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[SpongebobSquaredance]

So I went on Metacritic, and what I found was this:

Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World Reviews

An icon in adventure gaming history is back! Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World becomes a real Wonder Boy adventure that stays true to its roots as the latest part of the legendary and successful series, that dates back to 1986. Asha is tasked to free the four spirits being confined by evil...

www.metacritic.com

and it boggled my mind... because the original is awesome!
Monster World IV is one of the best titles the MegaDrive/Genesis has to offer and I always thought it was seen as a highlight on Sega Ages compilations and other rereleases.
So what happened here?
Is it the graphics?

They are certainly different, but I don't think the game looks shabby. It's a well-looking remake.
So what else is it?

Sadly, Wonder Boy Asha in Monster World is just a 3D version of a game that hasn't aged well. It would have been great if Asha and Pepelogoo had more of remake than a colourful remaster that only shows that the original game was not as good as The Dragon's Trap or Wonder Boy in Monster World.

uh.. okay
but did it really age poorly? I don't think so. Plays fine, isn't painfully difficult, looks good, levels are well designed, the soundtrack has some nice compositions.

So what is it then? Is it just a poor remake? Maybe, the aforementioned review also mentions this:

The move to 3D turns a single 16-bit gaming screen into multiple lanes. And it's empty, not alive, with repetitions of an arrangement that we already know

...and I think is a legit point to make. Other than that the consensus is: good remake, but bad (or the obligatory "poorly aged") source material... but Monster World IV aged perfectly fine, it's one of the greats of that era.

I'm just sitting here and be like "fuck all that shit, most critics have a shitty taste" ... the only somewhat logical conclusion I can come up with is that the latest title is that good that it makes other titles in the series look bad by comparison.

oh well... whatever

 

[FoundryMusic]

People have a different opinion to you - why worry about it?

 

[Spaceman292]

Assigning numbers is stupid and doesnt work. Getting angry and writing essays about it is dumb too. What's the problem? Are you scared that you'll like it less? Do you need to make others like it more than they want to?

 

[kingpotato]

You treat it like there is a single review when in fact there are multiple very positive reviews on that link. 67 isn't all that bad considering the age of the title.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 

[kingpotato]

Also only one user rating with no user reviews. Why don't you add your own perspective and help "correct" the problem.

 

[Videospel]

67 is 6.7/10, not a bad score. I haven't played the game but movement looks a bit floaty and I'm not a fan of the delay where she kills a slime in one hit but it doesn't explode until half a second later. 6-7/10 seems about right if the game has some other redeeming factors.

edit
Maybe I was a bit too harsh. But it does look empty, which makes it look a bit 'cheap'.

 

[*Nightwing]

People are stupid and their opinions are shit. Yours and mine included. Some people get paid to share their shit opinions. They think the professionalism of getting a paycheck for their opinions makes their opinions somehow magically less shitty. It doesn’t.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Nostalgia only works when you experience the game when it was new and then years later again. I first experienced this game on the Virtual Console on the Wii years after its original release. I didn't enjoy it because of my nostalgic feelings for the game (because I didn't have any, to begin with), I enjoyed it because it was a genuinely good game.

People have a different opinion to you - why worry about it?

Imagine the same thing in other art forms: Some Beatles record gets rereleased, and critics are like "nah, aged poorly because "insert random reason X here".
Would never happen.

If this is genuinely their opinion, fine, however, you should really attempt to explain your position as a reviewer clearly. It happens way too often that there are statements but not a coherent explanation to them.

as an example

The aforementioned review claims that the switch to 3D makes the game's levels design empty. That's a fair point.
The final statement is though that original source material wasn't good, to begin with, suggesting that the game aged poorly. So what is it then? Because other than that there aren't really explanations why it did age poorly and the explanation it does have for that suggests a poor design choice of the remake.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

People are stupid and their opinions are shit. Yours and mine included. Some people get paid to share their shit opinions. They think the professionalism of getting a paycheck for their opinions makes their opinions somehow magically less shitty. It doesn’t.

The professional critic does exist though, but especially in the gaming sphere, it's kinda goofy.

Reminds me of the South Park episode where everyone wanted to be a yelper if you know what I mean.

