This... this is how you remake a platformer.

I almost put this game down at the start, because... it's hard. Not always, of course, but at the beginning when you have essentially no health and a relatively short-range attack, you really have to be careful with how you play. It's an NES game at heart, after all, and it shows. That said, the artwork is absolutely gorgeous; as others have pointed out, you can switch to the original graphics at any time by tapping ZR, and I'd recommend it on occasion solely so you can see the full scale of care given to redesigning each environments you traverse through. It's quite clearly a remake done out of love, which you can also see through all the little additions-- unlockables include not just concept art but videos of the live instrumental soundtrack's recording; playing as the female protagonist changes the title screen to say "Wonder Girl" instead of "Wonder Boy", and the addition of The Unknown for each transformation is a great additional challenge.

More of this, please.

Asha in Monster World is, first and foremost, extremely cute. I knew nothing of the original (and now that I do, I would have loved to see those pretty graphics ported) but this does a pretty fair job with what it sets out to do. The beginning feels particularly rudimentary, with long stretches of road with only occasional slime enemies to attack, but by the penultimate dungeon the platforming feels a bit more like a slightly less chaotic version of "Sonic 2"'s Casino Night Zone.

All in all, it's probably not worth the full 20 dollar price tag, but it's a cute and perfectly serviceable (if not rather easy and brief) retro platformer with a female protagonist that might be worth picking up when on sale. Not to draw the obvious parallels, but think of it like a predecessor of the Shantae games.

So why 2.5 stars? Because as much as I enjoyed myself (I even replayed it in the span of a sunday afternoon in order to get the hidden shop and all of the life drops!), there are a couple rough translation issues that feel a bit unforgivable in 2021. An early tutorial sign says "You can hurt some enemies just by touching them"-- however, what it means to say is "some enemies can hurt YOU just by touching you"... a fact that you immediately find out from the fire slime ten feet ahead. Ouch.