In 1994, SEGA released a new game in their massively popular Wonder Boy franchise. While every game beforehand starred the franchise mascot Wonder Boy or an unnamed male protagonist, the fourth installment would decide to switch it up. They also would decide to switch up the franchise formula by adding in RPG elements, and a semi-open world. Thus, Japan saw the release of Monster World IV. American players would not see it translated and released over in the states until 2012. The game saw success in Japan and became a bit of a cult hit in America amongst retro gaming circles.
With all this context, you can imagine I was quite surprised, as one of the few American fans of the original, to see that it was getting a remake treatment. I also got cautiously optimistic. To me, remakes from the 16- and 32-bit pixel art era can lose a lot of their style in a modern translation. The art can become muted, or the exaggerations of the characters and enemies can get taken away with a more modern design. Thankfully Wonder Boy – Asha In Monster World is not only a faithful remake in an artistic sense, but it also fixes many of the flaws that plague the original with its limited design for 1994.
A familiar adventure in Monster World
Wonder Boy – Asha In Monster World follows the tale of Asha. A young girl who hears spirits whisper for help in the wind. She vows to go on a quest to become a warrior and save spirits and the world from impending doom. Along the way, she adopts Pepelogoo, A small bird-like creature that can fly in the air and aid Asha on her quest. Together, they traverse across Monster World to defeat the monsters that have trapped the spirits and free the land from evil. Yeah, I know this is super generic. The game came out in 1994 before video game plots were more elaborate and deeper than not. Cut it some slack.
Remakes and remasters are always tricky to review because they fall into one of two camps. It’s either faithful to the original so much that it makes no changes, or it tries to revamp the game so much that it loses the spirit of what made the original so special. Thankfully Asha In Monster World nestles itself right in the middle of both camps. It is a very faithful re-telling of the original game in art and level design, but it knows exactly what changes needed to be made for modern players to embrace this new version.
Let’s begin with what feels great about Asha In Monster World. The 3D art and level design feel faithful to the original style of the 16-bit successor. I’ve seen remakes of this 3D style fall flat on their face because they lose the color pop and the charm the pixel aesthetic brought in the original game (looking at you Pokémon: Omega Ruby). But having original game director Ryuichi Nishizawa and original character designer Maki Ozora return shows that they were aware of what made Monster World IV so charming. The characters all look unique in the jump to 3D, and levels to never feel boring or dreary with great color pallets to differentiate them. It was one of the reasons I adored the Genesis game so much, and none of that charming art style has been lost thankfully.
The levels are all the same and the combat is too, but in a good way because the original game is very well executed on both fronts. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it right? Swordplay is responsive and smooth when fighting enemies with new abilities added into the mix such as Magical hits that allow you to use a more powerful strike on enemies. Levels get a facelift in the size of their landscapes and platforms compared to the 16-bit design. This helps in making a lot of the platforming elements easier to handle compared to the original. Especially in some of the later towers where one wrong jump could mean death.
There are refining touches thought that make the game take a wonderful modern jump and not feel as frustrating as Monster World IV. First off, you can save at any point. In the original game, you could only save at specific points and the respawn spots in dungeons after deaths were brutal. So, adding anytime saving is an absolute blessing as parts of the game can either be challenging, or you could miss a life drop that was going to finally give you another heart. Speaking of life drops, if you miss one in a dungeon, no big deal this time around! You can return to any dungeon at any time to find pieces you missed. As a player who had to use guides and abuse save states on the PS3 version to find all the drops, this is a VERY WELCOME change to bring easier accessibility to the remake for new players.
It’s a personal thing with me, but I want to quickly bring up the new remixed score as well. Monster World IV’s score by Jin Watanabe is one of my top five favorites on all the Genesis. It managed to create melodies I didn’t think were capable with the SEGA Genesis’ hardware. They added so much immersion to the world in each new area and dungeon. The new remixed score by Shinichi Sakamoto is a solid attempt at utilizing those original compositions with a modern touch. There is something lost with it sounding more natural, but maybe that’s my love of the original talking. I do highly recommend comparing both for your own opinion.
Not all perfect
Now, it might seem I’m going to get out of this review just singing the praises of a faithful remake of one of my all-time favorite games. But I know not everyone has my tastes in gaming. There are some things to discuss that didn’t bother me, but I know could potentially bother others.
For starters, the game is short. If you know what you are doing, you can whiz on through it in 4-5 hours. Is that fun for speed runs? Of course! But the game retails at $34.99 digitally and $39.99 physically. That price might be too high for that short of a game. To me, $20 should have been the digital price and $30 the retail.
It’s also worth noting that the Switch port on release has some performance issues. Nothing game-breaking, but frame rate slowdowns and framerate lags are noticeable in certain sections of the game. Particularly in boss fights. I’m not sure if it’s because of the larger enemy on screen, but there was a noticeable dip in frames in almost every fight. There is also one dungeon that struggles performance-wise on the Switch. I don’t want to give anything away, but the background has a lot of moving parts and that kills the framerate fast. I can say it does perform a little better in docked mode than not, but here’s to hoping a post-release patch can fix some of those sections up. I have not played the PS4 version yet at the time of this review. If there are noticeable improvements or flaws in that version, I will update this review accordingly.
Return of an old gem
At the end of the day, Wonder Boy – Asha In Monster World is still a brilliant remake that manages to fix some of the major flaws of the original to bring an underappreciated gem to a new audience. While it’s not worth the retail price at launch due to its short length, it still deserves to be seen and played by RPG and retro fans at a price cut. Hopefully, fixes are made to the Switch version too shortly after launch. Who knows? Maybe we will get to see Asha again soon if this takes off.
