I recently discovered a very interesting glitch that completely breaks this game. If you die while getting damage boosted into a life potion -- therefore dying with HP -- the game thinks you completed the current stage and will advance you to the next stage. This works in every stage with a life potion, including all the boss levels and the final boss. This glitch works in both the SMS and GG versions of the game.

I haven't done any runs yet, but this would result in an enormous time save and make the current WR time completely uncompetitive. I'm thinking we'll need any% and glitchess% categories for both the SMS and GG boards if anyone submits any runs with this glitch.

Here are videos showing the glitch in action.

SMS:

GG:

Wonder Boy in Monster Land is one of the few SMS games that don't work with the Genesis controller. This is true whether you're using the Power Base Converter or a flash cart. I play on a Genesis with an Everdrive Pro, so this prevents me from playing the game. I could of course plug in an SMS controller, but given that the D-pad on those things were made by Lucifer himself, I'd rather not.

There is an IPS patch that fixes the game and makes it work on a Genesis controller. Would it be allowed to use this patch and submit runs or am I going to have to bust out BizHawk?

This website explains the fix.

https://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1203.0

I believe these games don't work due to the Japanese/Export check the games perform. Part of the region check toggles the select line on the controller port. It's supposed to be reset but these games fail to do that.

I patched the games to reset the select line or bypass the part of the region detection code that writes to the select line.

I submitted an 18:13 run that "ties" the WR, but I'm actually a few tenths of a second behind the WR. I believe we should enable milliseconds when submitting runs and require milliseconds for top times of runs under 18:20.

For precise timing, I propose the first frame when the Master of Darkness graphic begins to fade out during the title screen (the first frame the colour changes) and end on the first frame when we see Dracula's "leaning back, dead" animation frame.