What the...? Part 5

The Wonder Boy series is truly one of the best game series available for the SMS. The four games released for the SMS are long, interesting, enjoyable and with a high replay value, we love them for that and Bock is one of our favourite heroes. But let's face it, while the games themselves were great, their presentations could have been much better.

Some of the Wonder Boy cover artworks for Europe and the US were some of the ugliest covers released for the SMS. Japanese Mark-III/Master System covers, if you've had the chance to see some of them, were absolutely brilliant, with drawings that actually had something to do with the game itself, colourful and very eye-candy. But I wonder why the hell they had to be changed for us, European or American people? Instead of them, we got covers that had been drawn in 5 minutes, heroes that had little to do with the real character we were going to meet in the screen or simply ugly covers. While there are a lot of examples to choose from, today I've decided to focus my hate in the Wonder Boy ones....

The first Wonder Boy we got, released in 1986 if I'm not wrong, still had one of those 'minimalistic art' that early SMS games used to have. I've become so used to this silly drawings, that I guess tried to capture the main purpose of the game in just one or two simple drawings, that I've learn to love them, and now they have a special magic for me. But let's face it, they were shite. Compare the original Japanese WB1 cover with that little garbage you see on the left, and you'll know what I mean. Why did they give us this kind of covers instead of keeping the originals is still beyond me, but oh well, that's life.

But I wanted to go further and verify a theory I had had in my mind for years. What was the actual age of the people that used to draw these covers? Were they children? Or maybe adult people with mental diseases? Or maybe they were such intelligent jokes that nobody got. Anyway, I told my 6-year old cousin Lucia to draw her personal version of the Wonder Boy game, and you can see the result on the right....
I was right! If you compare the similarities between the original cover and Lucia's one, you'll come to the conclusion that those early SMS covers like WB, Black Belt, Supper Tennis or Teddy Boy were in fact drawn by kids. Amazing. Oh, and no, I don't know why is Bock throwing an apple(?), that satanic pentagram in the sky or why is the snail smiling despite someone's standing on his eyes.

This was again another case of not keeping the great original Japanese cover. Why? Nobody knows. But instead, they ruined one of my favourite SMS games with the horrible cover we are going to see. But first, take a look at your left. That was the cover used for the home computer versions of wbml. It seems the author really wanted to give a funny view of the game to attract buyers, but instead he made Wonder Boy look like a cheap whore, with that home-made armor, the latex mini-skirt and those miserable boots. And the worst of all, the face. That mongoloid face with that enormous teeth. No comments.

And finally, this is part of the actual SMS wbml cover. Arf! I know it was the Eighties, and I truly love the 80s, but that hair is a bit too much. Also, what in the game is a pretty short and dwarfish boy, appears here as a tall guy that could perfectly retire from saving Monster Worlds and start playing basketball in the NBA. Oh, and that silly smile on his face? He's fighting and killing a dangerous monster, and the bastard is laughing! I must admit I gave up wanting to be like Wonder Boy when I saw this cover.

Ah, Wonder Boy III. One of the best SMS games ever, great graphics, music, playability, plot, and....terrible cover, for a change! This time, our dear Bock (who looks more like Peter Pan than anything else) has mixed a lethal dose of LSD, amphetamines, aspirins and alcohol (look at those wide-open eyes and silly smile) and now he doesn't even bother to fight his enemies. He simply runs around searching for the nearest disco where he'll continue his party, and in fact the enemies avoid him like the red death, not even wanting to touch him :)

Oh, the nineties...what a terrible decade. Good music died, funny fashion died, but miserable SMS covers stayed! The typical bad, rad and rebel skater boy was surprisingly trendy back then in the early nineties, and sure the author of this gem wanted to give his cover a modern and fashionable look. So, poor old Shion had to wear these crappy purple knee pads and the worst: those red sneakers, complete with white rubber toe cap! Oh my god, where have you seen Bock or one of his descendants with this kind of lame shoes? As far as I know, these sneakers don't appear anywhere in the actual game, so why the hell did the 'artist' have to put them in the cover? And he doesn't even know how to tie the fucking laces! Oh well.
Not to mention the totally black eyebrows, true sign of he dyes his hair blue, or the weird smile (I'm afraid he's also a friend of alcohol).

And well, this has been my personal view on the various Wonder Boy covers available... Maybe a bit too extreme, but you know, employing children and people with mental disabilities to draw game covers should be against the law :)