The game is filled with adventure elements such as talking to townsfolk, collecting money to buy items, extending the life bar by gathering hearts, and equipping a large variety of armor, weapons and magic.

Shion travels through the many interconnected regions of Monster World and acquires increasingly powerful equipment in the form of different swords, spears, shields, suits of armor, and boots.

One day, the evil Drillkor Empire of reptilian monsters attacked Tarron using their advanced technology and space station.

The call to adventure is answered by a young warrior named Dyna, setting out to the fairy village Lindor for information from Queen Nora.

It features redrawn graphics, fewer and shorter stages, and a complex password system (approximately 40 digits in length) rather than battery-backed save data.

It features palette-swapped visuals, new insect-themed graphics for the main characters (and insects' natural predators as bosses), a Red Book audio soundtrack which is completely different from the Wonder Boy original, and anime-style cutscenes in the intro and ending.

Shion was renamed Dyna and was modeled after a Hercules beetle, and the final boss was changed to a giant lizard king.

Tec Toy, Sega's distributor in Brazil, altered the Mega Drive version and released it as Turma da Mônica na Terra Dos Monstros (lit.

They did praise the game's emphasis on action over dialogue and travel, but concluded, "Still, it appears that the designers didn't work too hard to inject much freshness, like a more intriguing story line or more realistic graphics.