Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom Reviews
series, except with much better art and music. Some warts do show up, mostly stemming from a steep early difficulty curve and occasionally hard-to-judge hitboxes and jumps, but on the whole, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a fabulous entry in a relatively dormant series. My future-gazing hope is that this team can have another go and make it more of a bolder, modern game than a warm, loving throwback to a series clearly near and dear to them.
Cursed Kingdom is a fun, occasionally frustrating, romp through a world I hope we get to revisit one day.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom fully succeeds in its mission to capture the spirit of Wonder Boy 3 and successfully carry the franchise into the modern era. Every strength the original games had, the developers of Monster Boy went out of their way to expand upon or enhance. They have crafted a game world that is vibrant, lively, and full of riches to be discovered.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is everything that you'll want in an official sequel to the Monster World franchise. Regardless of the late game frustrations and spike in difficulty, it is one of the best modern day platformers I have ever played.
Monster Boy stands alongside the likes of Celeste and Yoku’s Island Express as truly fantastic representations of the genre, doing enough differently and with enough style, polish and care to ensure it’s kicking and screaming on the doors of the Game of the Year contenders.
A great spiritual successor to Wonder Boy. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom does everything right and leaves you without wanting or needing it too do more.
A great neo-retro game that manages to be fresh and a perfect homage to some old classic like Wonder Boy.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
We expected Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom to be good. But, honestly, not that good. Visually stunning, faithfull to its ancestors but not chained to them, this game is a true masterpiece, full of great ideas and that can entertain you for a long time if you feel the need to discover all of its very well hidden secrets. A must play.
Review in French | Read full review
Wonder Boy is finally back, in his greatest adventure yet. An old-school, visually stunning, funny and engrossing adventure.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a phenomenal game and one of the best Metroidvanias ever made.
An excellent balance between old school adventures and what we expect from the modern times. If you are not afraid of challenges with a glimpse of complexity, you'll find a colorful, enjoyable adventure.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The action is faster, the controls more responsive, the visuals are sharper and the music is more full and lush. It improves on the original in every way. It’s even a little more sadistic.
Monster Boy is not officially part of the Wonderboy series, but despite minor balance issues, it's the best part of the series so far
Review in German | Read full review
Despite the concerns and some frustrations Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a very well-designed and gorgeous title as a whole. When you’re in the groove it feels absolutely brilliant and up to a point I appreciate the fact that you won’t be able to get through many sections on the first try as you may need to experiment a bit. The boss battles are challenging but often pretty smart and really none of them play out in the same way or even as you may expect due to their creativity. While I would have rated it higher if it either outright toned down its spikes in challenge or added a means to alter or skip them I’d recommend it without reservations. If you’re willing to either gut it out or assume that the game could get patched at some point to help out you’re in for a treat, just be aware that it can have a mean streak in places.
Monster Boy is a tremendous accomplishment. It's a gorgeous looking game with a fantastic soundtrack and does its spiritual predecessors proud by nailing the Wonder Boy mechanics while still offering something that will appeal to modern audiences. As long as you can appreciate that it's still very much an old-school game at heart and you're going to get some 8-bit era platforming trickiness as a result, you're going to thoroughly enjoy playing through this adventure for the 12-15 hours it'll take you to beat it. It may not be Wonder Boy by name, but it's definitely wonderful by nature.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a game that defines the expression “love at first sight.” Its presentation is spectacular, the gameplay mechanics are simple without showing any kind of technical problems and the story is basic and fun with characters that you meet throughout the adventure. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a game that deserves to be on your end-of-the-year list of games to be played.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is an extremely fun and entertaining game that not only pays homage to the Wonder Boy series, but also takes the matters into its own hands and delivers one of the best platforming experiences of this generation.
Review in Persian | Read full review
For those with a great deal of patience looking for a challenging 2D platformer with huge amounts of character, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is great. For everyone else, it’s likely to be frustrating just as often as it is fun, severely putting a dampener on the whole affair.
Colorful, stylish and ultimately delightful. a spiritual sequel that manages to bring nearly forgotten pages of video game history to the 8th gen and improve it in every way possible. that's right, Monster Boy is game that lots of old franchises dream to be reborn as.
Review in Persian | Read full review