This is ACTUALLY wonderboy V. I was expecting a clone, and seeing Sega's trademark gave me a little bit of warmth seeing that this game likely had its blessing.

I followed this game back when it was in early development and I was skeptical because the art style was a bit web 2.0 and mobilish but ever since then they have really polished up and make the game look so much more beautiful when I first booted the game up.

I was expecting a short experience, but this game feels like it has more to do than Wonder Boy in Monster World and Wonderboy III (Both still really good games.) and introduces some new mechanics to keep itself seperate from those games. It also has a metroidvania style map so you can see any secrets you may have missed, which is essential for someone looking to 100%.

I found some parts of the game less clear to proceed with due to its length (For the longest time I didn't think you could pick up cogs with the frog so I was foolishly stuck in the volcano for some time.)

However, to my surprise this game has had more love than I was expecting. Motoi Sakuraba's piece popped up as soon as I dropped in Aeria and being a Tales/Golden Sun fan I immediately recognized it. They actually got some fairly high profile people to work on the music including Tee Lopes and while the styles are different, they don't clash too much and it didn't stop me enjoying the experience. Many of the tracks were memorable and I had to double take because some songs are from other wonder boy games (Such as the Beginning theme from Wonder Boy in Monster World)

I have not completed the game not to 100% but I had such a fantastic time despite the difficulty and deaths and I'm looking forward to going back and searching every nook and cranny for the remaining items.


TLDR; this game was emotional whiplash because I realized it was a Wonderboy game just without the title when I went in expecting it to merely be just a clone. If Shining Force or other Sega IPs got this level of love, such as a Shining Force IV, I'd be set for life.