Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World from Monkey Craft, STUDIOARTDINK, and ININ Games is a 3D remake of the Sega Genesis classic Monster World IV. Check our Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World review!
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World is a 3D remake of Monster World IV which released on the Sega Genesis way back in 1994. It is a side-scrolling action RPG in which you are following Asha, along with her flying Pepelogoo – a blue, round creature. As you begin, Asha is tasked with taking a magical crystal out of town to make a huge tower appear. She then enters the Tower of Silence, which will be the first dungeon to explore, leading you to your first boss and a treasure that will prove that you’re ready to be an adventurer. Asha will take this to the Queen, and it is then that her real adventure will start.
This remake has some quality of life improvements, which are welcomed since the source material is nearly 30 years old. To begin with, you can play at the standard Normal difficulty setting, which has fewer heart containers, or you can select the Easy difficulty, which gives you more health at the beginning, and coins are collected automatically, which is a feature I actually loved since manually collecting coins can be a chore.
Another important update is saving. In the original game, you had to find the Save Sage to be able to save your progress at specific places. Each location was far away, and some of the Save Sages were even slightly hidden, which is an issue when you just want to save your game so that you can come back to play at another time. Now you can save at any moment by entering the menu, which is very useful. Do be aware that there is no autosave, so don’t forget to save your progress in case you make a mistake and end up dying!
Each dungeon is surprisingly huge considering the source material, but each zone is composed of many paths of similar platforming segments, which can be a bit confusing. You need to pay attention and defeat each enemy on your path since you’ll sometimes need to backtrack. The game does not stray far from the source material, which will certainly please fans of Monster World IV. You’ll experience this, especially in boss battles, since each one will have a very distinct movement and attack pattern to consider while you wait for the right time to attack them.
Being built on a 3D game engine, the levels offer a lot of depth, and there are many fun details added to the background of each area you visit, which was a nice touch. The game is fully voiced in Japanese with English subtitles. Speaking of which, there are a lot of typos in the text that hopefully will be patched in a future version. I also liked the soundtrack, which features remastered themes from the original release since they do a great job at complementing the action on the screen.
As for the trophies, you are looking at a full Trophy list, with five Bronze, five Silver, and eight Gold trophies. Once you unlock all of them, you’ll have a new Platinum trophy for your collection. Most trophies are awarded for progressing through the game’s story, while others will unlock when you collect the different weapons and armor in the game while also maxing out your heart containers.
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World is a great platformer that pays homage to the source material, bringing Monster World IV to a new generation to enjoy. I liked the new art style and the soundtrack while exploring this fun land.
If you purchase the physical retail version of Wonder Boy Asha in Monster World from ININ Games, be that at physical or online stores, such as the Strictly Limited Games partner store, you will also get to enjoy the original version of Monster World IV! This is certainly a nice bonus, and it applies to both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions of Wonder Boy Asha in Monster World.
Disclaimer
This Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World review is based on a PlayStation 4 code provided by STUDIOARTDINK.
