Wonder Boy - Asha in Monster World was announced for PS4 and Switch, with a "beginning of 2021" release. The game was revealed via IGN. A gameplay reveal will be happening at the Gamescom Awesome Indies Showacase on August 29. A teaser site also opened.

Developed by ININ and StudioArtDink, Wonder Boy - Asha in Monster World, is handled by the original staff of the Wonder Boy series. Ryuichi Nishizawa, the main creator of the series, is directing this new entry. The BGM will be handled by Shinichi Sakamoto. The Chara Designer is Maki ÅŒzora, and Creative Manager Takanori Kurihara is back as well.

Asha in Monster World is also the first game in the series to be fully voiced.

That's everything we know so far. Ryuchi Nishizawa hasn't tweeted about the game yet. In fact, his last tweet dates from June 2020:

We'll be sure to translate his comments when he shares some.

Asha, accompanied by her flying pet Pepelogoo, was originally the protagonist of Wonder Boy Monster World IV. Released on April 1, 1994, on Mega Drive, it never left Japan. Monster World IV had much more beautiful 2D graphics and deeper gameplay than its predecessors.

If you'd like to hear my Unneeded Opinion TM, MWIV is one of the many Japanese games I've spent many hours on when I was a kid, despite not understanding a thing. Wonder Boy III The Dragon's Trap on Master System is one of the first games I played, so I immediately fell in love with Asha. I'm sure most who clicked on this article would rather not read more about how I was anime otaku since birth whose first crushes were all 2D girls, but ya know, gotta pad when we don't have much details on the game yet. And I am definitely not salty mastodon sites like IGN get to have exclusive reveals like these. Even before the Japanese sites I follow.

In any case, I'm looking forward to the Japanese press release on August 29, which might include a cast list. Seeing Asha is such a classic character, it'd be awesome if we had a similarly great veteran seiyuu to voice her. I'm betting on Mika Kanai or Satomi Koorogi.

A remake of Wonder Boy III The Dragon's Trap was released a few years ago by my French comrades of Lizardcube and DotEmu.