YMMV / Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

• Awesome Art: The artwork of the game is incredible and extremely well polished. Jin's sprite will even reflect the light of the environment off him in real time. The animations are also extremely well done and fluent, with everything bursting with personality.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • The Undead Wizard is a frantic boss who constantly throws things at you, and forces you to use the unique-to-that-dungeon mechanic to remove its shield.
  • The Final Boss essentially requires you to use all of your forms per form and is quite frantic.
• Demonic Spiders: Bats in the forest level. Since you're stuck with Pig form only which has a terrible jump, horrendous attack box (only an inch directly in front of him) and limited magic attacks, bats which have a random move and attack pattern can make you want to pull your hair out. It's made only worse by the absence of the teleport rod, so you can be stuck with no magic attacks and no way to buy more. Bats alone have made more than one player ragequit the game for good. However, you can just mash attack and let them dive into your fist, as the Pig form allows you to easily mash it.
• Even Better Sequel: This game is considered a worthy successor to Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (which got a remake a year earlier) and the best installment in the series by far. While The Dragon's Trap aged well and Lizardcube's remake proved that point, it's ultimately based on an old 1989 video game and held back by limitation of the time, with repetitive level design and now dated graphics. Monster Boy takes the gameplay set in The Dragon's Trap (while also taking elements from other games in the series) and does a good modern paint job, with much longer main game, proper game design updates, exciting dungeons, great handdrawn 2D arts, and a killer soundtrack. Both fans and critics agree Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom can stand up to the best the modern Metroidvania can offer, and given the huge competition at the time (even one of its codifiers getting in with the release of Metroid Dread), that means a lot.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Nabu transforms everyone in the kingdom into anthropomorphic animals. This is considered horrible in-universe and Jin's adventure hinges on finding out how to turn them back, but many players love their design, anyway.
• Goddamned Boss: Uncle Nabu. He's a Puzzle Boss (you have to make him drink water instead of wine). But the problem is, before you can reach the puzzle part, you have to cause the slot machines to line up. This isn't as daunting as it sounds as it's a simple timing — but your timing must be perfect, and you have only two chances before Nabu gives you an attack you have to withstand. Fortunately if you do poorly enough, they start throwing hearts at you.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Some chests have to be unlocked by casting a specific Magic on them multiple times (20 at maximum). The number on the chests resets when you leave its room, and the player's Magic cast number itself has to be upgraded by collecting Magic Truffle. Chances are, you'll find one of these chests but can't unlock it for that moment and have to make another travel to that area much later. Made more tedious by that the spells are rare random drops and the only reliable means is to charge them at shops, so you can end up in a situation where you cannot open the chest even if the requirements are met.
• Surprise Difficulty: Once you get the Frog form, the game becomes a lot harder. You need to update your armour or else you take crazy amounts of damage. The problem is, the armour, shield, and new weapons cost at least 350g a pop, and you've likely spent most of your money maintaining all the magic for Pig form. You also don't get a reliable way to make money until you begin the volcano. The game is stingy with giving you hearts, and since save points often keep you at only three hearts minimum, that can be as many as two or even one hits from any kinds of hazards unless you're able to backtrack.
• Suspiciously Similar Song
  • The music that plays in the Castle of Lupia's interior bears more than a slight similarity to "Lament of Innocence" from the eponymous Castlevania game.
  • The haunted manor theme is a big reference to the Dracula's Castle theme from "Symphony of the Night", especially since it's made by the same composer, Michiru Yamane.
• That One Level:
  • The Volcano. For one, it goes on forever. Two, despite having a branch of four paths, it actually has a specified order. Three, once you get the lava boots game is very picky about whether or not you're touching flames or not. Remember that even with the Ice Armour, enemies will take at least one and a half hearts away upon impact, and lava will be even more dangerous. There is also a part where you have to freeze a lava-flow and then jump through it before it melts the ice blocks. Better have quick reflexes.
  • The Haunted Manor is where the game really goes to town with puzzles. There are many that are not-so-obvious to figure out and a few that have pretty damn obtuse solutions not to mention a rematch with Malino that can also be annoying and difficult. Most enemies in the Haunted Manor also hit like a truck to make matters worse.
• That One Puzzle: Opening the corked well in the village of Lupia. It's a series of Moon Logic Puzzle that'll make you look over every nook and cranny in Lupia unless you read a walkthrough. It's completely optional and the rewards are relatively trivial (a Sound Test menu, a very short Bonus Dungeon with a nostalgic optional boss, and a single Life Heart), but it's still required for 100% Completion.