Part 1 - Do you have the skill?
It took me 18 years to successfully learn how to complete Wonder Boy in 1 credit.
Back in the 80's when platform games were common and video arcades were in their
prime, it was standard for games to be designed around a primarily points and
distance based system. Since then there has been a trend towards time and points
based goals. But back when people used to "go for distance", one of
the main skills was memorising the levels in a game and working out how to get
past the difficult parts. If you knew what you were doing, you could last up
to an hour or more on some games.
Wonder Boy excels in this respect. It takes a LOT of practice, simply just to learn what is coming up.
The game has a superbly designed learning curve. Having said that, there are several points in the game where there is a noticable shift in difficulty. Or at least, points where you'll really need to persist to acquire the skill to go further. Some people may lack the fine muscle control or reaction time to get far into the game.
This sort of goes without saying. Can you use a joystick and two fire buttons?
The first real test for the Wonder Boy player. This is the first water round,
and there are a lot of places to fall off the clouds into the water. If you
use the skateboard at the start of the round, it can be a deathtrap for the
beginning player. Perhaps the most difficult part is the final cloud before
you enter the cave, which can be a close call if you haven't learnt how to run.
It's the first platform that collapses as soon as you jump on it, so you have
to get off it quick.
At the end of this round is the first boss. The jump before you enter his cave
is very difficult if you haven't learnt how to run.
This is where things really start to pick up. It's a water round, and the gaps
between the clouds are now noticably bigger. You won't get far if you don't
run.
The first rocky round. No holes to jump over, but a lot of ups and downs. The
really challenge is moving along fast enough to keep your vitality from running
out, which shouldn't have been a big problem up to now.
The start of this cave round is where I take my blindfold off and really concentrate
on playing. Up until this point it's all pretty automatic (for me at least)
but you really can't afford to slip up from here on. Some upcoming rounds are
almost impossible to pass if you die and lose the axe.
Now it really gets challenging. Water levels from this point frequently have
two or more jumping octopus at every cloud. I've memorised how to get past much
of this without an axe for some strange reason. :-)
From this point on, you can't continue after a game over. To make things worse,
this area starts off with an ice cave. In round 2 there's a particularly tricky
cloud jump. If you haven't collected all 28 doll bonuses up to this point, the
boss at the end of this area is the final one.
The ultimate challenge and final area. Insanely difficult. Don't even think
about losing your axe.
I'll go into more detail on the individual rounds in Part 10 of this guide.
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