Adventure Island (video game)

For the Game Boy version of Adventure Island, see Adventure Island II. For the PC Engine game of the same name, see Dragon's Curse.

Adventure Island
Cover art of Adventure Island (North American NES version)
Developer(s)	Escape/Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)	Hudson Soft
Engine	Proprietary
Platform(s)	NES, MSX, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Wii Virtual Console (NES)
Release date(s)	JP September 12, 1986 (FC, MSX) NA September 1988 EU 1992
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player
Media/distribution	3-megabit cartridge

Hudson's Adventure Island, also known simply as Adventure Island and released in Japan as Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima (高橋名人の冒険島, lit. "Great Takahashi's Adventure Island"^?), is a side-scrolling platform game produced by Hudson Soft that was first released in Japan for the Family Computer and MSX on September 12, 1986. It was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System on September 1988 and in the PAL region in 1992 under the title of Adventure Island Classic.

Adventure Island is an adaptation of the arcade game Wonder Boy, originally published by Sega for developer Escape (now known as Westone Bit Entertainment). Adventure Island was followed by a series of sequels that were independently developed by Hudson Soft.

Plot

The player controls Master Higgins, a young man whose girlfriend Tina^[1] has been kidnapped by King Quiller. To rescue Tina, Higgins must traverse through a series of 32 stages. There are eight worlds called "areas", which are divided four stages or "rounds" each, which are further divided into four checkpoints. When the player reaches the fourth round of each area, he must confront a boss at the end to continue to the next area. The game is completed when the player rescues Tina after defeating the eighth and final boss.

Game System

The first stage in the NES version.

Master Higgins (the player character) loses a life whenever he touches an enemy, an enemy's attack or a fire roast, or when he falls into a pitfall or a body of water. Moreover, the player also has a health gauge that starts out with 11 points, which gradually depletes over time or whenever Higgins trips on a rock in his path. When Higgins' health gauge reaches zero, he will lose a life as well. If Higgins still has extra lives left, he will revive at the last checkpoint he passed through. The game ends when all of Higgins' lives runs out. To replenish his health, Higgins can pick up numerous fruits (or a milk bottle) on his path (his maximum health reaches up to 13 points). When the player's score reaches 50,000 points, 100,000 points, and every 200,000 points afterward, Higgins will receive an extra life.

Higgins starts off each life without the ability to attack and can only gain the ability to attack by picking up a stone, which can found in specific spots in each stage or hidden inside eggs. When Higgins is wielding the stone axe, he can trade it for magical fireballs that have longer range and are capable of destroying rolling stones (which are invulnerable to the stone axe).

To break an egg, the player must touch it or hit with a weapon twice. In addition to weapons, there are numerous bonus items and weapons stuck inside. There are also "hidden eggs" that are not immediately visible in plain sight. The locations of these "hidden eggs" are usually indicated when a weapon thrown by a player disappears before falling to the ground and are uncovered by jumping at the indicated spot. Some of these hidden spots don't contain hidden eggs, but instead a cloud that will warp the player to a bonus stage, which is instead uncovered by hitting the spot repeatedly with a weapon or by standing still for a short period of time. At the bonus stages, the player can collect a series of fruits (each worth 500 points regardless of the type) until Higgins falls into a pitfall. However, instead of losing a life, he will return to the regular stage at the next checkpoint.

At the fourth round of each area, Higgins will confront a different form of King Quiller, the game's boss character. King Quiller has the ability to change his head by up to eight different types. Higgins must defeat King Quiller by striking his head a specific amount of times with his weapon. The number of hits required to defeat Quiller increases with each area (his first form requires eight hits and every subsequent form requires two additional hits until the eighth and final form, which requires 22 hits). When King Quiller is defeated, he will change his head and escape to the next area. King Quiller uses the same attack in each form, with the only thing that changes besides his durability are his mobility speed and the speed of his fireball attacks. When Higgins defeats King Quiller's final form, Quiller will fall off a cliff and Tina is rescued.

