One of the best games from a flagship series for the SEGA Master System, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap is now available for Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console.

Few games epitomize what the Master System did well as much as the Wonder Boy series: a combination of colorful graphics, terrific animation, action-packed platforming, and clever game mechanics, Wonder Boy games combined both action and RPG elements in unique ways.

Wonder Boy III was the last of the series to come out on the Master System, and was released in 1989 (the first Wonder Boy came out way back in 1986, and was even released on the Master System’s predecessor, the SG-1000 ). The story for Wonder Boy III continues directly where the previous game left off — having defeated the final dragon boss and still equipped with full armor & weapon upgrades. Cursed by the final boss, however, Wonder Boy loses his gear and is turned into a dragon himself. Defeating other bosses turns Wonder Boy into a variety of other forms, including a Lizard Man that shoots flame, a Piranha Man for underwater stages, a Hawk Man for aerial assaults, and even a Mouse Man that enables the player to get into otherwise inaccessible areas.

Aside from combining the many unique styles of game play for each different form, Wonder Boy III lets you roam freely around the game world, puzzling out where you need to go next based on the strengths and weaknesses of your current “cursed” form. Additionally, the elements of the previous Wonder Boy games are here — you collect coins and buy upgraded equipment and items from shops scattered around the game world.

The music, like so much from the SEGA Master System, is charming and infectious, and the game has particularly fine graphics, with the sorts of bright colors and fluid animation the 8-Bit workhorse of a system excelled at. Like the Alex Kidd series, there is something about Wonder Boy that makes it undeniably a SEGA game, and there’s something quirky and compelling about the way the different game mechanics all come together. If you’re at all curious about SEGA’s early console history & unique classic games, Wonder Boy III is a terrific game to check out.