The Japan-exclusive Famicom version of Monty on the Run bears almost no resemblance to its source material, with Monty being a human prisoner instead of an anthropomorphic mole, the game starting in a temple instead of Monty's house, the game being a side-scroller instead of multi-screen game, and the Monty Freedom Kit selector being a weapon select instead of anti-piracy. The only resemblances the game has to the British version of the game are being about an escaped prisoner and featuring the Monty on the Run theme as title screen music.

The background music for Monty on the Run was inspired by "Devil's Gallop", the theme song to the 1940s BBC radio serial Dick Barton - Special Agent. An early version of the song directly plagiarized "Devil's Gallop", but was changed before the game's release.