Wonder Boy

A series of side-scrolling platform games developed by Sega and Westone. Originally began as a trilogy of thematically-related arcade games (Wonder Boy, Monster Land, and Monster Lair), each with drastically play mechanics from the last. The second arcade game spun-off the Monster World sub-series on home consoles, which adapted an action RPG approach.

Consists of the following releases:
 * Wonder Boy (Arcade, SG-1000, Master System, Game Gear)
 * Super Wonder Boy on the Sega Mark III
 * Revenge of Drancon on the American Game Gear
 * Wonder Boy: Monster Land (Arcade, Master System, Turbo Grafx 16)
 * Wonder Boy in Monster Land on the Master System, Amiga, and Atari ST
 * Super Wonder Boy: Monster World on the Sega Mark III
 * Bikkuriman World on the PC Engine
 * Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (Arcade, Mega Drive, TurboGrafx-16)
 * Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (Master System, Game Gear, TurboGrafx-16)
 * Monster World II: Dragon no Wana on the Japanese Game Gear
 * Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap on the western Game Gear
 * Dragon's Curse on the TurboGrafx-16
 * Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis, Master System)
 * Wonder Boy V: Monster World III in Japan
 * Dynastic Hero on Turbo Grafx CD
 * Monster World IV (Mega Drive, Japan only until May 2012)
 * Monster World: Complete Collection (Play Station 2, Japan only)

Young Nastyman does not feature in this series.

Wonder Boy general series tropes:

 * Compilation Rerelease: The aforementioned Monster World: Complete Collection not only has all six main games, it also includes all of the cross-platforms ports (at least the ones that came out on Sega consoles) and some of the different regional releases.
 * Divorced Installment: The first Wonder Boy game was later repurposed as the first game in the Adventure Island series, since Westone also had a licensing deal with HudsonSoft (in addition to the one they had with Sega, which kept the naming rights for the characters).
 * Dolled Up Installment: In a reversal, in Brazil, the first three games in the "Monster World" sub-series were edited and modeled after the popular comic Turma da Mônica (Monica's Gang).
 * Genre Shift: The three arcade games in the series are different from each other. The first Wonder Boy is a straightforward platformer, Monster Land is an action RPG, and Monster Lair is an Auto Scrolling platformer with Shoot Em Up segments. All of the console sequels though, stuck to the action RPG format of Monster Land.
 * Legacy Character: The titular "Wonder Boy" is a different character depending on the game, although Bock (the protagonist of Monster Land and The Dragon's Trap) is said to be Tom-Tom from the original Wonder Boy in the localized version of the Monster Land manual. Leo from Monster Lair and Shion from Monster World are definitely different characters though, and Asha and Princess Purapril are girls, thus obviously unfit for the "Wonder Boy" title.
 * Oddly Named Sequel: The lineage of the series is hard to keep track of thanks in part to the various name changes each installment has gone through between localizations, cross-platform ports and licensed remakes made by other companies.