Wonder Boy 3 : The Dragon's Trap

Wonder Boy 3 :  The Dragon's Trap Console-Sega Master System Year-1989 Developer-Westone Publisher - Sega Genre-Platform/RPG After a mediocre sequel to the original Wonder Boy in Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, Monster Land needed it's own sequel. What came was the confusingly titled Wonder Boy III: Dragon's Trap. Let's just drop the Wonder Boy title completely and call it Monster Land 2, which it is. To follow the fantastic platformer Monster Land, we were treated to Dragon's Trap, regarded by many to be one of , if not the best game on the Master System. It definitely is a step up from its predecessor, in almost every way and paves the way for the excellent games to come in the series.   GAMEPLAY Taking place directly after Monster Land; akin to Dracula X and Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Dragon's Trap leads off where the last game ended. You traverse the last castle in search of the Mecca Dragon; fortunately you can't get lost in it this time, and it's quite quick to get to the boss, not to mention you'd find yourself hard pressed to die at the boss since your character is damn near immortal. Once you defeat the Dragon, he curses you! You turn into a Dragon yourself, and you can even breath fire! Pretty cool if you ask me. After, you must escape the castle as it is falling apart. Eventually you find yourself in the game's starting town. Right of the bat you'll find yourself with a password save house, which comes in handy. Say what you want about passwords, but at least you CAN continue your game later because of them. In town there are weapons and armor to buy, a hospital to top up your health and various pathways to start your game. You start with one heart piece, but quickly you find yourself a second in town. Throughout the game these heart pieces are hidden in not-very-hard-to-find places and are much needed to progress successfully. There are many shops in the game that have various weapons and armor for you to buy but there is a catch, and it brings upon the most annoying part of the game. To buy higher end equipment, you need what is called “charm points”. Depending on how lucky you are, this can be extremely aggravating as you will need to grind for these points at some point in the game. They drop off of enemies rarely, but also some equipment raises your charm. There was only one point in the game that this gave me trouble, but it caused hours of frustration. As you progress and beat Dragon's, they turn you into various animals; a mouse, a lizard, a lion and an eagle. Each transformation lets you access different paths in the game, or find secrets that only one form can allow. Early in the game you can only stay in the form you're cursed with by the Dragon boss, but later you find transformation pads, and there is one hidden in town. Not finding this hidden transformation room right away also caused a bit of frustration as I thought I literally got myself stuck in the game. You never get to be your hu-man form in the game however, unless you input a special password, or use a secret with a sword you get in the game. The sword however ruins a bit of the puzzles in the game and I don't recommend using it unless you want to just mess around. Dragon's Trap has very solid, fluid controls, I never once had a problem with them. The menu screen can also be accessed by plugging in a second controller and pressing the d-pad any direction. In the menu screen you can select your equipment and magic, and see how much attack, defense and charm points you have currently. I honestly never used any magic during the game, as I found it kind of pointless. I'm sure some sections would have been easier if I had used magic, but I did just find with just my sword. Like Monster Land, learning how to tackle areas by trial and error is key. The game is not too hard, especially if you have upgraded equipment, but has the right amount of challenge to not be too easy. The game is made a bit easier by exploiting the treasure chest, as they usually refill themselves when you enter a new password to continue a game. GRAPHICS Dragon's Trap is not one of the best looking games on the Master System, that title is held by later games that pushed the Master System to the 16-bit breaking point, but for 1989 it sure was pretty. It's a very vibrant, colourful and interesting world. For such a serious story about curses and vampire dragons, it sure is darn cute! All of the characters you turn into are nicely detailed, well animated, and made to look quite huggable, I'm not sure if this was the point but I want to have plushies of each transformation. Most of the enemies have recoloured versions as is common for the time in games, so you'll be seeing a lot of snakes and ogres. Every area of the game has its own style and setting, including a Pyramid level, a sunken ship, and a Japanese temple. These levels are well designed and thought out, although they can be on the repetitive side, and get a bit tedious when you die and have to come back.   SOUND Some of the catchiest tunes of the series make their appearance in Dragon's Trap, especially the brilliant Desert theme that plays on your trip to the Pyramid level to fight the Mummy Dragon. All of the music in the game is quite catchy and will quickly have you humming along. All of the sound effect in the game come through very well, easily letting you know by ear what is happening on the screen. None of them came across annoying or harsh, and fit within the game nicely. CONCLUSION While Dragon's Trap is surely one of the best on the Master System, it's sad that little know of it. Had it been on a Nintendo console, it may have been put along side the likes of Zelda and Mario, but then again the Nintendo probably couldn't of handled Dragon's Trap graphically, and would have been a serious downgrade. It is available on the virtual console, PSN and XBLA, and highly recommended as a must buy. This game is a piece of 8-bit classic history and needs to be played and known.