Review Fix Exclusive: Inside Wonder Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

Review Fix chats with Thomas Kern (FDG Entertainment); Producer of Wonder Boy and the Cursed Kingdom who details the creative process and goals for the upcoming Xbox One and PlayStation 4 adventure, based on the classic Sega Master System and Sega Genesis RPG series.

About Wonder Boy and the Cursed Kingdom:

A legendary game series returns with an all-new adventure! Monster Boy is a colourful side-scrolling action adventure created in cooperation with Ryuichi Nishizawa, the creator of the Wonder Boy* Monster World* series (* Trademark of SEGA Corporation Japan). Monster Boy is being created to bring back the enjoyment of classic games that shine by simplicity. Pure, exciting gameplay; upbeat music and smooth graphics. You’ll need to overcome huge bosses, find hidden passages, discover powerful equipment and use all your wits and skills to remove a powerful curse. Monster Boy can transform into 5 different creatures, each with their own skills and abilities. Take advantage of all the unique powers to open new paths and advance in an epic story. Monster Boy is a love letter to gaming from the 80s and 90s – will you join us and celebrate together with us?

Review Fix: What does it feel like to be a part of such an influential series?

Thomas Kern: In the first moment we’ve been really happy and proud about being able to work on a new Wonder Boy. The second moment was like: Oh man, we have a big responsibility here.

We can feel the pressure – but it’s also a ton of fun! The game is progressing nicely and we had some great new ideas that will make Monster Boy stand out as a fantastic new game in the Wonder Boy in Monster World legacy.

I’m really proud of the team, they’re all hard working and show a lot of passion. Monster Boy will have plenty of soul.

Review Fix: The series has so many dedicated fans despite not being released on a major console in decades. Why do you think that is?

Kern: Wonder Boy and especially the Monster World series was setting new standards in Metroidvania style gameplay at that time. I still have fond memories of playing Dragon’s Trap the first time.

A colorful action adventure with so many secrets, great music, animation and the wondrous transformation of characters for seemingly never-ending exploration in the game. I really got drawn into it.

What’s behind this door? Oh wow, where can I go as a mouse-man. All following Monster World games added to this formula with bigger worlds, even better graphics and you couldn’t help but fall in love with all of them.

Review Fix: How has the gameplay formula changed in the new version?

Kern: Monster Boy is the first game in the series which allows the player to hot-swap between unlocked animal characters anytime. In Dragon’s Trap you could only use one character and his ability at a time, this time you combine them! This allows us to create really interesting level designs and very dynamic action. Today’s technology gives us a lot of creative freedom and make it a really pretty HD 2D game.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Kern: To be honest, we had tough times. It took quite a while to find the right style and our current graphics are like the third iteration. It was difficult to move from pixel to HD – the reason is that pixel graphics have a great charm and the brain completes the picture and details. It’s like the imagination of players adds depth to the game just like reading a book. When you create HD graphics, you really need to draw all the details to not make it look bland or boring. Today I can happily say we’re very confident about the graphics. Huge thanks go out to communities like on NeoGAF forum – we read it frequently and some of their feedback helped us to make Monster Boy a better game.

Gameplay wise we’re still working and optimizing level designs – we keep having ideas and we want to include the best of them.

Review Fix: How do you think new gamers will enjoy this?

Kern: They’ll love it. It will be exciting, adventurous, colorful and simply amazing.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Kern: We’re going to work on porting the game to as many devices as possible.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14261 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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