Not the greatest day in the world of Lars the Wanderer: His medieval homeland is invaded by tiny yellow smilies in futuristic machines. Fortunately, a more bening visitor from the future has appeared in the king's palace with Mimi, the daughter of the mad scientist who built all the machines. Together the two set out to eliminate the smiley threat, which leads them across the kingdom and even into the future, which looks like it's lifted straight from Mega Man X.

Although Lars the Wanderer is mostly a sidescrolling action platformer, there are a few RPG elements in the form of experience points (strategically banking on levelups is essential, as they completely heal Lars) and a variety of spells to learn. At the beginning of each section, Mimi asks if she should accompany Lars, whereupon she's controlled by a second player. She doesn't have any spells, but attacks enemies from afar with her mighty shotgun. The first half of the levels are strictly linear, only towards the end they become a little more labyrinthine. In between stages the wanderers visit towns where they can chat with villagers and buy supplies, similar to the Wonder Boy in Monster World games.

More than any later Softmax game, the graphics still betray the same sense of aesthetics as Lychnis, although the colors aren't as pastel dominated. Unfortunately, the difficulty curve can be very frustrating and enforces a lot of grinding.

In 2002 Lars became one of the first classic Korean DOS games to be ported to mobile phones, now officially misspelled as "Lars the Wonderer". Divided into three episodes, it introduced a much more elaborate inventory with a seperate screen and more different swords, armors and tools.