Video Game / Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap

Wonder Boy in his Hu-Man, Lizard-Man, Mouse-Man, Piranha-Man, Lion-Man, and Hawk-Man forms.

^{See the artwork for 2017 remake.} With Wonder Girl and her Hu-Girl form introduced.

Before you is the Monster World. Overcoming various hardships, you have at last entered into the Monster's castle. Your target is the dreaded dragon's room. But unbeknownst to you is the fact that the dragon has the power to invoke curses on his enemies​.

- Original introduction text

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (known in Japanese as Monster World II: Dragon no Wana) is the fourth game in the Wonder Boy series. After being defeated by Wonder Boy following the end of Wonder Boy: Monster Land, the Meka Dragon places a curse on his slayer. Wonder Boy turns into a Lizard-Man and now has to regain his human form, gaining other transformations in the process. Being made for consoles rather than an arcade game, The Dragon's Trap ditches the stage-based format of previous games in favor of a free-roaming approach.

The Dragon's Trap was originally released for the Sega Master System in 1989, followed by a portable version for the Game Gear in 1992. Hudson Soft also released a TurboGrafx-16 version titled Dragon's Curse in 1990 (released in Japan in 1991 with the Japanese title Adventure Island).

Surprisingly, this game also received a modern remake as a collaboration between French studio Lizardcube, publisher DotEmu, and the original creator Ryuichi Nishizawa. Trailer here. The remake has released in April 2017 on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with PC in June, and has received critical acclaim for its HD artwork and remixed music, and is so faithful to the original gameplay that it can switch between the old visuals/music/sound effects and the new with a simple button press seamlessly. The game also provides an option to play as Wonder Girl, an alternate female version of the protagonist.

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Tropes in The Dragon's Trap:

• Adaptation Distillation:
  • The Game Gear version has several changes compared to the Master System original:
    • Maps are compressed, so they could fit on the Game Gear screen. Some (like the town) are outright redesigned.
    • The pig men and nurse are replaced with different human NPCs which originated from the sequel.
    • The Charm Points stat is removed.
    • As a consequence of the previous point, Charm Stones have been redesigned and repurposed as Escape Ropes.
    • As a consequence of that point, warp rooms (the ones that only contain a door marked "return") have been removed.
  • While the 2017 remake remains mostly faithful to the Master System version, it also removes the Charm Point stat and repurposes Charm Stones, this time as rewards for completing optional dungeons.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Hu-Man's in-game sprite and western art has green hair instead of blond like Wonder Boy does in most official illustrations. The TurboGrafx-16 version's in-game sprite depicts him with the usual blond hair, although the PC Engine cover art depicts him with red hair. The protagonist did, however, have green hair in the SG-1000 version of Wonder Boy (although not on the box art◊). The 2017 remake retains Hu-Man's green hair in gameplay and artwork, as well as giving Hu-Girl red hair.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final dungeon requires you to switch between all of your previous forms (except Lizard-Man) and use their abilities to reach the final boss.
• Ambidextrous Sprite:
  • Averted for five of the six forms in the original game (didn't need to be averted for the Lizard-Man who didn't use any equipment). Though they do use the wrong sprites when Mouse-Man is climbing the left side of a wall or a ceiling.
  • It is however not averted in the 2017 remake, which uses hand-drawn graphics. That said, there's actually an animation of the characters swapping the hands that hold their sword and shield in the remake when they change directions!
• Animesque: Zig-Zagged in the 2017 remake; the artstyle is inspired by Animesque Franco-Belgian Comics, animation and video games, rather than by anime directly.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The 2017 remake contains some:
  • The Charm Stone mechanic has been overhauled. The stones are no longer randomly dropped by enemies, and shops no longer require a set number of Charm Points to make higher tier weapons and armor available for purchase, with only one exception (see Infinity +1 Sword below). This alleviates a lot of the grinding in the game. The Charm Stones still exist, and the secret doors that they unlock are also still in the game, but earning a stone requires completing an optional secret dungeon instead of grinding enemies. Collecting all 6 stones will provide the same effects as having 99 stones in the original version; unlocking all the invisible doors that provide shortcuts to the Boss Dragons.
