Mônica no Castelo do Dragão

Mônica no Castelo do Dragão is one of the great curiosities of Sega history. In 1991, Brazilian distributor Tec Toy officially reworked Wonder Boy in Monster Land, replacing the sword-swinging hero with Mônica, star of Turma da Mônica, Brazil's most popular comic by Mauricio de Sousa. Instead of a sword she swings her plush rabbit Sansão — exactly the way she has always clobbered the boys in the comics.

Underneath, it plays just like the original: a side-scrolling action platformer in which fallen enemies drop coins, shops sell better armour, shields and boots, and your hearts drain alongside a merciless hourglass timer, all the way to the dragon waiting in his castle.

For Brazilian kids of the early nineties, who grew up on a Master System that Tec Toy kept alive far longer than anywhere else in the world, this is a defining childhood memory — and one of the first officially licensed character swaps in gaming history. Many players only discovered years later that there was a Wonder Boy hiding underneath Mônica.

It worked so well that in 1993 Tec Toy gave Wonder Boy III the same treatment as Turma da Mônica em: O Resgate. You can play Mônica's adventure right in your browser on OldGame.cz.