Wonder Boy Returns arcade port releases on Steam

Back in the mid ’80s, SEGA brought over the arcade hit Wonder Boy to the Master System, which featured more content, such as the inclusion of two new areas.

According to many video game magazines at the time, such as Computer and Video Games, it was beautiful bright colorful and had simple yet addictive gameplay.

The addition of new content in the console port was a rarity at the time, as most arcade ports up until the early 2000s had less content than their arcade counterparts. You see, back in the old days, arcade cabinets could hold relatively large amounts of memory on them because of their size. It’s ironic how nowadays small console games can hold so much more memory than arcade cabinets, which have almost faded away into obscurity.

That’s where Wonder Boy Returns comes in. The game is an HD port of the arcade original by way of Korean developer CFK. SEGA doesn’t appear to have much to do with the port, but it’s available for $11.99 for a limited time – 20 percent off its $14.99 regular price.

While we’re excited about any new Wonder Boy news, this port appears to be getting off to a rocky start and has been criticized by many Steam users for being too hard and for having wonky physics. (Your character slides on the ground as if he’s sliding on ice.)

We haven’t yet played the game ourselves, so we’ll hold out an official statement until then. But it won’t be the first time a game has been released in a broken state and resorted to patching it later to fix the most glaring problems.

Developers have an obligation to their customers to ensure their games are as bug free as possible when they’re released. If a developer is being rushed to meet a deadline, that’s one thing, but when you purposely release a broken game with the intent of fixing it later, that’s a whole new can of worms.

I only hope that this is not the case with Wonder Boy Returns.