  • Some of the enemies fought during the prologue now drop gold, allowing players who couldn't get much gold in the Meka Dragon's room to at least buy the Mithril Sword, making the beginning of the game proper slightly easier.
  • Unless the player uses retro graphics, the shops now show the stat boosts any given piece of equipment provides before the player buys it and potentially wastes money on something weaker than the equipment they currently have.
  • Once the player picks up a piece of equipment, if it is more powerful than the one currently in use, it will be automatically equipped.
  • Transforming at will using the Tasmanian Sword doesn't require pressing buttons on a different controller anymore. Like the Game Gear port, it has also been fixed to exclude the forms the main character doesn't have access to yet, as well as deliberately not working in certain areas, making it look more like a legitimate feature of the game, instead of a potentially game-breaking Cheat Code.
  • When a player saves and restarts in the remake, it refills all treasure chests, making money grinding go much more quickly.
• Auto-Revive: Medicine works this way. When you completely run out of hearts at any given point, one medicine is automatically used. The Hades Armor is also supposedly used up if there are no medicines, but due to a bug in the Master System and Game Gear versions, the player keeps the health-restoring effect until the player manually re-equips armor, essentially making the hero invincible (and if the player has the Legendary Armor, the game switches to that instead of Ivory Armor by default, giving the effects of both). This is fixed in some versions.
• Bag of Spilling: The Legendary equipment is replaced with Ivory equipment after the intro sequence, and can only be re-obtained late in the game.
• Beef Gate: An example of sorts is the Volcano, where the player only needs to go as Piranha-Man, but can attempt to explore much earlier as Lizard-Man. While the monsters in the area aren't completely impossible to avoid or power through, their power and bulk should at least tip off the player that this is not the area they need to explore at the moment.
• Belly Mouth: The Final Boss, the Vampire Dragon, with a second head on his belly. It's as vulnerable as any other dragon's regular head.
• Bonus Dungeon: The 2017 remake adds six secret dungeons called The Unknown, one for each of the different forms. They contain stronger monsters and more difficult platforming challenges than were in the original game, and you can't change forms inside, even if you use the Tasmanian Sword. Beating a dungeon will give you a Charm Stone, which will be added to your save file.
• Broad Strokes: The finale of Wonder Boy: Monster Land is replayed at the beginning of the game, with all of the space alien details glossed over. The dragon's Robotic Reveal is skipped, and no attention is drawn to the high-tech elements of the dragon's lair.
• Butt-Monkey: Lizard-Man. It's the only form that you don't really need to use again after you get any others, is weaker than the rest statistically, and promotional material for the 2017 remake shows it beaten up on more than one occasion. In the modernized version of the room where you're able to swap forms, the other four have statues posed heroically in each corner, while it holds the podium you stand on the center of the room on its back, head hung and eyes closed.
  • Even the original Master System boxart◊ implies this: the Hu-Man marches past an octopus and two snakes with an oblivious expression while Lizard-Man cowardly sidesteps behind him.
• Canon Foreigner: Wonder Girl and her default form, Hu-Girl, introduced in the 2017 remake.
• Continuing is Painful: Die once on your trek to a Boss Dragon, which is likely to happen, and you're taken straight back to town, you'll keep quest items, but lose magic items. The 2017 remake replicates this feature, however the save system does keep track of items, meaning simply quitting to title screen before the death animation finishes and reloading the game will have the same effect as continuing, but with your items intact.
• Continuity Nod: The jungle tower contains a segment where the player falls down a long shaft, accompanied by a Background Music Override. It is a visual reference to a cave level in Wonder Boy: Monster Land which started with the player falling down several screens while this exact music played. However, the segment in question was omitted in the Master System version of that game, turning this into a Discontinuity Nod for players who never played the arcade version.