 

[Kazza]

Nostalgia only works when you experience the game when it was new and then years later again. I first experienced this game on the Virtual Console on the Wii years after its original release. I didn't enjoy it because of my nostalgic feelings for the game (because I didn't have any, to begin with), I enjoyed it because it was a genuinely good game.

Same here! I had never even heard of the game back when I was a kid, and I played it for the very first time only recently on my Megadrive Mini. A great game:
- charming artstyle/graphics/characters
- great music
- great game design (from the fun dungeon puzzles to the metroidvania-esque hub world)
- perfect difficulty curve

I think it hold up very well against modern 2D games. I've been paying indie critical darling Celeste, and while it is a very good game, I'd say Asha in Monster World is better.

I hate the "meh, nostalgia" argument. It's basically just very lazy and braindead way of delegitimising someone else's opinion.

 

[MvCSpiderman]

The art style is an issue.

But the main reason is likely Wonder Boy III and all its variations are a much better game.

 

[kingpotato]

Nostalgia only works when you experience the game when it was new and then years later again. I first experienced this game on the Virtual Console on the Wii years after its original release. I didn't enjoy it because of my nostalgic feelings for the game (because I didn't have any, to begin with).

No that's actually completely wrong. Maybe you aren't nostalgic, but you played it 10ish years ago... that's the past and it was new to YOU then. If you looked back on that experience favorably to the point that you lose objectivity, then that would be nostalgia.

This game is not the Beatles, and it doesn't look like it has broad appeal which would support the score you screen capped.

 

[Captain Toad]

You think something is better than most people do. That's all there is to it. Sounds like it's mostly personal nostalgia or tastes.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

No that's actually completely wrong. Maybe you aren't nostalgic, but you played it 10ish years ago... that's the past and it was new to YOU then. If you looked back on that experience favorably to the point that you lose objectivity, then that would be nostalgia.

This game is not the Beatles, and it doesn't look like it has broad appeal which would support the score you screen capped.

...but then that still wouldn't count as nostalgia IMO. How can I be nostalgic for stuff I experienced decades later?

When I listen to a Beatles record I don't have personal biases, I don't remember a better time or events that happened around the time, I don't have purple glasses on, I just listen to the music for what it is and if I like it so be it, but then I don't like it for nostalgic reasons. I didn't grow up with the Beatles. How can it be considered nostalgia if I want to check out a Beatles record roughly 50 years after its original release and liking it?

I don't really get the latter sentiment, that a piece of art needs to have broad appeal to be considered good. Isn't it the job of a critic to look past such things as broad appeal?

You think something is better than most people do

Are 12 critics really equal to most people though?

 

[Fuz]

Imagine still giving credit to critics.

 

[A Rifter in Space]

I can understand there being variations in taste but I've seen enough objectively great games get low scores and objectively shit games get high scores because they did or did not say the right things that the twitterati thought was in vogue that I'm convinced games journalists are all shit.

I remember some dude here or on twitter doing a breakdown of the backgrounds of all games journalists in some kind of sociological study and finding that almost all of them are coastal trust funders who went to expensive universities, went to private or heavily gated public schools (who basically keep you out with high property prices and tax rates if you aren't the "right type of person"), and had parents who were doctors and lawyers.

So, objectively, games journalists are disconnected twee coastal hipsters who have nothing in common with the people who are interested in an evaluation of a game such that they can feel confident in a purchase of it. If you think someone like Hernandez from Kotaku or Schrier the Liar can actually give you good evaluations of a game you have no hope left and should just stop posting here.

 

[kingpotato]

...but then that still wouldn't count as nostalgia IMO. How can I be nostalgic for stuff I experienced decades later?

When I listen to Beatles record I don't have personal biases, I don't remember a better time or events that happened around the time, I don't have purple glasses on, I just listen to the music for what it is and if I like it so be it, but then I don't like it for nostalgic reasons.

I don't really get the latter sentiment, that a piece of art needs to have broad appeal to be considered good. Isn't it the job of a critic to look past such things as broad appeal?

Are you ok?

A person can be nostalgic for last week, last month or last year. It has nothing to do with the launch date of a forgettable video game sequel. It's tied to personal experience.

It is entirely possible for you to be nostalgic (and even likely given your description, unless you have played the remake in question) about a game you discovered after the fact almost a decade ago. As a matter of fact, I'm feeling pretty nostalgic for the time before I opened this click bait titled thread right about now.

