Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

3.5/10 + art style - NO DODGE - NO DOUBLE JUMP - NO MID AIR DASH - janky hitboxes - everything respawns really fast - all abilities have a limited number of uses until you need to kill more enemies and hope for drops. here you just unlocked boomerang and you need to use it 5 times to solve this puzzle. we gave you 1 and each time you use it you need to go back down and kill another slime because you can only hold the 1.....WHY??? - puzzles need abilities to solve - 1 hit kill spikes - very few check points - checkpoints dont heal - enemies knock you back

Big fan of metroidvanias. Love the hand drawn art style and gameplay. Story is fairly basic, but if you ever wanted to play as a snake, a frog, and a one eyed pig altogether, this is for you.

A really good surprise! As a big metroidvania fan, I had tried the game some time ago, but for some reason, put it on shelf pretty quickly (so I hadn't played much). I'm glad I gave the game a second chance, as it is actually a fantastic metroidvania: fun gameplay and exploration, good original ideas, and quality graphics/music. Frankly, if you love this genre (especially the non-souls-like ones), this is a must-play!

I never played a Wonder Boy game before and this was a fantastic experience. A great upbeat soundtrack a fun cast of characters, a weird and whacky story what is there not to like. More metroidvanias need to split up abilities between multiple characters, it is just such a clever way to make the player decide what is important at the moment. Do you want to use magic or have a sword? Would you rather fly or be able to dash? The game is rather casual most bosses are pushovers but i still had a great time with it. The main draw for me was the platforming, the puzzles, the secrets and collecting everything. My only complaint would be that the UI/UX is not great. Regardless if you use the wheel for swapping or not it never feels good. Some of the sections that require a lot of swapping are tedious as a result. Also i dislike that every character is wearing the same equipment if it was split up you could equip some to fight others for utility etc. but the way it is you often have to swap out gear all the time.

This is my second time having played through the game, originally getting it on GOG years back. It's just pure joy, the puzzles are fun, usually pretty simple and keep you moving forward at a steady pace. I never felt gated by any of them, but having mini ah-ha moments just works so well. It's quite puzzle heavy, though, and even the bosses are puzzles themselves. The obvious draw here though is the absolutely flawless aesthetic. I wanna live in this world. It's perfect in its execution, and the music fits it in every regard. There's just nothing I could possibly complain about. Gaming perfection, specifically in what it's trying to be. Typically, combat would be more of a priority for me, but it just doesn't need it to succeed, which says a lot.

I still havent finished the game, but it is an absolute gem. I love the art and music. The character swap mechanic is fun and keeps things fresh. The exploration and puzzles are exciting. The level design is perfect. The bosses arent necessarily challenging at all, but beating them still feels rewarding. I do find movement can be a little clunky at times, but nothing too annoying or game breaking. EDIT: Just finished all achievements and I wish I could play the game for the first time again.