Development

Relation to Wonder Boy

Adventure Island began development as a port of the Sega arcade game Wonder Boy, which Hudson Soft obtained the rights from developer Escape (now known as Westone Bit Entertainment). During the development of the port, the decision was made to change the character design of the protagonist, modeling him and naming him after Hudson Soft's spokesman Takahashi Meijin.^[2] In the western version of Adventure Island, the Takahashi Meijin character was renamed Master Higgins.

While the Wonder Boy series adapted an action RPG system for its sequels (beginning with Wonder Boy in Monster Land), most of the Adventure Island sequels stuck to the game system of the original Wonder Boy. Moreoever, Hudson Soft also obtained the rights to port all of the Wonder Boy sequels to the TurboGrafx 16, changing the title and character designs of each game (with the exception of Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair). Incidentally, the Japanese version of Dracon's Curse (the TurboGrafx 16 adaptation of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap) was titled Adventure Island.

Re-releases

The NES version of Adventure Island was re-released in Japan for the Game Boy Advance as a Famicom Mini title on May 21, 2004. It was later re-released internationally for the Wii Virtual Console service in 2008.

A remake was also developed for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube titled Hudson Selection Volume 4: Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima, which was released exclusively in Japan on December 18, 2003.

Sequels

Two sequels were produced for the NES, Adventure Island II and Adventure Island III, as well as a fourth game for the Famicom that was released exclusively in Japan titled Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima IV. In addition to the stand-alone Famicom Mini re-release of the first game, all four games were re-released in a compilation for the Game Boy Advance titled Hudson Best Collection Vol 6: Bōken Jime Collection, released in Japan on January 19, 2006.

Sequels were also released on other platforms, such as Adventure Island and Adventure Island II for the Game Boy (which were based on the second and third NES game respectively), Super Adventure Island and Super Adventure Island II for the Super NES, New Adventure Island for the TurboGrafx 16, and Adventure Island: The Beginning for the Wii.

Anime

Adventure Island also inspired an animated television series titled Honey Bee in Toycomland (Bugってハニー, Bug-tte Honey^?)^[3], which was produced by TMS Entertainment and aired in Japan from October 3, 1986 to September 25, 1987, lasting 51 episodes and a theatrical film. The series also inspired its own Famicom game titled Takahashi Meijin no Bug-tte Honey (高橋名人のBUGってハニー^?), released on June 5, 1987. The TV series' plot involved the kidnapping of Takahashi (Master Higgins) and his girlfriend Honey's mission to rescue him by enlisting the help of One-Up, Dal, and Midori, three children from the human world. The series featured Dragonball's Minoru Maeda as character designer, and featured storylines incorporating elements of various popular video games of the day. Another Hudson character, Bomberman, makes a cameo in episode two.

References

1. ^ Although she is referred as Princess Leilani in the English version's manual, she is still called Tina in-game and all the game's sequels stick to this name.
2. ^ "Master Higgins Speaks from 1UP.com". http://www.1up.com/features/master-higgins-speaks_2?pager.offset=1. "Around 1986, there was an arcade game called Wonder Boy that we at Hudson all liked, and there was a suggestion within the company to turn that into a Famicom game. So the vice president and I went to take a look at the development of the character and the game, and as we were looking at the character being built, the character already somewhat resembled me. The vice president was looking at it and went, "Y'know, that character sort of looks like you, and you are a celebrity -- it doesn't make any sense for us not to make this game about you." So they decided to turn me into that character, and that's how Adventure Island was born." 
3. ^ "Honey Bee in Toycomland / TMS Entertainment". http://www.tms-e.com/english/search/index.php?pdt_no=218. 

• Adventure Island Operation Manual. Japan: Hudson Soft. 1986. 

External links

• Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima (FC) at the Wii Virtual Console website (Japanese)