Back in 1986, when it was time to bring the game Wonder Boy to home consoles, Hudson Soft, who were previously known for Bomberman, and would later be known for Mario Party and Bonk, had acquired some rights to port the game themselves. However, the developer of Wonder Boy, Escape, then signed off the rights of Wonder Boy to Sega, and in turn, would be released on the Sega Master System and the Game Gear. Although, instead of completely abandoning the game altogether, in a similar fashion to Journey to Silius, Hudson Soft decided to take Wonder Boy, remove Wonder Boy himself, as well as his girlfriend, Tina, and inserted original characters in their place. Not sure how they managed to get away with this without Sega suing them out the ass, but nevertheless, Hudson Soft then shortly after released Adventure Island, which, again, is more or less the same as the original Wonder Boy, so think of this as a double review of both Adventure Island and Wonder Boy.

It is kind of hard for me to have a solid opinion on what I think about this game. On one hand, they are alright games when it comes to the gameplay, visuals, and music, but in terms of length and variety, DEAR GOD, they are some of the most repetitive and unenjoyable messes I have seen in a while. Sure, they aren’t completely awful, and like I said, the gameplay is enjoyable at times, but there are plenty of other problems that keep these games from being enjoyable for more than like 10-15 minutes.

The story is incredibly generic for the time, but I guess they just wanted to ride that Mario success, so they did that, the graphics on both of the games are pretty good, with me especially being a fan of the more cartoony art styles on the games, the music is pretty good, although repetitive with the instruments and melodies, the control is good enough, but it can feel a little awkward when it comes to running and jumping, and the gameplay is decent enough for a couple of platformers from 1986, but it all falls apart when it comes to several elements of the game.

The games are 2D platformers, where you move from left to right, defeat enemies (but only when you find a weapon, which is completely unnecessary, but whatever), get food and items along the way, including powerups for your weapons and a skateboard that you can use to take an extra hit and go through levels faster, and fight bosses at the end of each world. It is all pretty standard stuff, but as you have come to expect, there are one or two elements that make them stand out from other games. For example, these games have a hunger meter, which will gradually decrease throughout the level, and in order to keep it up, you have to eat food that you find across the level. Sure, it isn’t too complex, and it is pretty easy to keep your hunger meter up, but it does add an extra layer of difficulty that some may not even consider when playing the game.

Now, all of that is fine and dandy, and the gameplay is simple enough to be fun for a bit, but everything else comes crashing down due to the games’ problems. You remember how earlier I said these games wanted to ride on Mario’s success? Well, I meant that in the most literal sense. These games are structured about the exact same as the original Super Mario Bros., where there are 8 worlds with 4 levels each, where you fight a boss at the end of each world that is basically the same one throughout. However, where Mario managed to make these elements memorable, fun, and replayable, Adventure Island and Wonder Boy manage to make it the exact opposite.

First and foremost, a lot of the levels in this game are just repeats of previous levels that are used over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! They are reused so much to the point where most of the levels in the game are just repeats of previous levels rather then their own original levels. Now, in terms of the original Super Mario Bros., the game also reuses level themes as well, but the environments and enemies are changed up, providing a different set of challenges to overcome not just in terms of the enemies, but also your own platforming skills, which feels incredibly satisfying to take on. Here, however, the layouts for the levels are practically the exact same every time, and the only things that are changed are the placement and amount of enemies seen in them. It makes things REALLY repetitive REALLY fast, and this can be seen as early as the second world of the game.

Secondly, when I say that the bosses of the game are the exact same, I literally mean they are THE EXACT FUCKING SAME. They are repeated almost exactly in every single world, and again, this is something that Super Mario Bros. does as well with Bowser, but every so often, the methods of attack Bowser has changes to make the fights somewhat different, such as him moving more sporadically, shooting more fireballs, there being platforms in the fight, and even him throwing hammers at one point. In this game however, every boss has the exact same set of attacks and movement patterns. The only thing that changes for each repeat is the head that it has, and how much damage it takes until it dies. Again, this makes things feel extremely repetitive and draining, making you wonder what the point is in traveling through all 8 worlds. Even Super Mario Bros. has the advantage of warp points throughout the game, allowing the player to have the freedom of choosing what route they want to take to make it to the end of the game, but these games don’t have that whatsoever.