• Cool Sword: The Tasmanian Sword is the most useful weapon in your arsenal, allowing you to transform into other forms. Finding it means going to the underground and passing the area where there's three lava sections to get past. Shortly after you will go to an area where you can head upwards or down. Go upwards and continue to the dead-end. The hidden weapon shop for the sword is there.
• Country Switch: Playing the Master System version on a Japanese Mark III will change the game's title to Monster World II and will enable FM music if a sound module is connected to the console. Otherwise, the game's menus and messages will still be in English.
• Creative Closing Credits:
  • In the Master System version, the credits start by showing the various forms the hero can assume, then lists all the enemies and bosses as the game's "cast" as well as names of music tracks used in the game and... that's it, there are no actual credits.
  • The 2017 remake brings back the enemy cast list (with 1989 typos intact), and then shows the Lizardcube staff credits with photographs of each team member. Childhood photos, specifically, showing their ages when the original game was released. The original Westone team also finally get their due.
• Cursed with Awesome: You'd think that being turned into a monster would be bad, if not for the special abilities that came with them.
• Cumulonemesis: Some levels include Hovering Smog enemies that relentlessly attack the player with lightning bolts.
• Denial of Diagonal Attack: Most of the forms only attack by thrusting their sword, and the items do not help with this a whole lot, the Tornado being somewhat good for attacking enemies below, and the Arrow only capable of shooting straight up. It isn't until one acquires Lion-Man does its arcing sword swing help address diagonal attacks.
• Directionally Solid Platforms: The only entry in the series to not have them.
• Disc-One Nuke: If you are Mouse-Man, go back to the town tower that leads to the desert and look for the checkered "Mouse Blocks" that Mouse-Man can climb. If you have grinded for almost 10,000 gold you can follow those blocks until you enter a weapons shop. This weapons shop sells the Crystal set which has some of the best stats in the game. These will be stronger than anything you buy on your way to the Dragon Zombie or the Daimyo Dragon.
  • If you get your hands on a Boomerang (can be done as early as finding the hidden magic item store at the left tower in town), this magic item is extremely useful. It has good range and doesn't disappear from your inventory if you catch it, plus it can destroy damaging obstacles. The damage is poor but it can be thrown in quick succession and does damage on return too. Finally the Boomerang can pick up items. This is a great weapon for killing mooks that are dangerous to fight in melee.
• Dracolich: The Dragon Zombie is this, and presumably the Mummy and Vampire Dragons are as well.
• Equipment Upgrade: The Thunder Saber, while horrible in battle, allows every sword (except the Magical Saber) to break the gray "Destructible Blocks". The 2017 remake makes its status as a permanent upgrade more obvious by replacing it with the Thunder Ring, which cannot itself be used as a weapon, while replacing its Arm List slot with the Gallic Sword.
• Escape Rope: Charm Stones are this in the Game Gear port.
• Evil Overlooker: In the Japanese Game Gear cover art, it seems to be the Vampire Dragon, who lacked a nose-horn in his artwork. The 2017 remake image is more stylized, making it less clear.
• Fan Remake:
  • A recreation of the TurboGrafx-16 version was created by Vile1011. It is not a strict remake though, as it has, among other things, a more elaborate level design, general rebalancing, a new tier of gold-colored enemies, an optional dungeon (in addition to several existing locations that were expanded to full-fledged dungeons), and a new optional form. To top it off, Charm Stones were made rare and collectable, and getting all 50 of them opens the Brutal Bonus Level playable with Hu-Man after the Salamander Cross is retrieved.
  • The official remake by Lizardcube also started its life as a fan remake, building off Master System source code.
  • Another fan remake, this time utilizing TurboGrafx-16 source code, is reportedly in development.
