Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap / Monster World II (モンスターワールドII) - Development

Item stats

The tables for the stats are stored starting at address $1c000 in the ROM. There are a few layers of pointer tables for the data, I'll only give the direct references.

All tables list at least one stat with a different value for each form (Hu-Man, Lizard-Man, etc). However, for the most part, the differences are equivalent to thinking of the character as having an inherent amount of that stat (attack, defence, charm) and the weapon adding a constant amount. The last row of each table lists this "inherent" stat for each form.

In a few cases, a particular item gives an advantage, or disadvantage, to particular forms, and is noted after the table as well as by colour coding.

Weapons

Names start at $1c2a0, looked up from a table at $1c284. Stats start at $1c01e, looked up from a table at $1c00a. There are 11 bytes per weapon:

1 byte: Charm points needed to see it in a shop
Data is present even if the item is not found in any shop.
4 bytes: Price
Data in the form 0W 0X 0Y 0Z denotes a price ZYXW.
6 bytes: Attack points
The data is separate for each form, in the order Hu-Man, Lizard-Man, Mouse-Man, Piranha-Man, Lion-Man, Hawk-Man.
Forms given an advantage by a particular weapon have the stat shown in green, those with a disadvantage have the stat in red.

				Attack points
Weapon	Data	Charm points	Price
Legendary Sword	`ff 00 00 04 09 ff 9b d7 cd f5 b9`	255	9400	255	155	215	205	245	185
Ivory Sword	`00 00 00 00 00 67 03 3f 35 5d 21`	0	0	103	3	63	53	93	33
Mithril Sword	`04 05 01 00 00 70 0c 48 3e 66 2a`	4	15	112	12	72	62	102	42
Shogun Blade	`4e 05 02 02 00 87 23 5f 55 7d 41`	78	225	135	35	95	85	125	65
Crystal Sword	`96 00 08 09 02 c8 64 a0 96 be 82`	150	2980	200	100	160	150	190	130
Thunder Saber	`ff 08 01 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00`	255	318	0	0	0	0	0	0
Magical Saber	`ff 00 00 00 00 64 00 3c 32 5a 1e`	255	0	100	0	60	50	90	30
Lucky Sword	`3e 00 01 03 00 8c 28 64 5a 82 46`	62	310	140	40	100	90	130	70
Muramasa Blade	`a5 00 00 08 00 9e 3a 76 6c fa 58`	165	800	158	58	118	108	250	88
Tasmanian Sword	`32 00 08 04 01 ae 4a 86 7c a4 68`	50	1480	174	74	134	124	164	104
"Inherent" attack points				100	0	60	50	90	30

The Thunder Saber does no damage to any enemy.
The Muramasa Blade gives Lion-Man 102 points more than it gives any other character.

Shields

Names start at $1c348, looked up from a table at $1c32c. Stats start at $1c0a0, looked up from a table at $1c08c. There are 11 bytes per shield:

1 byte: Charm points needed to see it in a shop
Data is present even if the item is not found in any shop.
4 bytes: Price
Data in the form 0W 0X 0Y 0Z denotes a price ZYXW.
6 bytes: Defense points
The data is separate for each form, in the order Hu-Man, Lizard-Man, Mouse-Man, Piranha-Man, Lion-Man, Hawk-Man.
Forms given an advantage by a particular shield have the stat shown in green.

				Defence points
Weapon	Data	Charm points	Price
Legendary Shield	`6e 00 04 04 05 9b 64 78 8c 96 6e`	110	5440	155	100	120	140	150	110
Ivory Shield	`00 01 00 00 00 3a 03 17 2b 35 0d`	0	1	58	3	23	43	53	13
Mithril Shield	`00 02 03 00 00 43 0c 20 34 3e 16`	0	32	67	12	32	52	62	22
Shogun Shield	`4f 00 06 04 00 5a 23 37 4b 55 2d`	79	460	90	35	55	75	85	45
Crystal Shield	`9b 00 04 01 03 82 4b 5f 73 7d 55`	155	3140	130	75	95	115	125	85
Knight Shield	`5c 00 04 01 01 69 32 46 5a 64 3c`	92	1140	105	50	70	90	100	60
Dancing Shield	`36 00 03 04 00 37 00 41 28 32 0a`	54	430	55	0	65	40	50	10
Aqua Shield	`30 00 03 04 00 37 00 14 55 32 0a`	48	430	55	0	20	85	50	10
Master Shield	`6e 00 08 09 01 37 00 14 28 87 0a`	110	1980	55	0	20	40	135	10
Heavenly Shield	`69 00 08 09 03 37 00 14 28 32 78`	105	3980	55	0	20	40	50	120
"Inherent" defence points				55	0	20	40	50	10

