Old school with a new school radial menu clunk.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is great old school stuff. A spiritual successor to Wonder Boy, it delivers in full. But it isn't just a homage to a previous time, it's full blown well designed. There is a ton to do and find. It opens up smoothly with new wrinkles all the time. It's a great balance of tight platforming and puzzles and challenges. There's a ton of difficulty here that is all fair. You actually earn everything you get while you explore. Everything from the platforming to the bosses are inventive and diverse. You can easily break the 20 hour mark in a playthrough. It is a complete game experience. That experience is just lacking some quality of life.
And when I say quality of life I mean it just isn't a fun interface. I'm not complaining about the challenges. Again, they're all fair and fun. It's just those fun experiences are not a fun experience to play with a lot of the time. The radial menus, menus, and radial menus within menus are just unforgivably awful. You change monster types, magic spells, weapons, armor, shields, bracelets, and boots "on the fly" VERY regularly in this game. They all are implemented on radial menus or radial menus within the pause menu. And none of them are conducive to a d-pad. Remember, we're talking old school here. This game feels better on a d-pad. But. The radial menus do not play nice with the d-pad since most of the time they contain more than 4 but less than 8 items. So you switch to thumbstick. And a lot of the gameplay charm is lost. These radial menus feel like a very late addition to the game to avoid an inventory menu (that is sitting there unused on the last page of the pause menu). This one design failure made the entire experience clunky. To further compound the issue, only monster type and spells are hotkey (R2/L2 for the former, R1/L1 for the latter) accessible. The rest are in the pause menu. This is wasting buttons and time. At the very least weapons should've had a hotkey too. And then monster or spell change isn't available in the pause menu. It's all very clunky and you will be hitting the wrong menus a lot.
I also am personally not a huge fan of the art direction. The cutscenes and charater/enemy sprites are great. But I found the background and environments lacking the same detail and care. It felt like two different art styles. But I still appreciate the approach over just making it look retro or something. So that's a nitpick at best.
Ultimately I had enough fun and appreciated the old school challenge. Whether it was spite or desire, I 100%'d the game. Though I did have to resort to the internet to find a few of the switches for the whole "corked well" puzzle. Then check again for the switch directions even though I noticed the correct clue and swear I tried it both ways. And finally I did miss "buy something from Zeke" and had to look that up because 20+ plus hours later I forgot there was a shop in the very first door of the game. But I still think I earned that fake digital "platinum trophy". I just wish the game had a better menu solution than the split radial menus and pause menu radial menus. It was so painfully obtuse and ruined the flow. Felt very out of place.
As annoyed with it as I got, I think over time as I get further away from my frustrations, I'll appreciate this game more with rose-tinted glasses. It was a well made classic-feel game with classic challenges and tight controls. Made me feel young again! ...And also so very very old. Radial menus man...
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is great old school stuff. A spiritual successor to Wonder Boy, it delivers in full. But it isn't just a homage to a previous time, it's full blown well designed. There is a ton to do and find. It opens up smoothly with new wrinkles all the time. It's a great balance of tight platforming and puzzles and challenges. There's a ton of difficulty here that is all fair. You actually earn everything you get while you explore. Everything from the platforming to the bosses are inventive and diverse. You can easily break the 20 hour mark in a playthrough. It is a complete game experience. That experience is just lacking some quality of life.
And when I say quality of life I mean it just isn't a fun interface. I'm not complaining about the challenges. Again, they're all fair and fun. It's just those fun experiences are not a fun experience to play with a lot of the time. The radial menus, menus, and radial menus within menus are just unforgivably awful. You change monster types, magic spells, weapons, armor, shields, bracelets, and boots "on the fly" VERY regularly in this game. They all are implemented on radial menus or radial menus within the pause menu. And none of them are conducive to a d-pad. Remember, we're talking old school here. This game feels better on a d-pad. But. The radial menus do not play nice with the d-pad since most of the time they contain more than 4 but less than 8 items. So you switch to thumbstick. And a lot of the gameplay charm is lost. These radial menus feel like a very late addition to the game to avoid an inventory menu (that is sitting there unused on the last page of the pause menu). This one design failure made the entire experience clunky. To further compound the issue, only monster type and spells are hotkey (R2/L2 for the former, R1/L1 for the latter) accessible. The rest are in the pause menu. This is wasting buttons and time. At the very least weapons should've had a hotkey too. And then monster or spell change isn't available in the pause menu. It's all very clunky and you will be hitting the wrong menus a lot.
I also am personally not a huge fan of the art direction. The cutscenes and charater/enemy sprites are great. But I found the background and environments lacking the same detail and care. It felt like two different art styles. But I still appreciate the approach over just making it look retro or something. So that's a nitpick at best.
Ultimately I had enough fun and appreciated the old school challenge. Whether it was spite or desire, I 100%'d the game. Though I did have to resort to the internet to find a few of the switches for the whole "corked well" puzzle. Then check again for the switch directions even though I noticed the correct clue and swear I tried it both ways. And finally I did miss "buy something from Zeke" and had to look that up because 20+ plus hours later I forgot there was a shop in the very first door of the game. But I still think I earned that fake digital "platinum trophy". I just wish the game had a better menu solution than the split radial menus and pause menu radial menus. It was so painfully obtuse and ruined the flow. Felt very out of place.
As annoyed with it as I got, I think over time as I get further away from my frustrations, I'll appreciate this game more with rose-tinted glasses. It was a well made classic-feel game with classic challenges and tight controls. Made me feel young again! ...And also so very very old. Radial menus man...