• Forced Transformation: The main premise of the game is the hero being changed into various monsters and trying to find a cure.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The special qualities of weapons and armor are never explained in-game. It can be inferred that the Lucky Sword improves the drop rate of gold, but you're not likely to guess that the Tasmanian Sword lets you switch forms by using a special button input while its equipped.
  • On the topic of the Tasmanian Sword, good luck finding that without a guide. It's only sold at a specific shop behind an invisible door that has zero hints that there's even anything notable about the area to begin with. There are other such doors in the game but this one is notable for hiding arguably the single most useful item in the entire game.
  • Towards the end of the game, the player has a chance to get back the Legendary equipment from the playable intro. While the sword and the armor are almost impossible to miss, the shield is very well hidden. On top of that, it is found in a completely different manner in the Game Gear port, which even led some to believe it was forgotten by the developers and became impossible to obtain.
• Hard Mode Mooks: The 2017 remake has a fourth color of enemies (yellow) that appear only in the postgame... unless you're playing the game in hard mode, which throws a few of them in normal stages.
• Heart Container: Three in town, three in the overworld near dungeons, one in the final dungeon.
• 100% Completion: Lampshaded by the fortune teller pig in the 2017 remake, who'll comment "What are you still doing here?" if you talk to him after completing everything the game has to offer.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: You can carry every possible piece of equipment and up to 99 of magical weapons and either 99 (in the original game) or 6 (in the 2017 remake) Charm Stones, but only three Medicines and only one key.
• Immediate Sequel: The game starts with beating the previous game's final boss.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Gallic Sword in the 2017 remake. Its Attacking Power alone is the statistical equivalent to Mouse-Man with the Legendary Sword, and it increases the drop rate of magic items. It almost falls into Bragging Rights Reward territory, but fortunately you only need 4 of the 6 hidden Charm Stones to be able to purchase it, so it's definitely doable to obtain the sword before attempting The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Even though some locks look different from others (depending on whether you have to unlock them once or every time), the same keys will work on all of them.
• Interface Screw: A minor example: the pause menu is disabled in Boss Rooms and pressing pause during boss fights simply pauses the game.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Both the Japanese Game Gear version and the 2017 remake spoil all of the animal transformations on the main artwork, although manuals detailed them to begin with.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Lava is essentially "water that damages you". Vile1011's 2007 remake takes it even further by having the Dragon Mail (which makes you immune to lava) also remove Hawk-Man's weakness to water.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Most of the mooks come in three palette swapped varieties, with the red monsters being the weakest, the green ones being moderately strong and the blue ones being the strongest. The 2017 remake adds yellow/gold monsters that are significantly stronger than the blue variety. The yellow enemies are reserved for the Bonus Dungeons on normal and easy difficulty, but on hard difficulty they appear in most dungeons.
• Level Editor: Vile1011's 2007 remake of Dragon's Curse has an exclusive "custom maps" feature which allows users to create and load their own areas.
• Load-Bearing Boss: After getting transformed by the fallen Meka Dragon's blue flame, the castle starts shaking and finally collapses once you escape, starting the game proper.
• Many Spirits Inside of One: The first dragon's blue flame traps you into the form of a fire-breating Lizard-Man. Defeating more dragons causes additional curses to be placed on-top of the original, though this does allow you to switch forms to progress.
• Metroidvania: Each dragon defeated gives you a new form, which allows you to access more areas.
• Mercy Invincibility: You can still be knocked around by enemies while invincible, but this resets the timer, so you will stay invulnerable until you finally get some breathing room.
• Multiform Balance: While the forms generally get better as you progress through the game, each has its unique strengths and all of them are used in the final dungeon (except Lizard-Man, which you will probably never use again after getting Mouse-Man). More on that on the character sheet.
