Remasters and remakes come in a variety of forms. Sometimes it is a process of ironing out the edges, sometimes it’s porting to keep the integrity of the original game, sometimes the games are rebuilt from the ground, and at times it’s somewhere in between. Lizardcube has done something truly wonderful with the recreation of Wonder Boy by preserving the original and making something new.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap is a recreation of the game Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap, from the Sega Master System II, which told the story of a young boy who was cursed by being turned into a small dragon.He embarks on a quest to return to his normal form, in the process battling dragons, resulting in being further cursed into other humanoid animal bodies. It sounds crazy and the plot is weak, yet despite this the game is great, so with a strong groundswell of love for the original, the remake had to tread carefully.

The remake is truly special as each visual and audio element is presented with two options.The original, or the remake.

The original looks as if it’s from that era, but the remake is a beautifully hand drawn and animated that looks to belong in 2017. At any time during the game you can either pause it, switching elements between new and old or do it on the fly while in the midst of RPG play, whether it’s the sound effects, music, or graphics. Switch each one individually on the fly and it changes in a second with no issues.

On top of this is the minor details, that shows the true love and affection poured into this remake. For example, the original only lets you play as a boy, but in this version, you can choose a girl, and during the opening screen it changes Wonder Boy to Wonder Girl. They have even created an old styled female sprite for the old version of the game, which helps keep the flow of the game. The attention paid to making the remake right shows, and is all the better for it.

The gameplay is simple.You can run, jump and attack.The game directs you to objects from a central town by allowing you to exit via means only available to your character, for example once you get turned into a mouse, you can walk up certain blocks, allowing you to enter the area that was always available, but couldn’t be scaled in dragon form, or turning into the lion allowing you to hit a block below you meaning you can drop down an area from the town to the next area.

The simplicity of the gameplay has aged, along with the response times, and the inability to register certain prompts within a split second of an animation ending can be frustrating as you adjust to the games timing.  It’s an issue that while initially annoying is very easy to look past after not much play time.

Wonder Boy: The Dragons Trap has set a benchmark for remakes of original games.  The game can be played in stunning hand drawn graphics with great music, or looking and sounding as it did in 1988, or any combination of the two.  Its only flaw is with the gameplay being true to the original and a little dated, but that doesn’t stop the game being something truly wonderful.

The post Wonderboy III: The Dragon’s Trap (Nintendo Switch) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Lizardcube, a French based games development studio who are responsible for bringing the 1988 Wonder Boy II: The Dragon’s Trap classic back to the future, remastered reworked whilst retaining it’s original iconic and historical gameplay.

StG was able to get some Interview time with a couple of the team from Lizardcube shortly after the release of their remastered Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Shane: Hi Team, can you please give us a bit of a background on Lizardcube and the lead up to remake the iconic and historic Wonder Boy III.

Ben: Hi I’m Ben Fiquet, art director and co-founder of Lizardcube. I’ve been freelancing for 10 years in video games, animation and comics.

We met with Omar in 2006 working on Soul Bubbles for Nintendo DS. We were both Sega kids and bounded over that I think. Fast forward 2014, we were catching up via emails and Omar told me that he still had that project in mind to try to remake Wonder Boy III. Since it’s a license that I love, I started drawing right away and we both worked on it in our spare time until we had a prototype.

We then showed it to Nishizawa san, the original creator, and he was totally amazed by it. That’s when we knew the project might become a reality.

Shane: Most gamers have either heard of or did play the original Wonder Boy III. What inspired yourselves to remake the game in FHD with a full graphic and audio makeover?

Ben: Well, it’s considered by many to be the best game of the Master System. It was one of the first metroidvania, open world kind of game and the gameplay generally speaking was very tight. It didn’t have the chance to shine like the Nintendo licenses because the Master System was less popular but we’re very happy to be able to share it with today’s generation of gamers.

I also wanted to be able to craft it as i envisioned it as a kid. I’m really glad that there has been an overwhelming response concerning the art of the game.

Shane: What can gamers (young and less young), especially those that played the original game back in the late 80’s, expect from the remake of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap?

Ben: I’d say you can rediscover one gem of a game. It can bring back memories if you played it as a kid and it can charm you with the new additions we’ve put in to it. And with the retro feature, you can experience an almost 30 year old game at the press of a button.

Shane: Being that the game is nearly 30 years old, I imagine it was not just a case of reskinning game assets. Was the game rebuilt from the ground up?

Omar: We started reverse engineering and rebuilding the game from the ground up, and when we rebooted our project and created a sort of novel technology where half of the game is build from the ground up and half if using emulation. We will write technical blog posts in the future to details so this technology works.

Shane: With Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap having just released, what’s next for the team at Lizardcube?

Ben: It’s actually something we have to figure out. We need to relax a little and envision what the future might hold. Maybe another remake, maybe an original game, who knows….

Shane: Thanks so much guys for talking with us here at StG, myself having been playing the remastered Wonder Boy II: The Dragon’s Trap I can see the amount of nostalgic love that has gone in to this re-envisioning on what I also agree was the best game ever for the Sega Master System.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap is now available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from their respective Digital stores. If you have been a gamer for as long (or longer) as I have, this is an absolute must play. Whatsmore, perfect for the Nintendo Switch for both quick and long bouts of play that you can take anywhere.

More than just a remaster, a perfectly crafted shrine to the very roots of console gaming.

The post Interview with the Lizard Cube Team appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

A good curse makes a good game (or so they say)!

Turned into a half-human, half-lizard monstrosity by the Meka-Dragon, a lonesome adventurer is facing the challenge of a lifetime. His adventure begins set out in search for a cure, our mutated anti-hero will explore the many traps of Monster Land… and defeat many stuff-throwing, curse-wielding dragons. How many more transformations can one hopeful body survive, as it turns into a Lizard, a Mouse, a Piranha, a Lion, and a Hawk… The six different forms of our shape-shifting hero make up the cast of this non-stop action-adventure platformer!

And the hero, who is he? Wonder Boy.

Developers, Lizardcube took on making a modern version of the 1989 Master System / PC Engine cult classic created by Westone (Ryuichi Nishizawa, Takanori Kurihara, Hiromi Kurihara and Shinichi Sakamoto). With the help of Ryuichi Nishizawa (Westone), Shinji Fujiwara (LAT), and a relentless commitment from the game’s publisher DotEmu to untangle a bunch of documents covered in pixellated dustwebs, Lizardcube gained the licensed the to the Wonder Boy IP to create this new version, which is a a first since 1994.

The remake, remastered and reimagining of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap features a vast interconnected world with dragons of all creeds romping about; Zombie Dragon, a Mummy Dragon, a Samurai Dragon and more, aswell as beautifully detailed and hand drawn environments and characters.

As an ode to the days of gaming yore – gamers can also flick between current gen HD graphics to the pixel fest 8 BIT days on the fly and in-game. The soundtrack is based on the original 1989 Sega Master System version, again featuring both high def audio or the cleverly catchy 8 BIT music.

For the first time you are able to switch characters from the classic Wonder Boy through to Hu-Man and even a Hu-Girl.

Rebuilding the classic game from nearly 30 years ago, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap remains loyal to the original game, its Levels, its magic yet expanding upon the yesteryear goodness and with glorious eye candy.

Imagine if Zelda, Metroid and Mario had a love child – that is Wonder Boy. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap releases this April 2017 for Nintendo Switch.

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The post Wonder Boy III Returns! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.