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.
Despite the title, Adventure Island for Game Boy is actually handheld port of Adventure Island II, retaining that game's mechanics and plot, in which Master Higgins must once again rescue his girlfriend Tina from the evil witch doctor's minions. This time around Higgins has more than just his stone axes and skateboard to aid him through eight worlds, he can find the aid of four dinosaurs that Higgins can ride, each with their own abilities. I find this interesting as it's well known that Shigeru Miyamoto had intended to give Mario a rideable dinosaur in the NES era of the series, but it wouldn't be until Super Mario World where Yoshi made his big debut.
The basics of gameplay remain the same. Higgins must travel from one end of the level to the other, defeating enemies and collecting food items to keep his energy meter up. The meter works like a timer, once it depletes, Higgins loses a life. Collecting fruit bumps it up, while finding large M bottles will fill it up. Unfortunately you can also find an eggplant which follows Higgins and drains his energy for a brief period. You can even find a game boy item if you kill the annoying running fox enemies that sneak from behind. Make it to the end of a level and you can choose from one of the eggs displayed in a spinning circle which can contain different levels of bonus points or an extra life. Some are even hidden in stage and the correct attack can reveal them, giving you a warp to either a bonus stage, a free item (usually extra lives), or the ability to warp from the whole world, which means you skip the boss fight and continue on your way. This means that while rushing through levels is one way to play, the game does reward exploration.
Speaking of eggs, you'll run into a lot of these throughout the game. If you go in to a level without any axes, you'll usually get that default, but after having the axe, you'll get different items like cards with a different suit on them, each representing a different dinosaur you'll get. Spade cards are fire breathing dinosaurs that can shoot projectiles across the screen. Hearts are tail dinosaurs that hit with close range shots. Diamonds are plesiosaurs which make swimming easier, which clubs are pterodactyls that you can fly on. You'll find M bottles to replenish health, a fairy to make you briefly invincible, or an eggplant to weaken you. You'll also find the skateboard, which remains the worst item in the game as your momentum gets worse and you'll easily lose it by hitting an enemy or the many rocks placed through the levels. A boon to the skateboard at least (as well as the dinosaurs) is an added hit point as without it, Higgins will take a fall if hit once.
One of the biggest pluses to Adventure Island is it contains an inventory system. Before you enter a stage, you can choose which dinosaur to use, provided you have that dinosaur collected at that time. These can also stack, allowing you for more to use in case of a lost life. The only item that you can't stack is the skateboard, which again makes it a weak item to collect. However, on the minus side, the controls for the game do feel slippery at times. I found this to be the worst case when I would go down slopes with one of the dinosaurs and sometimes it felt like my jump wouldn't respond. And, despite some challenge late game, the game does feel pretty easy. You even get unlimited continues (though it sends you back to the stage prior to the stage you died on).
Graphically, the game looks solid for a scaled down port. Sprites are decently sized and retain their look from the original game. The sound is a mixed bag as while it does a good job recreating the music from Adventure Island II, the audio comes off a bit high pitched at times making it painful to listen to in places.
While far from perfect, I still find Adventure Island for Game Boy as a solid handheld take on Adventure Island II. It suffers from some slippery controls and mixed audio, but does its best to be a good on the go experience. It's definite recommend. The game is still reasonably priced online, but has been rising, so pick it up cheap if you can. However, the game is still available to download on the 3DS Virtual Console for cheap, so that is an affordable alternative, either way you choose, you're in for a fun game. Adventure Island gets a B+.
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