• Necessary Drawback: Magic Items greatly outrange your sword plus they're the only way to attack enemies that are placed in areas you can't reach and then there's the Thunder item. As such they get some huge limitations - except for the Tornado, the damage they do per hit is rather poor especially when compared to attacks from your stronger transformations with mightier swords and they're single-use except for the Boomerang. If you only have a few magic items, then they're Awesome, but Impractical, but they show their strength once you collect a large supply and they make a huge difference in surviving The Unknown areas.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: while the dungeons are all very obviously linear, the Japanese castle takes the cake: the inside of the castle is entirely comprised of straight pathways with absolutely no obstacles other than the enemies.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite the original SMS title, this game is actually the fourth game in the series, with the real Wonder Boy III being an arcade game. Although chronologically the third, this is likely the reason some later releases excluded "III" from the title. The Japanese title is the more sensible Monster World II.
• One Size Fits All: All armors can equipped by the hero, no matter what form he's in, although their effectiveness stat-wise does vary from form to form.
• Our Dragons Are Different: From the very first boss you meet - a mechanical dragon - none of the dragons in this game fall into the traditional western or eastern dragon depictions.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The final boss is the Vampire Dragon, but the only things vampiric about him are the fact that his wings resemble a cape and he has two teeth sticking out from his mouth. Everything else is just weird, especially the second face on its stomach. The 2017 remake adds a final detail to him being a vampire by having a coffin in the background.
• Password Save: Relatively simple for the complexity of the game. According to this spoileriffic cheat page, the password is kept short by cutting a few corners: money is approximated and saved in scientific notation^note (0~15)×2^1~16, allowing to condense 20 bits into 8, the game records the number of heart containers collected and not which of them were collected^note which means the game will assume they were collected in quest order, despite being optional — and the '89 game outright prevents getting them out of order, a chest having no heart until the previous one is opened and magic items have fixed numbers.
  • The 2017 remake, in addition to its primary save file system, accepts and gives out passwords.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Quite a few of these.
  • After defeating the Mummy Dragon and getting the Thunder Saber/Ring, you can return to the pyramid and jump on its outside bricks until you're all the way left. You'll find a Sphinx that has a heart container, but this room also has breakable brick walls and floors. Smash those bricks and you fall to a room with 8 treasure chests loaded with money, magic items and the final chest has a medicine.
  • If you have the Mouse-Man transformation, you can go to the jungle. There's an area which has red giant bats, skeletons, and fire flowers. The fire flowers and skeletons have good drop rates for money bags and magic items, while the giant bats drop higher-value gold coins. Becomes an even easier grind with the Lion-Man transformation, or with a couple of Boomerangs, which can be farmed from these same enemies.
  • If you have the Hawk-Man transformation, just fly to the right of the town and you can find a building with a treasure chest. The treasure chest has plenty of money bags and a Thunder magic item. After opening the treasure, exit to menu and redo this to quickly earn a lot of money (treasure chests get refilled after exiting a game). If you have recovered the Legendary Sword, when you return to that room the chest will now have LOTS of money bags (by far the most) and a full heart, exit menu and repeat.
• Pig Man: The shopkeepers and the guy who runs the church. Averted in the Game Gear port, which replaced them.
• Playable Epilogue: In the 2017 remake, you're free to continue exploring the world as Hu-Man (or Hu-Girl) after defeating the final boss and watching the credits. There's also an extra dungeon that's only accessible in human form. Also, although the curse is technically broken, you're free to transform back into the animal forms using change rooms or the Tasmanian Sword.
• Point of No Continues: Inverted. Continues are disabled during the prologue (dying during the prologue restarts the game), but are enabled once the cursed player sets foot in town for the first time.
• Press X to Not Die: A non-lethal QTE of sorts appears in the Game Gear port: to get a key to enter the Tower as Mouse-Man, the player needs to go up the checkered wall where, on the topmost screen, a red Spark will immediately and quickly fall on them. React and press attack in time, and you'll get the key. Don't, and you'll get hurt, fall down two or three screens, and need to try again.
• Prison Episode: The TurboGrafx-16 manual mentions a bit about the hero breaking out of the dragon's prison and fighting his captor, but nothing in the game particularly suggests it. Presumably, this was added to further disassociate from Wonder Boy in Monster Land.
