Adventure Island: Me, Myself and Island

Year of Release: 1992

Publisher: Hudson Soft

It's time for my monthly review for Yokoi Kids, in which I review the Game Boy game chosen as game of the month. And for the month of December, that pick went to Adventure Island. A handheld continuation of the platforming series made famous on the NES. That can usually bode either good or bad, so how does this half-pint Higgins handle on Game Boy? 

Adventure Island itself has an interesting history behind it. The series started off with Wonder Boy for the arcades and Sega's Master System before the rights to the name became Sega exclusive. Thus the planned port for Nintendo's Famicom and NES had to change the title as well as its title character. Outside of Japan, the game series became Adventure Island and its protagonist became Master Higgins. Despite the changes, the game was successful enough to spawn multiple sequels, three on the Famicom alone, and an eventual Game Boy port, which we're covering this month.

Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break: Splitting Hares

Year of Release: 1992
Publisher: Konami

The 90s are still alive and kicking in terms of media and reboots. As of this writing, Animaniacs was revived by Hulu and has offered a decent continuation of the classic series. One month prior to Animaniacs' relaunch, it was announced that the predecessor to Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, was also being revived for a new animated series airing on Cartoon Network and HBOMax. So with the revival of the Spielberg cartoon era underway, I've been rewatching Tiny Toon Adventures as well as collecting many of the games based on the series. It's kind of a surprising list of games stretching into the mid-2000s, over a decade after Tiny Toon ended. But the best run for the franchise came during the show's heyday with their partnership with Konami. 

For the uninitiated, Tiny Toon Adventures was an animated series from 1990-1994 and had Steven Spielberg as its executive producer. The series followed a new generation of Looney Tunes characters known as the Tiny Toons as they deal with the wacky world of the 1990s. The cast of characters included Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation), Plucky Duck, Hamton J. Pig, Elmyra Duff, Montana Max, Furrball, Dizzy Devil and many more. The show proved a huge success and would kick of a strong decade for Warner Bros. animation with its follow up Animaniacs being an even bigger success.