Super Boy 4 (Master System) Playthrough

A playthrough of Zemina's 1992 platformer for the Sega Master System, Super Boy 4.

Released at the tail end of 1992, Super Boy 4 was the fourth and final game in Zemina's series of Mario knockoff platformers for the 8-bit Sega Master System.

The first three games were originally created for the MSX, ported to the SG-1000, and then badged and sold as Master System games, but Super Boy 4 seems to have been created specifically with the Master System's hardware in mind. The screen now scrolls smoothly, the sprites are larger and feature more color, and the backgrounds are far better detailed. It bears a much closer resemblance to Super Mario World than Super Boy 3 did.

Well, aside from the fact that Super Boy turns black when he grabs the glove item. I don't remember Mario ever doing that.

(Super Boy 4 was also released as a Mega Drive game, but it was just the Master System version stuffed in a Mega Drive cartridge shell, running in the system's backward compatibility mode.)

It plays a lot like Super Boy 3, but the controls somehow manage to be worse. Super Boy's awkward sense of momentum results in some super kludgy run and jump physics, and the fireball is virtually useless thanks to the angle it fires at. It's playable, but it's not nearly as fun as the first three.

And with that, we've finally come to the end of the road for South Korea's homegrown Mario wannabe, but man, what a trip it was.

If you'd like to check out the earlier games, here are some links:

Super Boy:
   • Super Boy I (Master System) Playthrough  

Super Boy II:
   • Super Boy II (Master System) Playthrough  

Super Boy 3:
   • Super Boy 3 (Master System) Playthrough  
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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