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Wonder Boy III - Monster Lair [Model HCD9006]

NEC PC-Engine CD published 35 years ago by Hudson Soft.

Listed in MAME

Wonder Boy III - Monster Lair © 1989 Hudson Soft.

Monster Lair is a side scrolling action/shooter by Hudson Soft and conversion of Westone's arcade game. Monsters have been sighted in the kingdom and they now bring fear and panic throughout the country. The legendary armor and weapons of valor have been stolen and the thieves have vanished without a trace. Just when all hope appears to be lost, a green haired boy and his princess friend come to the rescue and embark on a long journey to prevent the world from being cast into darkness. Although they both come equipped with magic weapons (a sword and a staff), things get a lot more challenging and new weapons can be collected along the way. Some of them fire laser-rings, some shoot rotating stars while others short range missiles. Fairies can also be rescued along the way and will reward our heroes with temporary invulnerability or dump large cakes for extra health. The game has an unusual structure and each stage is divided into two sub-areas - the first half is a traditional side-scrolling platform phase featuring a 'run and jump' gameplay. There, the kids' health constantly decrease and they have to periodically eat fruits in order to avoid exhaustion (interestingly, picking up a new weapon also restores some life back). Larger fruits can even be "powered-up" by firing repeatedly at them to generate even more smaller fruits. Then the second half of each level has our heroes riding their beloved pet dragons. This phase of the game is similar to a traditional horizontal shooter where an end-of-level boss awaits the player and must be destroyed before proceeding to the next stage. Finally, Monster Lair features a two-player simultaneous co-op mode.

Goodies for Wonder Boy III - Monster Lair [Model HCD9006]
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TECHNICAL

Game ID: HCD9006

TRIVIA

Monster Lair for PC-Engine CD was released on August 31, 1989 in Japan for 5800 Yen.

Wonder Boy III - Monster Lair was first released in the arcades in 1988. The PC-Engine conversion is actually really close to the original game - although it features a CD quality re-mastered soundtrack, it has sadly lost the two-level parallax scrolling.

STAFF

* Consoles :
Nintendo Wii [Virtual Console] [JP] (apr.15, 2008) [Model QAUJ]

PORTS

CONSOLES:
Nintendo Wii [Virtual Console] japan (apr.15, 2008) [Model QAUJ]

SOURCES

See Goodies section.
Game's ROM.
Game's description by Laurent Kermel; http://www.videogameden.com