Aside from that, there are a few other problems I could bring up, such as how you don’t immediately start out with a weapon, the weird running and jumping physics, the lack of invincibility frames, and the abundance of enemies in some levels, but those things didn’t bother me as much as what I have already mentioned. Again, the core game itself isn’t actually that bad, but it is all brought down by those elements, and I can only recommend that if you were to play the game yourself, just play through like the first or second world, and then never touch it again, because nothing else afterwards is worth it.

Overall, while it can be fun in short bursts, the game unfortunately can’t be saved when considering the full package, and if you were to try out either of these series, you should just stick to the sequels. From what I have seen for both franchises, the sequels do change things up to make things more unique and less repetitive, so they may have a good amount of fun to be found within them, but for the original Adventure Island and Wonder Boy, there is little of that to be found.

Game #207

O melhor: O controle do personagem é até que fluído
O pior: O sistema de stamina só faz passar raiva
Berinjelas: O verdadeiro inimigo

Eu não fazia ideia de que o primeiro Adventure Island era uma versão do primeiro Wonder Boy, mais uma das conversões e ports malucos que os anos 80 proporcionaram. Sempre reconheci esse jogo como "aquele plataforma com skate", mas essa é a primeira vez que jogo do começo ao fim. E, pelo menos essa primeira versão, não envelheceu bem.

Os controles até funcionam bem. O pulo é um tanto estranho para quem acostumou com Super Mario Bros., o pulo só é alto quando uma direção é segurada, ao invés de determinado pelo tempo em que o botão é pressionado, mas é algo que dá pra acostumar rápido. O skate em si como power up é um tanto estranho, por um lado permite que o personagem tome um dano sem perder vida, por outro você fica preso num auto run que, especialmente nas plataformas das últimas fases, pode ser mais prejudicial do que qualquer outra coisa. Há pouca variedade nos estilos de fases e de músicas, todas elas num loop bem curto (uma em especial beira o insuportável). Os chefes de cada mundo são exatamente iguais e o jogo todo num geral só é um tanto cansativo. Devo conferir as sequências para ver como a série criou sua própria identidade, mas esse aqui é difícil de recomendar.

I have no idea how the game wound up on my Wii, but it was the first time since the 90s me and my cousin played a game together (taking turns each time we died) and it really got me nostalgic for when that happened every time I saw him, so that really affects my score.

The game itself is dickishly hard and all that classic NES style and probably not even anything super special, but that doesn't matter when you have memories associated with a game worth much more you know? It's the magic of video games that can't be captured as much in other mediums: The experience.

So while I forget most of Adventure Island itself, I'll never forget experiencing Adventure Island.

you trip on a rock and get burned alive by a bonfire. you get past that rock and bonfire, but a second later a wave of birds comes out of NOWHERE and, guess what, kills you. you get past the rock, bonfire and birds, but notice a cute little flower on the grass. you keep walking. a red maniac comes in full speed from behind you and, yeah, he also kills you. you get past all of that. "4" says the sign - you are almost in the end of the level. the bar in the top left corner that keeps track of your famish is almost disappearing. you jump a few obstacles and run to the end of the stage. a giant rock comes tumbling down a mountain and. you die.

(a game that gets worse everytime you play it but i, somehow, still love it)

as a kid i remember playing this on my Megajoy, a chinese plug and play that came packed with lots of famicom early games like Circus Charlie, The Legend of Kage, etc. you would just insert 4 AA batteries on the back of the controller, plug the AV cable to your CRT and BOOM, you had a full working console with like 2000 games (or more like 20 or 30 games repeated over and over again with a different title).

