A perfect game for WonderBoy III fans. MonsterBoy and the cursed kingdom has similar mechanics to the old WonderBoy games, but with a more sophisticated upgrade systems.

Good Game, but it has too many flaws for me to recommend it.

First things first, I am not finished with this game, and I do plan to finish it, but I just wanted to write this review while it was fresh in my mind.

Starting with the good, I loved the animation in this game, it was constantly expressive and phenomenal. The exploration of the game is also very fun, standard metroidvania affairs, getting powers and backtracking in order to get even more collectibles. Finally, the concept of the game is interesting and leads to some neat puzzles. Each form has their own strengths and weaknesses and have fragments of your original form to make up for it. None of the forms are ever deemed obsolete. I also like how each piece of equipment isn't just stats.

As for the bad, this game has incredibly little quality of life. There is no quick select to my knowledge. Even pressing the buttons incredibly quickly lead to a choice wheel. This becomes an issue when practically every single puzzle in the game requires you to switch between forms multiple times. The issue is only exacerbated in situations that are supposed to require speed, like timed sections, disturbing the gameplay enough to honestly not be that fun. This also is an issue for switching equipment, but more excusable. The form switching is an integral mechanic to the game and to have it be this clunky and unfun is awful. One thing that is less important, but important enough to mention is the fact that there is no easily usable upwards attack for any of the forms other than the human one. Even in the pig form, which most closely mimics the human moveset, with spells, downwards attack, and even combo. Sure, there is the lightning spell and the lions upward dash, but neither are as easily accessible as the simple upward slash the human has. If it was like, genuinely important to have an upwards attack, it would be annoying but excusable, as the main gameplay loop is getting things that bring you closer to your human form. But it isn't. It honestly just seems like it was forgotten, which is a big issue when there are enemies like the bats or clouds, which seem like they were designed to be hit with an upwards attack due to how awkward it is to kill them normally. Finally, there is literally no way to heal other than occasional hearts from enemies, at certain shops or fountains, or a revive potion you can only hold one of at a time. I don't have that much to say about this issue, other than it was incredibly annoying to deal with. Even if that was what the devs wanted, it seemed like a challenge for the sake of a challenge, rather than for fun. And those are just the overarching issues there are a couple aggravating issues specific to one section.

The smaller of these, but one that caused me enough annoyance to remember, was the interaction with the ice boots, lava geysers, and the lions slam attack. Simply put, even though, to my knowledge, slamming the lava geyser was necessary for a puzzle, it damaged you. There wasn't any indication, other than the actual damage, that this was intended. This really disoriented me in the puzzles of that section, which is kind of a big issue when puzzles are the lifeblood of your game.

Mild Spoilers For a Late Game Dungeon

In the haunted mansion section, there was a boss fight, like most sections. This boss is what inspired me to write this review. If you did not know, Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom is what I call a "Keyboard Game", or a game that requires little to no interaction from the mouse. This is completely fine, I love games like Risk of Rain or Binding of Isaac and they have this same stipulation. The issue, however, comes with when the mouse IS used. In the dungeon, one of the characters that you have been periodically running into accompanies you on your journey. And with them, you get the ability to shine light for puzzles. This is controlled by the mouse, which is reasonable (oddly enough it uses right click while left click is completely unused, which i find odd. that is just a nitpick though). In the boss fight of the section, you use the light in battle. This was incredibly infuriating. As you could barely do anything while you were trying to shine the light on the boss. The most you could do was either walk or jump, as they are on opposite sides of the keyboard, and your other hand is preoccupied with the mouse. It doesn't help that the boss is one of the more bullet hell-y of the bunch. Like most things, this wouldn't be an issue if there was just one more thing. Make it so you cant move while shining light (and accommodate the boss for that). This would make things much less infuriating, as you wouldn't be expected to uncomfortably control your character, but deal with the risk that comes with using the light because it has that built in. (The second phase of the boss I also found very annoying, but it was a better kind of annoying that just infuriating, and the third phase was fine. Though both were shredded by the fire breath ability you get earlier in that dungeon).

Spoilers Over

Overall, Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom is fun. It has its flaws, but i still had a good bit of fun. However, for $30, there are games that I would play so much more for so much less. I don't blame you if you want to play it, but definitely wait for a sale. It is just very hard to recommend when the gameplay loop is constantly hampered by poor decisions. As I said though, the animations are phenomenal, especially for the player character. If not for the relatively high price point (at least for games I play), i would maybe recommend playing just for them. If you're really running out of metroidvanias to play, then this is a pretty okay choice, just know that it can be incredibly infuriating at times.

And because I don't like being negative, Thank you Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment for making this. I've dabbled in programming and dear god it can be frustrating. I commend anyone who can make a game, even if its not something i would recommend. I wish i could give scores rather than basic reccommend or not, because i would say maybe 6-6.5/10 for me personally. This game has a ton of charm and it is clear that there was a lot of passion put into it, but with a mix of awkward mechanics and confusing design choices, i don't think the gameplay is enjoyable enough to recommend, especially for this price point. (I did love charging around with the lion and swinging with the frog for just some dumb fun though)

Sorry for the negative review, I do like this, but not enough to recommend.