Where is this area in Wonder Boy : The Dragons Trap from?

Question

A few months ago, I was listening to the music from Wonder Boy The Dragons Trap on youtube. The video contained several screenshots from the game, but this one caught my attention:

Having played the game a lot as a child, I feel I know all the areas of the game pretty well, but I didn't recognize the area in the screenshot. I asked about it in a comment on the video, but it seems the video has since been removed from YouTube.

I know the game was remade around 2016/2017, with a few new / bonus areas, but the visual effects in the screenshot look more like the original.

But there are some other odd things: The color of the sky is more purple than in any of the other areas of the game, and there are 7 Elixirs, but the maxium is 3 (IIRC).

So what's going on here - Is this area actually from the game (original or remake)? Is it from a mod version of the game? Is it just a mock-up picture?

Answer 1

My coworker saw my post and helped figure out where this screenshot was from.

TL;DR: The screenshot is from a mod/remake of the game.

Longer version:

Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap was ported to the TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine console, and the game was rebranded as "Dragons Curse". Some of the differences include changes to the player-sprites (eg. Lizard-man looks more like a dragon, Hawk-man has blue eyes, Lion-man is Tiger-man) and background images when fighting the boss dragons, but it is essentially the same game.

The screenshot in the question is from a modded/remade/remixed version of "Dragons Curse". It was made by a modder called Vile1011 and released around 2007. The specific area in the screenshot appears in this YouTube video around 3:12 - here's a GIF of the scene:

I have found a few reviews of the remake saying that it follows the same overall story of the original, but it is much more difficult to complete than the original.

I may have found a place to download a playable version of this remake, but I cannot verify it at the moment - once I have tried it out, and verified that it works, I will come back and edit my answer to include the link.