and i simply don't know why i always came back to Adventure Island. it wasn't that fun and it was definitely NOT an easy game for a 6-7 year old to play. with luck, i would beat the 2 first levels and then i would simply game over and go back to the beginning. i remember getting to the boss level of the first area one day and i thought, well, this is it, the game will be over after this (little did i know you have to beat 7 more areas after that and they just get diabolically harder). ofc i got so nervous (and also kinda scared) of the boss magnitude i simply died and game over right there. and there i was back to the first level, trying again and again.

i still can't grasp the exact reason i always come back to this game, even now, almost 25 years later, bc it isn't a good game by any means. i think it's just the pure nostalgic feeling of being a 7 year old, on my godfather's house, with my Megajoy, playing the first 2 levels of a game i knew i wasn't able to ever beat and not worrying about that. or about anything at all, for that matter. so this might not be a good game, but it is my game. and i will always come back to it.

It is clear that Hudson Soft was in the same meeting as Nintendo on what it took to create a 2D platformer. Unfortunately, I can only assume that the former was in the bathroom while they were discussing the most important details.

Adventure Island is a game I really wanted to like. And for the first few levels, I thought I would. I saw some good ideas. It controlled okay. The music was fine. I assumed that this was going to be another typical mascot platformer. Oh how naive you can be, Mr. Bones.

By far the most notable thing about the game to those who have beaten it is its difficulty. Because the game loves to find new ways to make your experience miserable, they crank it up to high heaven. Especially in the later stages, the player is bombarded with waves of enemies that require always being on your toes to fight against. They can be placed in the most inconvenient spots, or be stuck close together and force you to make tight jumps to pass. But the platforming itself is nothing to gloss over. Take the final section of 8-3 for example. You are required to perform near-pixel perfect jumps on falling platforms. Along the way, bats will swoop down and force you to kill them, with the final one being especially annoying for being right in the way of where you land and being super hard to kill without the right set-up. This turns the game into a trial for how much bullshit one person can take.

But of course. Hudson decided that wasn't enough. They needed something else: the hunger meter. It is a meter at the top of the screen that goes down unless you eat the fruit that appears. And if that bar is fully depleted, Higgins dies of starvation and you lose a life. What results is you having to juggle the already-hard platforming with collecting fruits that disappear if you take too long. This can piss you off when you are trying to deal with all the garbage mentioned above, sometimes forcing you to slow down so you can save yourself from succumbing to a lack of nutrients. It only serves to add another stone block to the rest that are already crushing you.

Now, all of this would be fine if I at least had some power-ups to help me. And luckily you do with eggs that can drop a variety of goodies. The axe is going to be your best friend. Sections that are a pain normally can be completely cheesed and put more focus into collecting fruits. The worst part about the axe is losing it. Dying results in you having to give up the ax until you can find another one. While the game will give it to you for free in sections the developers felt required it, this is a luxury. The late-game has many sections where there is not an axe in sight, forcing you to deal with the waves of enemies unarmed. There were times where I lost the axe mid-way through one level, and I would not have a chance to retrieve another one until I was a decent way through the next level. Unsurprisingly, this makes the game even more of an endurance test.

There is also the skateboard. On paper, it seems like a good idea. It lets you move faster and allows you to take an extra hit. But in practice, it is completely wasted and, dare I say, better off avoided most of the time. For one thing, it is impossible to come to a complete stop, only slow down. So this can cause complications when you can just careen into oncoming obstacles. And on top of that, the extra hit point is largely negated considering that there are no I-frames. So if you hit an enemy and there is one right next to it (which there probably will be), consider yourself deceased.

But by far the worst thing about the eggs is that they can potentially turn against you. The eggplant will drain your hunger meter to two, giving you mere seconds to find fruit before you die, and even then it might be too late. And there is no way to get rid of it, only delay the inevitable by finding the milk power-up that fills up the meter completely to give yourself more time. The most egregious eggplant is in 8-4. It is placed right in the middle of a series of tight jumping to avoid spiders. And it is practically unavoidable unless you are unbelievably precise. But in the likely scenario in which you do touch it, your only hope to reaching the next checkpoint is grabbing the egg which contains milk that can easily be missed or go off-screen right before you notice that it's there.