• Punished with Ugly: The TurboGrafx-16 version rewrites the intro and ending text to make it more clear that the hero is not happy about being transformed from his "good looks" into a "totally disgusting creature."
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: In the 2017 remake, not only does selecting Girl over Boy not affect gameplay, the gender choice also stops being visually apparent halfway through the prologue.
• Railroading: The Game Gear version includes additional obstacles in some maps, forcing the player to transform into a particular form before advancing:
  • In the Desert, a new wall prevents the player from heading to the Volcano ahead of time. It can only be bypassed as Piranha-Man (by going underwater and swimming right and up) or Hawk-Man (by flying over it), making sure the player won't waste their time exploring the area only to run into a dead end.
  • The well leading to the Underground has a platform made of breakable blocks, making sure Lion-Man is the only form that gets through. Mouse-Man can still explore the rightmost part and get the Magical Saber, but that's it, so no more Sequence Breaking.
• Rearrange the Song: Two examples in the 2017 remake.
  • There was only one dungeon song in the original game, but the remake provides a different remix of the same song to suit the atmosphere of each dungeon.
  • A different remix of the original theme plays in the Last Dungeon if the player decides to revisit it towards the end of the game.
• Remixed Level: The first castle, which is actually a much shorter and much easier version of the previous game's last dungeon. You are able to get there again towards the end of the game, only to find out that it is now populated by different monsters.
• Retcon: See Immediate Sequel above. The events of this game overwrite the happy ending of Monster Land.
• Retraux: The 2017 remake has an option to revert to the original's graphics and sounds, but the retro mode does feature several elements that couldn't have been achieved using the Master System technology. Still, being able to compare the remake graphics and sound with the original is breathtaking, practically a demonstration of how far gaming technology has come since the Master System, especially when you can do it literally at the press of a button.
  • The game also features multiple additional options to provide additional authenticity to the retro mode, including scanlines (in increments of 10%), a retro monitor effect (to emulate the more blurry look of a classic CRT display) and an FM Sound Unit option that replaces the retro soundtrack with one used for the titular sound unit (which added additional mono-sound channels).^note The FM Sound Unit was originally for the Sega Mark III and then built into Japanese Master System units, but not international systems. However, the Master System version of the game never got a Japanese release anyway, so this is the second release of the game with the FM Sound Unit soundtrack readily available, after 2007's Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 29: Monster World Complete Collection.
• Scenery Porn: The 2017 remake's visuals is filled with detail without making the foreground look too busy, and it looks magnificent.
• Scratch Damage: With enough armor, it takes the weaker mooks a lot of hits to see any change on a single heart unit of yours. In the enemy's case, Lizard-Man's attacks are extremely weak against later bosses like the Daimyo Dragon. If you use Lizard-Man for this fight, the Daimyo Dragon only takes 1 point of damage and sometimes you'll actually inflict no damage at all.
• Sequel Number Snarl: The Dragon's Trap came out the same year as Monster Lair and both games bore the title of Wonder Boy III. Note that this was never an issue in Japan, where The Dragon's Trap is titled Monster World II: Dragon no Wana in Japanese. Averted in the Game Gear port and the 2017 remake, which omit the number entirely (except in the latter's prologue sequence when 8-bit graphics are displayed).
• Sequence Break:
  • Upon acquiring the Thunder Saber/Ring, it is possible to use Mouse-Man to enter the underground and reach the Japanese castle without Lion-Man, skipping the sunken ship. Although if one does not acquire the Tasmanian Sword, the Daimyo Dragon cannot be defeated as it is too tall for Mouse-Man to hit.
  • On the original SMS game, wearing the Magical Sabre, Goblin Armor, Knight Shield, and having the Fireball equipped allows the player to place a block on any blank background square. This makes it possible to get to the destroyed castle with Piranha-Man and get the Legendary equipment nearly halfway through the game.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: When the transformed hero finally touches the Salamander Cross, his previous forms are stripped away in reverse order, and finally remains an uncursed human.
