Instead, Wonder Boy feels more akin to a scrolling shooter, with Tom Tom’s axe-throwing ability giving it the button-tapping feel of a run-and-gun game.Īdmittedly, Wonder Boy’s a bit of a bewildering grab-bag visually. The hidden areas, multiple paths, and all-round refinement of Super Mario Bros. In terms of design, Wonder Boy’s levels are short and sparse, each containing only a few handfuls of platforms or chunky enemy sprites – snails, squids, bats, bizarre little blue people. Again, the game dangles a reward in front of you to see if you’ll take the risk. With it, you can speed far more quickly through each level, which takes a bit of pressure off you in terms of collecting fruit, but means you’re more prone to bumping into an enemy or falling down a hole. The urgency’s compounded by one of the handful of items you’ll find hidden in eggs on occasion: a skateboard. In every moment, you’re weighing up the pros and cons of each piece of fruit: is it worth risking your life for a bunch of bananas, or is it better to wait and hope you can grab another sliver of energy in a few seconds’ time? The problem is, said fruit often hangs high up, over a yawning chasm or in some other awkward place, which means you’re constantly having to keep an eye on Tom Tom’s energy bar while carefully timing your jumps from platform to platform. In order to get to the end of a stage without losing a life, it’s vital to collect as much fruit and other morsels of food as possible. Lead character Tom Tom is a relentlessly hungry chap, with his energy bar requiring a constant boost as he dashes from level to level.

– it offers the kind of short, sharp challenge that is ideal for the bustling atmosphere of an arcade.įor one thing, collecting fruit is far more pivotal to the game than merely boosting your high score. But Wonder Boy is also a much more stripped down, fast-moving game than Super Mario Bros. handled, it’s easy to see how Nintendo’s game influenced Wonder Boy: the whimsical enemies, platforms and collectible items all look strikingly familiar. But while Nishizawa didn’t like the way Super Mario Bros. That’s the kind of opinion that could send comments sections into meltdown. Some people say that was its strength, but I still hate it, even to this day…”Ĭrikey. “ was a huge hit in Japan at the time, but I just didn’t like it,” Nishizawa reveals in Read Only Memory’s superb book, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: The Collected Works. Join Amazon Prime – Watch Thousands of Movies & TV Shows Anytime – Start Free Trial Now

Old aradce games Super Mario Bros.