Very few people in all of human history listened to the Beatles with purple glasses on and it's IMPOSSIBLE to not have some personal biases. If you doubt that then you need to add the word bias to your study sheet along with nostalgia.

The job of the critic depends on their platform. Some are paid to give special attention to what is broadly enjoyed even if they don't personally like it. Others only give their explicit opinions. You are basing your disagreement on blurbs from multiple reviews on site that posts aggregate review scores.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

A person can be nostalgic for last week, last month or last year. It has nothing to do with the launch date of a forgettable video game sequel. It's tied to personal experience.

It is entirely possible for you to be nostalgic (and even likely given your description, unless you have played the remake in question) about a game you discovered after the fact almost a decade ago. As a matter of fact, I'm feeling pretty nostalgic for the time before I opened this click bait titled thread right about now.

Very few people in all of human history listened to the Beatles with purple glasses on and it's IMPOSSIBLE to not have some personal biases. If you doubt that then you need to add the word bias to your study sheet along with nostalgia.

Yes, absolutely. Are you okay?

So someone who grew up with the Beatles relistening to an album by them vs. someone who never heard a song from them (except maybe once or twice on the radio) listening to an album by them both fell victim to being nostalgic? Sorry to say, but that sounds absurd to me.

I have biases as in taste or preferences, but not biases that are tied to nostalgia, which is the point here.

I am not nostalgic for the Beatles and I wasn't nostalgic for Monster World IV when I first played it. The thing I thought about back then was "I have some points left and this game looks kinda cool and was never released in the west before, I'll give it a try."
Personal experience wasn't a factor. I looked at it as it was a completely new experience because, to me, it was.

 

[kingpotato]

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

 

[LRKD]

Reviews have always been a joke in gaming. Most gamers, and all journalists are mentally challenged, don't worry too much about what they say or think. You are best off just never reading a reviews, or criticism for games.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

wow, what a trainwreck of a game. It clearly caters to the nostalgia crowd, because objectively this game takes inspiration from titles from yesterday, so therefore, this game is a poorly aged P.O.S. with aesthetics from almost 100 years ago.

... am I doing this right?

 

[Captain Toad]

Are 12 critics really equal to most people though

The reason few outlets even bothered reviewing the game us because the vast majority of gamers couldn't care less about the game.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

The reason few outlets even bothered reviewing the game us because the vast majority of gamers couldn't care less about the game.

...enough people cared for them to make two remakes (three if you count Wonderboy Returns) and an entirely new game in the series. I think they are doing quite okay.

I don't know why this should be a popularity contest anyway.

 

[Corgi1985]

It's not a team based hero shooter or BR or bland 3rd person cinematic neil cuckmann game so reviewers don't know how to play it. The real score for them is itisn'tfortnite/10 so why should i bother reviewing it

 

[Dav-Kripler]

Never forget...

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Good mobile game.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Yes.
Because this game aged better than Dragon's Trap, but got lower scores.

I could be the graphics, but that would speak against how the critics described the aesthetics. The general consensus is that the game looks great and makes good use of cell shading. There is some criticism for the framerate, but it sounds like it's not a dealbreaker. I also think the game looks fine, and I very critical of most 2D to 3D renditions (Flashback, Secret of Mana). So it has to be the game itself. Usually its semantics about the game aging poorly in various different forms (typically with very shallow reasoning).
My theory is that the charm and magic got lost in the transition.

One of the reviews said this, which supports this theory:

The move to 3D turns a single 16-bit gaming screen into multiple lanes. And it's empty, not alive, with repetitions of an arrangement that we already know

However, the same reviewer also said the original didn't age well at all, and I obviously don't agree.

 

[nkarafo]

The 3D environments/backgrounds look like they were copied straight from a N64 game. Heck, i think Goemon's Great Adventure (a similar "2.5D" game on the N64) has more interesting backgrounds with more features and details.

This looks boxy as hell.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

The 3D environment look like they were copied straight from a N64 game.

Come on, it's not that bad. It's far from other 2D to 3D renditions.

Would've preferred the style of the latest game in the franchise though.

The Dragons Trap Remake also has a more coherent style IMO.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.