• The Sleepless: The TurboGrafx-16 manual states that the Dragon Zombie hasn't slept in 1,000 years.
• Source Music: In the 2017 remake, the shop music comes from a small radio within the shop itself.
• Spell My Name With An S: Several.
  • The cast roll in the original Master System version includes typos not present in the game manual, such as "Skelton" (Skeleton), "Wondering Born" (Wandering Bone), "Fire Octpus" (Fire Octopus), and "Vampier Dragon" (Vampire Dragon). The TurboGrafx-16 and Game Gear versions fix this, although the former adds one, "Woll O'Wisp" (Will O'Wisp, which the Master System manual called "Willow Wisp"), and incidentally renames Faerie Zombie to Fairy Zombie.
  • The TurboGrafx-16 version rebranded Lion-Man as Tiger-Man, but despite the graphical difference, it acts exactly the same as before. According to the manual, it also renamed Charm Points to Charisma Points.
  • The Game Gear port changed the names of some items, likely due to shortened screen space. Namely, the Shogun Lamellar is renamed Shogun Armor, Tasmanian Sword is renamed Kashmir Sword, Muramasa Blade is renamed Ninja Blade, Heavenly Shield is renamed Heaven Shield, and Legendary equipment is now Legend equipment.
  • Despite the name "Mecha Dragon" ("Mechanic Dragon" in the previous game) being technically correct in the ending, the name "Meka Dragon" caught on to the point where it's kept in the 2017 remake.
• Stalked by the Bell: The 2017 remake's Hard mode adds an hourglass reminiscent of Wonder Boy: Monster Land that takes away some health every time it empties. Thankfully, it turns off in safe areas like treasure rooms and the village.
• Sudden Name Change: Zig-Zagged. Despite the intro of the game depicting a condensed version of the end of Wonder Boy: Monster Land, the character is referred to as Wonder Boy rather than Bocke Lee Temjin or Book the Hero, seemingly confirming them as one and the same. While the TurboGrafx-16 version only referred to the hero as "Hu-Man" due to removing the Wonder Boy branding, this is averted in the Japanese Game Gear version, which only used the Monster World moniker and refers to the hero as Book. However, this is further referenced in the 2017 remake, where the character select screen mentions that he "traded his skateboard for a sword and shield." Ultimately, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom concludes that they are two separate characters.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Unless he's in Hawk-Man form, the hero is not in the least uncomfortable walking around underwater. Though only in the form of Piranha-Man can actually swim and otherwise stays, uhm, benthic.
• A Taste of Power: You have all of the Legendary equipment as soon as you start the game, but lose it after you escape the dragon's castle.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The 2017 remake turned the dungeon music and boss theme into this, giving them a different variation for the mood of each dungeon (and several more unused ones in the bonus OST).
• Utility Weapon: The Magical Saber, while horrible in battle (it literally has an attack power of zero), allows the player to create stone blocks in two special rooms, and makes blocks unbreakable as long as it is equipped. It is mainly used in conjunction with the Thunder Saber/Ring to access the Sky Palace.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Ominous Floating Castle where instead of using just the Hawk-Man form, the player has to use all available forms to advance.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: After obtaining the Tasmanian Sword, the player can freely switch between forms by jumping and hitting up + attack in most versions. The original game allowed to transform even into forms that haven't been obtained yet (including Hu-Man), but in exchange the jump button had to be pressed on the first controller and the attack button had to be pressed on a second controller.
• Was Once a Man: The Master System manual states that the Captain Dragon had his appearance changed by a pirate's black magic, implying that he was once human (or, perhaps, a more normal-looking dragon). The TurboGrafx-16 manual vaguely states that he is a "descendant of the Vikings."
• X-Ray Sparks: The 2017 remake uses some for each Transformation Sequence.

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