Wonderboy III, also known as The Dragon's Trap on the Sega Master System, and The Dragon's Curse on the PC Engine is one of the best games I have ever played. A massive platform adventure that features you (Wonderboy) travelling through tropical islands, jungles, deserts, pyramids, ocean depths, hidden caverns, castles in the sky, and many more lands in an attempt to rid yourself of the dragon's curse (turning you into a lizard) to become Wonderboy again. In order to progress through the game you need to defeat the other 6 evil dragons in their own worlds, each time you defeat one (not an easy task) you are metamorphosed into another character to enable you to continue your quest for the salamander cross, the antidote to the curse. You can transform yourself at different places throughout the lands into various different characters all with their own strengths and weaknesses to conquer obstacles in your path. For example, mouseman can walk up certain walls, piranha man can swim, lizard man can breathe fire, lion man smashes certain blocks, hawk man can fly and on... This is truly one of the classic sega games, with hours of exciting gameplay, and very good graphics, particularly for the Master System (the 16 bit PC Engine version has almost the same quality graphics).
You couldn't really ask for a much better platform adventure than this - if you're not a fan of this type of game, WB3 will show you how to be one! The gameplay is seamless, instead of different levels or zones as many games have, in this you merely go through a door from the home village into the next area, and back again if you wish. When in these other areas/lands, the sheer size of the game becomes apparent - in most adventures if you fell off the island into the sea you'd expect to die. Not this time, instead you fall into an enormous underwater environment into which you can progress yet deeper if you find the right path. It is this kind of depth and continuity that makes the game so special. In the desert if you kill some of the monsters hidden in the pits in the floor, a hole is left into a vast sea under the desert which in turn leads to underwater caverns. The depth of this game is truly breathtaking!
Wonderboy on the PC Engine version, fighting the Meka dragon (1st dragon) as you can see, the graphics quality is nearly identical to the master system version.
Lizard man takes a dip below the tropical islands into ocean, but to descend deeper you'll need to be piranha man who can swim around awkward obstacles.
Mouse man clings to a vertical wall in the jungle level.
Lizard man wandering the tropical island area.
Piranha man has travelled to the end of the desert and reached the ancient sphinx.
Wonderboy strolling around the home village.
For all those of you who have played the game and are wondering how I got to be wonderboy in the screenshot above, no it's not a fake picture, simply enter the password as WE5T 0NE 0000 000 and you start as wonderboy (with loads of cash). The screenshot below shows wonderboy fighting the first dragon (the one who curses you when it dies).
In case you get stuck, there is a wonderboy3 hints document to help you out.