Hudson's Adventure Island NES Review

 

Adventure Island for the Nintendo Entertainment System. My sister was an expert at this game. Also my late aunt's favorite game. A game that was on almost every bootleg cartridge. Whether you had a fake sega or a terminator for a famiclone.

We also called him the baby on the skateboard. He looked like a baby. 😐

8 worlds/paths, each with 4 levels, up to 8-4. Much like the first Mario.

Master Higgins, aka "Baby", needs to save his beloved Tina.

Only after many years have I found out that when you break an egg you get hammers or fireballs. When I played, as a kid, from the beginning I only had fireballs, no hammers at all. I later found out that it was some Chinese hack. There were also several variants of the game, the same game just starting from different levels. Like, 5-1, 6-1, you actually didn't have to start all over again . And yes, in the original game, you start barehanded and only later you find the hammer. Also, the famiclones were PAL, 50hz/50fps, which means that the game went slower and it was of course easier. When you break the egg, you can also get a fairy/bee, whatever it was, which makes you invincible and restores your energy. There are also hidden eggs, which you discover by jumping. One gives the Hudson bee logo, which when you take it, you can continue when you die by doing some combination on the controller, while game over screen. I could choose the levels, and I had no idea what that bee-Hudson logo was for. By breaking eggs, you can also get a skateboard. While on the skate, if something hits you, you lose it, but you stay alive. You can't even stop, you can only slow down. Oh yeah, there is also that eggplant, it certainly looks like one, which, unlike fairy, takes away your energy but never kills you completely. But if you don't collect the fruit soon, you're done.

Speaking of which, there is a health bar, which is constantly decreasing, as if you were constantly hungry, and fruit replenishes your health. So the game teaches you to constantly get fruit, to replenish energy/health, which decreases over time. There is also an egg that, when broken, gives you a bottle with M (milk) written on it, which fills up all your energy instantly. Another reason, I guess, why we called him a baby. You never know which egg you'll break or discover by accident.

The game repeats levels but piles up more opponents. By the time you get to the 8th world, it will be very difficult. It requires some sharp reflexes. When I played the game later, in

60 hertz, I saw how much faster the game is, and therefore harder. Each track has 4 checkpoints.

When I learned about Sega's Wonder Boy, I was shocked by the resemblance. As if one of the two was plagiarized.

It turns out that some key people from the team that worked on Wonderboy moved to Hudson after they had already made the game. They wanted to make a NES version of Wonder Boy, but they couldn't use the character. That's why they cast Takahashi Meijin as the character, a Hudson employee who was known for rapidly pressing the controller's buttons. He could press a button 16 times per second.

They changed the name to Adventure Island. In Japan it is still named after the employee, Takahashi Meijin. They changed the levels, the music a bit and there it was. New game.

Similar to Mario, if you jump on opponents, fall into hole, jump on spikes, if enemies just touch you, you die. Stones don't kill you, you just trip and it takes your health, but often when you step on a stone, you trip forward and something awaits to kill you. All in all, the game is full of such cheap 8bit tricks and ambushes. Hammers are deflected by a boulder, but fireballs are OP. They kill everything.

As I said before, the worlds are repeating, but with more enemies. There is only one track across all levels and you'll be hearing it a lot. Why??

Because the game is hard, and after 6th or 7th world it gets really hard. At 60hz it goes faster and it makes you wonder, why you were better as a kid? Was it because of the 50Hz/slower game, or because now you're an old fart with reflexes of a dead horse?

You will see this a lot!

 Bosses are almost the same. After each world you get to fight bosses with different head that throw fireballs at you. Every next boss is faster. And...that's it.

And those brown frogs, those merciless killers, can go to.....the game is very colorful and beautiful. There is also a forest, a coast with Honolulu beaches, spiders, caves, there is everything.

Another game I have a sentimental attachment to. We were all losing our temper with this. Looking at it more objectively today, after so many years, comparing it to the games of that era (it was released in Japan in 1986, in America in 1988 and only in 1992 in Europe), I would realistically give it a 7, but since Takahashi san threatened me, I will give it subjective review of....

   8/10