All right, so that last Octurbo got a tad too salacious towards the end there. Perhaps I should actually start vetting these things before jumping in with the screenshot button. At any rate, let us all never speak of the Lady Sword incident again.
Moving right along, today we look at Bubble Bath Babes Dragon's Curse, part of the Wonder Boy dynasty and one of many TurboGrafx-16 adaptations of that series that underwent a few edits to get around Sega's inconvenient possession of the Wonder Boy license. Dragon's Curse is probably the least trifled with out of all those ports: a fairly straightforward conversion of the Master System/Game Gear game Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (and not to be confused with the other Wonder Boy III, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair). Dragon's Curse was renamed Adventure Island in Japan, despite having nothing to do with Hudson's axe-and-skateboards franchise. Well, besides the fact that Adventure Island was originally a graphical edit of the first Wonder Boy. You know what, I've explained this all once on the Wonder Boy wiki page, so just go check that out. It's nuts.
As for the game itself, it's a mix of a side-scrolling action RPG (though it's actually about as RPG-y as Neutopia) and a Metroidvania and was quite well regarded at the time. It's unfortunate that the Master System was more or less on the way out in all regions besides Europe and Brazil when the game came out, because it's probably the best thing on there. Wasn't a lot of competition, mind, but why diminish that accomplishment?
From Nudity to Cursing: This Feature Used to Be So Wholesome
Welcome to Dragon's Curse! No Wonder Boy in the title, but besides a few graphical tweaks and script edits I believe that's the only difference between this and the Master System/Game Gear version.The 5 Ghostly Goons. I won't lie, that's a great name for an organization.What's the bet that I'll be turned into a "totally disgusting creature"? It sounds like it would also be bogus to the max.Why are you telling me all this? I'm surely not getting transformed. Surely. (Also this game has some real problems with body image. Those demons have feelings too, you know.)So I start as a human with full stats and armor that seems to block all damage. Yeah, this has "abilitease" written all over it.Suddenly things get all Star Wars down here. Cyberdragons?Jeez, I was only kidding! I don't think I'm quite ready for Mecha-Gamera just yet. Or maybe I am, since I'm wearing pure adamantium.So here's the deal with the bosses: After you kill one (and man was this one easy with all my end-game gear) a little fire pops up and spits coins. If you can avoid the flame long enough, you can collect quite a bit of cash.Inevitably, though, the curse hits you and you become some kind of awesome dragon thing. As curses go, I've seen worse.Because that giant metal turtle was a load-bearing boss, I need to get my new scaly ass out of here.I've been on the internet long enough to know that there are entire DeviantArt communities who would kill for a "curse" like this.I can't see or hear this narrator, but I can definitely detect a tone of "I told you so" in their voice.What happened to the Ghostly Goons? Did they get replaced?I'm a desperado! A desperado who is a little full of himself!This is the coolest pig I've ever seen, and I've seen Porco Rosso. It took me a moment, but this guy is what HardcoreGaming 101's Twitter account uses as an avatar.Exploring the initial town, I find a not-so-hidden room with this heart container. Since I lost most of them escaping that castle, I'm going to need quite a few of these to not die a lot. If I can get it down to "only dying sometimes", I'll be all set.There's also this nurse who recovers health, but charges more the more hearts you have. Might as well grind for heart drops in the nearby low-level areas.The only way I can go is through the town's sewer system, so off I go on an adventure. Through dookie.This initial area is a hop across the beach. Nothing too challenging, but it can be a little tricky to get out of the ocean once you fall in - you have to fight a few aquatic enemies to find this exit. Curiously, there's a few places underwater I'm as of yet unable to swim to in my dragon form. Hmmm.Eventually, I find a key for a door in the starting village. I'm guessing this was just a tutorial level, then?Solid Swine also operates all the stores in addition to the save point church. In an odd entrepreneurial twist, he refuses to let me see any item I cannot currently afford. I guess it deepens the mystery, making me want to farm cash for a while to see what this ludicrously expensive item actually is. Damn, cool looking and a savvy merchant. (NB: I later find out that these mystery items are based on a separate charm stat. I'm not allowed to buy them until I've made myself more adorable. What did I tell you about this game and body image issues?)While I couldn't afford anything from the merchant on the beach, the one back in town sells some reasonably priced armor that's a darn sight better than the stuff I had on before.Through the locked door I go to the first real dungeon of the game.Just need to exit through the, uh... the sky.The door floating in the sky obviously takes us to a desert region, with two directions to head in. Going right takes me to a place that resembles Bowser's Castle and is full of tough enemies, so I figure I might be better off heading left instead. I've played enough open world RPGs to recognize where not to go until I've gained a few levels and possibly after funding a bazooka or some other form of heavy ordinance.I don't care for these antlions. A lot of enemies are indestructible and are really just there as obstacles to overcome, rather than goofy monsters to breath fire on. I skipped over the entrance to this pyramid structure to hop over the thing instead.And I find this little sphinx room at the end. Hooray for exploring!Another heart container! Just... pretend you didn't see the third heart in the previous two screenshots.I love these little Pac-Man wizards. Well, it's not like he's going to want to dress up as a ghost on Halloween, is he?I get a boss key, though it's actually on the path to the boss and hard to miss. Why even have a locked door? Maybe it's one of those "we'll show you that you need a key to get to the boss so you won't be confused about it later" design decisions?Back at the top of the pyramid, though this time I'm on the inside! Mwahah! This was worth screencapping!But there's actually a lot more dungeon to go. People always talk about crows/eagles/bats as the most annoying enemies in these early platformer games, but I really can't stand frogs. They jump around so erratically. Daikatana was wise to fill its first stage with them - screw demons and zombies, frogs are the real threat.This looks like a secret room, but it's actually the way to the boss. For some reason i just fell through the floor and got here.Each of the five bosses is a dragon that's had to dress up to fit in with their dungeon's theme. Mummy Dragon is the first. He tends to just float around breathing poisonous fog at you. This is a screen I might have seen if the boss was difficult. In a surprising act of largesse, continuing the game drops your character off at the hub town with all his cash. If you happen to land the spinning potion icon on one of the red hearts, you get a free potion to take with you too - they act like fairies, recovering a lot of health as soon as it runs out.The boss isn't actually all that tough though, due to his predictable pattern. Just gotta know when to duck and when to move outy of the way. With all that tough armor I wisely bought earlier, his attacks don't even take off that much.And here's my reward: a new curse! I'm now a super dinky little mouse guy. And now that I think about it, there were a few narrow gaps earlier where I was simply too big to fit through...
And that's how the rest of Dragon's Curse goes. Your new forms act like Zelda items or Metroid upgrades: you can switch between them and each has a special application to allow you to pass through new areas. Recalling where the small passageways are, or where I needed to smash through some blocks, or underwater areas I couldn't swim through is the key to progressing, as well as procuring new heart containers and finding money caches. Plus, I can definitely appreciate any game that doesn't penalize you too badly for dying.
This is probably the most fun I've had with an Octurbo entry. It's a little disingenuous to call this a TurboGrafx-16 highlight considering it's a barely improved port of a Master System game, but there's a lot more craft and innovation on display here than in many other games I've covered so far. I mean, it is still cartoon fantasy Metroid at the end of the day, but I can definitely deal with that.
