the arcades back in the days
I just wanna add that 1) Wonder Boy in Monster World had a version on the Master System. 2) There were re-skins of Wonder Boy in Monster Land and Wonder Boy 3: Dragons Trap for the SMS and Wonder Boy in Monster World for the Mega Drive featuring characters from the Brazilian cartoon Monica's Gang.
Oh his name is Tom Tom haha. I had no freaking clue when I was a kid. I barely understood this game. I used a cheat where I could "time" the level and jump all the way to the last boss, which was just the fastest version of the previous bosses I remember. The totem poles and various artwork used to scare the shit out of me haha
I remember playing Wonder Boy in Monster Land on my Amiga. In fact it was the only encounter I ever had with the Wonder Boy series at all. It always sounded like the name of a sequel or series to me, and now I know that's the case! I always thought Wonder Boy was wearing a diaper in the Amiga splash screen.
Talk of master Higgins with no magnum pi reference? How dare you sir. Haha Played the Monster World games on the Sega genesis mini with my 8 yr old daughter. We had a great time. Your videos keep getting better and better. Keep crushing man.
The way I got introduced to Wonderboy was a bit weird. Here in Brazil, the Master System was (maybe stil is) a quite popular console. We had several games that were only released here, I think, and one of them was Monica no Castelo do Dragão, which was actually a reskin of Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I was very young when I got to play it and the Master System was already quite outdated by that point, but it was still quite fun! I never really got to finish it on my own though. My mom was the one that beated several times. Too bad she doesn't enjoy gaming anymore. In anycase, I'm quite interested in trying the other titles now.
I thought about including Monica since it was a re-skin of the video was already close 40 minutes. That's pretty cool about your mom being good videogames :-)
