Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is an upcoming platform game developed by Game Atelier and published by FDG Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game is a spiritual successor to Sega and Westone Bit Entertainment's Wonder Boy series. It will be released on December 4, 2018.

Gameplay
The game casts players in the role of a boy named Jin, who must stop his Uncle Nabu from using magic to spread chaos across the kingdom. Taking its influences mainly from the 1989 game, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is an open-world side-scrolling adventure game in which the player must battle enemies and solve puzzles in order to progress through the story. Much like The Dragon's Trap, the player gains six animal transformations as they progress through the game, which they can switch between at will, with each transformation possessing its own unique abilities. These include a pig who can sniff out hidden contraptions, a snake who can climb up slimy surfaces, and a frog that can use its tongue to swing on hoops. Players can also obtain various weapons and items, which can either be found throughout the environment or purchased in shops.

Development
Monster Boy was originally created by Paris-based studio Game Atelier as a planned Kickstarter project titled Flying Hamster II: Knight of the Golden Seed, a sequel to the company's 2010 Flying Hamster. After publisher FDG Entertainment picked up the game, it was reworked into a Wonder Boy successor titled Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze, as Sega owned the rights to the Wonder Boy name. The game was later retitled to Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom due to criticisms towards the previous subtitle of Wizard of Booze, which is American slang regarding alcoholic beverages. The game is being developed in collaboration with Wonder Boy series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, who also supported DotEmu and Lizardcube's remake of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap. The game's soundtrack was composed by a team of Motoi Sakuraba, Michiru Yamane, Yuzo Koshiro, Keiki Kobayashi, Takeshi Yanagawa, and Haruka Shimotsuki, with some rearranged music from past entries in the series.

Originally set to use motion-based sprite animation for the characters, the developers announced in October 2017 that they would be switching to hand-drawn animated sprites. In February 2018, FDG Entertainment announced they partnered with Sega to release the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 versions of the game as physical retail copies in North America, and launch them alongside the digital release on all platforms. The game will only have a retail release in North America. It was originally scheduled to release on November 6, 2018 worldwide, however, due to "unforeseen difficulties" regarding the production of the physical copies, FDG Entertainment rescheduled the game's release for December 4, 2018, applying it to both the physical and digital versions.