The Dancing, Aqua, Master and Heavenly Shields are effectively useless except when used by Mouse-, Aqua-, Lion- and Hawk-Man respectively, when they give 45, 45, 85 and 110 defence points above the "inherent" amount.
In a previous version of this table, the Knight Shield had incorrect points listed in the right-most table, and a description that said "The Knight Shield gives 20 less points to Mouse-Man and Aqua-Man, and 10 less to Lion-Man. It gives an extra 40 points to Hawk-Man.". This was a mistake and we fixed it now (Fixed in December 2017, see Forum topic)

Armour

Names start at $1c3f5, looked up from a table at $1c3da. Stats start at $1c122, looked up from a table at $1c10e. There are 17 bytes per armour:

1 byte: Charm points needed to see it in a shop
Data is present even if the item is not found in any shop.
4 bytes: Price
Data in the form 0W 0X 0Y 0Z denotes a price ZYXW.
6 bytes: Defense points
Although there is data for each form, the value for each armour is identical for all forms. This complexity was presumably removed from the game on purpose.
6 bytes: Charm points earned
The armour's charm points earned add on to your character's charm points.
The data is separate for each form, in the order Hu-Man, Lizard-Man, Mouse-Man, Piranha-Man, Lion-Man, Hawk-Man.
No armour favours any form over another after considering the "inherent" charm points of each form, again presumably to simplify the game.

					Charm points earned
Weapon	Data	Charm points	Price	Defence points
Legendary Armor	`ff 05 04 05 06 64 64 64 64 64 64 9c 64 8c 6e 96 78`	255	6545	100	156	100	140	110	150	120
Ivory Armor	`00 04 00 00 00 03 03 03 03 03 03 3b 03 2b 0d 35 17`	0	4	3	59	3	43	13	53	23
Mithril Armor	`00 04 04 00 00 0c 0c 0c 0c 0c 0c 44 0c 34 16 3e 20`	0	44	12	68	12	52	22	62	32
Shogun Lamellar	`37 00 00 05 00 23 23 23 23 23 23 5b 23 4b 2d 55 37`	55	500	35	91	35	75	45	85	55
Crystal Armor	`99 00 01 02 03 4b 4b 4b 4b 4b 4b 83 4b 73 55 7d 5f`	153	3210	75	131	75	115	85	125	95
Goblin Mail	`05 00 08 01 00 18 18 18 18 18 18 38 00 28 0a 32 14`	5	180	24	56	0	40	10	50	20
Samurai Armor	`33 00 00 00 01 2f 2f 2f 2f 2f 2f 67 2f 57 39 61 43`	51	1000	47	103	47	87	57	97	67
Dragon Mail	`32 00 00 03 00 1e 1e 1e 1e 1e 1e 38 00 28 0a 32 14`	50	300	30	56	0	40	10	50	20
Prince Armor	`61 00 00 06 01 38 38 38 38 38 38 9b 63 8b 6d 95 77`	97	1600	56	155	99	139	109	149	119
Hades Armor	`50 00 00 00 02 3f 3f 3f 3f 3f 3f 38 00 28 0a 32 14`	80	2000	63	56	0	40	10	50	20
"Inherent" charm points					56	0	40	10	50	20

Cure Cost

When entering the hospital, the price for heal gets stored into RAM starting from $d10e. The value that gets written there gets looked up from a table in ROM starting from $1c550. This table consists of 6*8 (transformation * number of heart containers) 2-byte-BCD entries and looks like that:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
60	75	100	135	180	235	300	375
5	20	45	80	125	180	245	320
25	40	65	100	145	200	265	340
45	50	55	60	165	220	285	360
55	70	95	130	175	230	295	370
15	30	55	90	135	190	255	330

Border colour bugs with Everdrive

The game does not set the border colour index VDP register, instead assuming it is set to 0. If using a flashcart that sets the colour to something else, like Everdrive, then the wrong colour border will appear.

Forum Topics

Wonder Boy III technical questions (Nov 2013)
WonderBoy3 Sound ripping (Nov 2011)
Border color difference when playing Wonder Boy III on Everdrive (Feb 2022)

Researched by Maxim

See the main page for Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap / Monster World II (モンスターワールドII)

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1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
60	75	100	135	180	235	300	375
5	20	45	80	125	180	245	320
25	40	65	100	145	200	265	340
45	50	55	60	165	220	285	360
55	70	95	130	175	230	295	370
15	30	55	90	135	190	255	330

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
60	75	100	135	180	235	300	375
5	20	45	80	125	180	245	320
25	40	65	100	145	200	265	340
45	50	55	60	165	220	285	360
55	70	95	130	175	230	295	370
15	30	55	90	135	190	255	330

Development