Wonder Boy/Monster World series- where to start?

[noiseredux]

Damn I wish I had nabbed that.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Something kinda amusing to try though - the Turma da Mônica na Terra dos Monstros version of Wonder Boy in Monster World is now up on Steam.

[noiseredux]

oh that's cool. As if the whole Adventure Island/Wonderboy thing wasn't enough... there's Monica games too haha.

[nightrnr]

I started, I think, with Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I will probably never beat that game, but always enjoy a play.

From there, I went to WB in Monster World (Genesis), and basically kicked off my passion for ARPG's on the system.

Then I played through WB The Dragon's Trap on Master System, at the encouragement of another forum member (on another forum) much to my content.

I think MWIV is my next stop, likely via everdrive. But we'll see if I actually get to it in the next year (lots on my to-play list).

I think it was a good order to play.

[alienjesus]

oh that's cool. As if the whole Adventure Island/Wonderboy thing wasn't enough... there's Monica games too haha.

There's also Sayuki World on Famicom, which is a modified port of Wonder Boy in Monster Land. The sequel, which is a unique game not related to Wonder Boy, came out in the US as Whomp 'Em.

[retrosportsgamer]

How's the WiiWare game?

I want to pick up that Vintage Collection on XBLA - good reminder.

If you meant Monster World 3/Wonder Boy in Monster World, It's one of the better ones and plays sort of like a reboot of Monster Land/Monster World 1 with metroid-like gameplay and more intricate dungeons than in MW2/Dragon's Trap. Monster World 2 and 4 are a bit faster paced though, especially in the beginning.

I meant Adventure Island: The Beginning on WiiWare but from listening to the show on this, it sounds like a pretty poor game.

The Vintage Collection has the translated 4, which is nice, wish it had Dragon's Trap - but I have the TG-16 version of that on my everdrive so somewhat covered.

[ItsACerealWow]

Thank you all for helpful suggestions and the handy flowchart graphic! I think I'm going to pick up the following:

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (SMS)
Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis)
Monster World IV (WiiWare)

The earlier arcade-style titles and Adventure Island spin-offs from Hudson don't interest me as much, and although the Vintage Collection is tempting (and a better value), I'd rather play on MWIV on my CRT in 240p via my Wii with component cables and a Genesis controller adapter-- I figure that's as close as I'll get to original hardware with the official translation.

Thanks everyone!