Wonder Boy 1 on the SMS is done. Overall, for an early platformer, I was impressed.
One thing that I liked were the collision on the platforms. Some of these early games have some pretty janky platforms where you swear you landed the jump but fell through due to a misleading platform or a glitch. The platforms in Wonder Boy are clear and generous. Heck, there were a couple times where I messed up my jump slightly and didn't quite make the jump, but it moved me up to the platform anyway. Speaking of that, the enemy's hitboxes are pretty generous as well. Usually you can go a couple pixels in before you get hit which is nice.
An interesting thing that's missing here that is usually in these games is a timer to push you to finish the level in a decent time. Instead of a timer, you have a vitality bar that drains over time, but can be replenished by picking up food throughout the level. The food is almost always generous enough that it's a non-issue. However, I would argue it's straight up better than a timer for a couple reasons. One, it adds another layer of incentive for picking up the crap littered along the level other than just points and the occasional level up. Two, it allows obstacles to interfere with your vitality that feels more natural that timer manipulation sometimes. There are rocks in the level that drain your vitality if you run into them and there is a special egg (eggs give drops ranging from an invincibility angel, axes, food, ect.) that spawns what seems to be a little grim reaper that follows you around for a period of time, draining your vitality, and really pushes you to rush through the level.
The controls feel good and snappy. There is a bit of acceleration when you start moving that ends when you quickly hit top speed. Which makes harder jumps kinda tricky when you are playing careful and really makes you want to keep moving fast to keep momentum. Of course this makes you at risk of playing careless and running into something, but it feels good when you pull it off. Speaking of playing fast, the skateboard that you occasionally find is wild. You can't stop, you can only slow down or go real fast. You can get hit once without dying when on a skateboard so some of the risk is mitigated. However, when you get hit there is a little animation where you fly uncontrollably through the air and there were a couple times where I flew straight into another enemy or into a pit haha. It's fun though, I used to kinda dread getting the skateboard but once I got used to it, it was pretty satisfying.
Your character has a weapon, which are stone axes. You don't start with them, but you can find them mostly in eggs. When you get one, you keep it until you die. Occasionally, you get it right at the beginning of a level or checkpoint. But sometimes you have to go awhile without one. They are dang good and definitely make life easier. You can really chuck them far, throw two on screen at a time, and can even hit enemies off screen a little ways. They add an interesting feel to a game where once you get them, you really feel pressured to stay alive. There are a few stages that I blew through because I had them that would have been very tough to get through without. And it happened a few times where I had finished a level without the axes and the next one was filled to the brim with enemies that I just had to dodge. It's a neat reward for playing well.
One thing I really didn't like is the lack of variety in music. The same song that you will here 75% of the game is pretty meh and occasionally got on my nerves. It really would have helped if they took the song you hear in the bonus areas (which IMO is one of the only good songs in the game) and played it in the dungeon areas as well.
Some moving platforms were pretty odd in their spawn time as well that got me killed a few times which was irritating. The platforms would spawn when you got to a certain position on the screen and if you were running by the time you made it to where you need to jump there would just be no way to make it and you were screwed. Maybe it's the game just telling to play it slow, but it's just real hard to be able to react to those situations in time.
Welp that's about it. A small thing that I brought up in a previous post was the lack of tilesets. While they are sparce, they did get better midway through the game and it's fine at that point. The game was a good time. As much as I want to hit the second game next, I'm probably going to play New Adventure Island next just to see how much was changed in the remake. I might try getting all the dolls if that's a thing in the remake. In the version I played, there is a 10th area that I missed because you got to collect the doll in every area in order to access it apparently. If you don't, the game ends at the end of the 9th area. I think I read that the ending is the same in either case, so I might just do the same thing. We will see how ambitious I am haha. Anyway, the damsel in distress is saved.
