About once or twice a year SEGA seems to enjoy treating their fans to some retro titles. Last year, we saw the Dreamcast collection which included the hit title, Crazy Taxi. This year, they have chosen to release a few “SEGA Vintage Collections” including some of the Monster World games. The games that you get in the 800 MSP bundle are Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy in Monster World, and Monster World IV which had never been released outside of Japan before this year.
SEGA went the extra mile this year, the Monster World Collection plays better than on the original systems they were released on. The games play perfectly and allow you to completely customize your experience. You can map the controller to however you want and there is even a built in turbo option for individual buttons. For those who want a cleaner looking game, there is a smoothing option and for those who want a more nostalgic experience you can turn on scan lines. However, the best addition of all is the adding in of Save States.
Along with the classic experience for all three games, they also added in Trials Mode which gives you different challenges to attempt. When you finish the challenges your replay is auto-saved and you are ranked on the online Leaderboards. The Trials are very fun and challenging and make for a great change of pace.
Each game puts you on an adventure for different reasons and has you venturing across the world, killing monsters. Along the way, you will visit shops and towns that allow you to better equip yourself for the journeys ahead. The titles are very basic in idea but very fun throughout. The normal enemies are fairly easy to take down but can be annoying sometimes. However, the boss fights provide enough difficulty to be challenging but not make you hate the game. One big negative, however, is that the games are so difficult that for many parts you will need to use a Walkthrough to figure out what to do.
The games controls very simply. You can jump, attack and use items/magic. That’s about it. However, even with how basic the controls are, the game is very entertaining. The only problem with the controls is that there isn’t a C button so anytime the game tells you to press the C button it can be a bit confusing.
The Monster World games are enjoyable by gamers both new to the series and those who are playing for nostalgia. The price point is extremely fair and the games can provide hours upon hours of playtime. All of the new additions as well as how amazingly well they are emulated make these the definitive versions of the games.
- The games play better than they did on their original systems for the most part
- Three great classic titles
- Save States
- The games can be hard to get through without a walkthrough
- Controls can be confusing sometimes
Score: 4/5
