Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

The game is both playful and challenging, encouraging you to overcome the obstacles before you and keep the story moving. The franchise may have been overshadowed back in the day, but Monster Boy deserves to be up in the rarefied air primarily populated by Italian plumbers with a fondness for the color red.

Playing The Cursed Kingdom really makes me want to check out the previous games in the series. It was so refreshing to see a game like this, especially one that plays and looks as great as it does. Any fan of 2D action games should pick this game up without question, and don’t worry if you’ve never played this series before, I was able to enjoy it fully with absolutely no knowledge of it. This is one newer game that harkens back to the old days that does it well and will be remembered for a nice long while.

A compelling, varied and challenging action platformer, with a great design and highly satisfying. A must buy for lovers of platformers and metroidvania games.

Monster Boy is classic adventure platforming action, but done with such style and panache that it outshines many recent examples of the genre. There’s a brilliantly paced difficulty curve, with new powers, characters and items dispensed at just the right moments. Combat is standard, but intelligent use of the aforementioned aspects means it never gets tiresome or frustrating. It helps that the game looks and sounds sensational. This, is a must have.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a shiny and colorful metroidvania that offers great gameplay with equipment swap and animal transformations that changes the gameplay possibilities.

Monster Boy is a wonderful adventure. It’s a great way to bring back the Wonder Boy essence and adapt it to new trends, while still making it feel classic and nostalgic. If you enjoy old-school action platforms, you cannot miss it.

Monster boy and the cursed kingdom is a great game that juggles between classics and modern platform games.

A refreshing alternative to the darker platformers of the last few years.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom not only pays faithful homage to Wonder Boy, particularly The Dragon's Trap, but by refining the solid foundations of its spiritual predecessors with modern affordances, it becomes a rich platforming adventure in its own right.

Barring some technical issues causing the odd crash or hard lock, for the most part, the core of the game works well. There is definitely enjoyment to be had however, as all artistic aspects of Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom are beautiful, and the combat and platforming mechanics are solid.