And after all of that, you would think that the game would reward you for your efforts by ending each world with a satisfying boss fight. Put your skills to the test for a similarly hard showdown with the main villain. Yea-NOPE! The boss fights have even less variety than the stages. All eight of them are exactly the same: the Witch Doctor moves back and forth throwing fireballs while you throw axes at his head. That's it! At least Bowser in SMB1 had some variety with his encounters, such as throwing hammers or making the fight area smaller. Here, the only difference is that the boss takes more hits to kill and maybe throws fireballs at a faster rate in the final level. So you are thrown through hell hole after hell hole all for the sake of essentially target practice.

It is nice that, from what I've researched, the later games in the series are a stark improvement, so maybe I'll check them out some day. But this was a really bad place for Master Higgins to make his start. If anything, this game makes me appreciate Super Mario Bros. even more than I did already. Because it shows just how much Nintendo could have shat the bed if they weren't dead set on making an enjoyable experience.

Ah, a Ilha da Aventura.
Onde skates nascem de ovos, porcos andam por aí de gravata borboleta e sunga e a inércia te odeia.

Embora não seja o mais difícil dos platformers do NES, Adventure Island se esforça bastante em emular a dificuldade inerente à aceleração flutuante, movimentos 'frame perfect' e inimigos posicionados de maneira a ferrar com um jogador que ainda não despertou o sexto sentido.

Dito isso, a experiência consegue ser divertida o suficiente por algum tempo. Porém, é difícil tolerar 8 "mundos" exatamente iguais pra enfrentar uma estátua gigante no final de cada e prosseguir pro próximo multiverso.

This seems to be a game that has an unfair reputation. Many in the modern so-called "Retro Community", seem to parrot the popular meme, that this game is "garbage", as in a legitimately bad game. Which is absolutely isn't. Is it hard as fuck, even unfair at times in later stages? Definitely. But it has always come across as very disengenuous and hypocritical to me, that many of the same sorts who praise OTHER hard-as-nails NES games (many of which are complete bullshit at times), like Contra, like Ninja Gaiden, like Ghosts n Goblins, like Battletoads, or Holy Diver, etc. etc. etc., turn around and call THIS a "bad game" for its jank or difficulty.

In this man's estimation, the first Adventure Island is a goddamn gem. It's essentially a port/reworking of the Sega arcade (and later Master System) game Wonder Boy. Personally, I prefer Master Higgins to the Blonde Wonder, and I prefer Wonder Boy in his later (more popular) form, as a "metroidvania" type affair. As far as AI itself goes, it kicked off a fantastic franchise, with 2 and 3 being the strongest of the bunch (2 being my favorite). But this original game, while VERY rough around the edges, is incredibly fun, and obviously challenging. I honestly can't remember if I beat it upon my one childhood rental of it, or not. I'd be willing to lean towards not, because World 8 especially does, in all fairness, get STUPID hard in spots. But I did manage, at the very least, to get pretty far into this classic.

The Adventure Island games, as far as I'm concerned, as every bit as much NES classics, as the likes of Mega Man, or Castlevania, or Ninja Gaiden. And they should be remembered as fondly, including this original entry.

first of all. this is game is DIABOLICALLY HARD.
i used to play it when i was a kid on a bootleg console and i think i was never able to get pass the first area. well, 18 years later i downloaded an emulator and tried to give it a go thinking i was gonna do so much better. BUT I DIDNT.
like i said, this game is. So hard. and most of the times so unfair. i was only able to finish by saving and loading my progress almost every step of the level (which can be interpreted as cheating but YEA!). it was a very frustrating but sweet experience at the same time. if i wasnt playing for nostalgia sake tho, i would never dare to finish this game.

Imagine if Mario had a crossover with Pac-Land, but Mario has the metabolism of a baby bird and will straight up fucking die out of nowhere if he doesn't eat a mushroom every 4 seconds or touches anything

Who thought a hunger meter in a platform game was a good idea?

Anyway, there are points in this game where you have to be pixel perfect to continue, and moments that are straight-up luck-based. I completed this out of spite and my thumb is purple