Adventure Island (NES)

[markeconrad]

Ok, so Adventure Island on the NES is one of those games that I always heard about while growing up, but never took the chance to try it. I fired it up a while ago to see what the fuss has been all about.

"Hmm, a standard scrolling intro screen and a copyright of 1987 with my only option being to press start." I press start and I am on my way to experience the origin of the hyped series. Immediately I notice that the A button jumps, but the B button lacks any sort of functionality. As I run along, I come upon a stationary snail which I can only assume is an enemy. "What the heck do I do to it?" I don't have any weapons, which is what I guess the B button does, so I jump on it. "Dang it! A stupid, stationary snail just killed me!" On the second go around, I wisely jump over the snail and then break open some egg and pick up hammers that I can throw with that B button. I continue to run along making quick work of all the snails in my way, all the while noticing random fruit popping up along the way. I attempted to collect some of the fruit that popped up, but sometimes the positioning was really awkward.

At one point as I'm making my way through the first level, I notice my life bar randomly drop one bar. "What the?! Ok, I'm missing something here." *loads gamefaqs.com* "Hmm, Psycho Penguin. I think I've used an FAQ of his before." *click*

After a little research, apparently the life bar is not a life bar at all, but more of an energy bar. The energy bar slowly decreases as you go along, ala the Gauntlet series, and you have to pick up the fruit to replenish it. "Oh, ok. Kinda makes sense." I reattempt from the beginning, this time more careful to pick up the fruit. I learned quickly that a lot of the fruit is not worth my time as trying to get all of it will deplete my energy more than the fruit will refill. My fruit gathering strategy proves successful as I pushed forward to the second level.

One thing I noticed is that the controls, while responsive and technically good, were awkward. For one thing, the pudgy islander protagonist takes a while to stop. When I jumped with too much momentum, I frequently ran into approaching enemies. The other thing was the height and distance of jumps. When I jumped while running, I jumped higher and farther, which would be intuitive and make sense, but the degree of difference seemed inconsistent. Several times I was jumping to a distant platform that seemed easy to reach, but the jump ended up being a weaker jump, and I don't think I ever completely mastered getting the jump I wanted.

Controls aside, I reached a point where I lost my last life. "Game over. OK, there's gotta be a way to continue. Hold A and push start? NO?" I thought I glanced over the FAQ that read that I could hold right and press start, but I found that that doesn't work either. "NO CONTINUES?! THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT!" I read the FAQ a little more carefully. Supposedly there is a "Hudson Soft Bee" that I could only pick up at the end of level 1-1 that allows me to continue by holding right and pushing start. What is that all about? Not only do I have to jump around near the end of the first level to find some randomly placed item, there is also a code to continue. The whole idea is just dumb, and upon research, I found a scan of the original instruction manual which does tell the gamer about the existence of the "continue bee." Silly, but whatever. That's 1987 for ya.

As I progressed into the later levels, I got this déjà vu feeling. Backgrounds were the same and enemies seemed to pop up in the same places. Apparently, many of the levels in this game are rehashed levels with more and tougher placed enemies. "That's some BS." There's probably five or six different levels rehashed 32 times throughout this entire game. The levels that they did design are usually pretty well laid out and look OK for an earlier NES game. One in particular that stands out as bad design is in the seventh area. The background and foreground are both a dull gray, and in the middle of the action, it is hard to tell when the platform ends and a jump is required.

The bosses in this game are also repetitive. At the end of the fourth level of every area is a boss that looks like Andre the Giant with an animal mask. The bosses all have the same moves. It walks toward the edge of the screen and changes direction before killing me while slowly throwing fire balls in predictable patterns. At least King Koopa in Super Mario Bros changed up the attacks a little bit.

Speaking of a déjà vu feeling, I felt like I had played this game before. With a little internet search, I found that the development team that created Wonder Boy for Sega moved on to Hudson Soft and used the same engine and that Adventure Island is basically the same game as Wonder Boy but with a different face.

I'd only put much time into this one if you're curious or if it holds a lot of nostalgic value for you. All in all, I can see why this game was well received in 1987, but I don't think it's stood the test of time. The game is very playable, but a lot of the challenge comes from the awkward jumps. A section of a level shouldn't be hard because there are a bunch of rocks in a row and I can't perform the right jump to get myself in between them. The repetitiveness of the levels and bosses made me feel as if I was just replaying the same levels over and over again. I hear the sequels improve the Adventure Island recipe though.

[Flake]

Your review is well thought out and I can respect your opinions. That said, I totally disagree with you.

But this might be an example of a game that appeals to gamers my age that has not retained its ability to capture the interest of newcomers as time has gone past.

[noiseredux]

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 33&t=25920

[markeconrad]

Your review is well thought out and I can respect your opinions. That said, I totally disagree with you.

But this might be an example of a game that appeals to gamers my age that has not retained its ability to capture the interest of newcomers as time has gone past.

Oh I feel ya. I was definitely into gaming at this time, and if I would've played this back then, I'd have probably liked it. I wouldn't understand how you could not like it today either.

I also feel like this write up is more negative than I originally thought.

[jfe2]

Nice read!

[Anapan]

I played it back when it was mostly-new and I've never liked it much, and almost didn't rent Adventure Island III when I noticed it at the local blockbuster. I really loved the 3rd game and didn't stop playing until I'd beaten it. The collecting and exploring with different dinosaurs is really awesome. I only played the second a little bit, but I think I remember it being much the same as the third.

[benderx]

i think I did play this game when I was 5 at an arcade. I Probably never played the nes because cant use quarters like an arcade. They also refer this game to Wonder Boy. Monster World IV looks fantastic for a Genesis game