My review of Wonder Boy for the Arcade

Score: 8/10

My first experience with Wonder Boy was when I was 5 in an arcade. Seeing the older kids so easily dominate it I gave it a go and was pretty poor at it. I don't think I ever got past the beginning of the second level. The notion of this "Wonder Kid" going around, skating and jumping over enemies was quite fun for the time. Especially because skateboarding was very big in the 80s when this game was released.

Today it still holds up quite well. I compare this to the Sega Master System version which I played a lot and it's quite interesting. The two PSG (sound) chips on the arcade (SMS only has one) really gives the sound a bit of a boost over the SMS version. And the colors are a bit more vibrant too.

Control wise I find the arcade version more fluid, especially when using the skateboard. You can simply move the skateboard through the air with less resistance than on the SMS. I'd often find myself in the air on the SMS version unable to do anything because of its rigidness.

With the rewind feature in RetroCopy it's really cool being able to keep the skateboard for entire levels as you can just fly through them like a hot knife through butter.

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