It is clear that Hudson Soft was in the same meeting as Nintendo on what it took to create a 2D platformer. Unfortunately, I can only assume that the former was in the bathroom while they were discussing the most important details.

Adventure Island is a game I really wanted to like. And for the first few levels, I thought I would. I saw some good ideas. It controlled okay. For one thing, there is so little variety across the 32 levels. The music was fine. I assumed that this was going to be another typical mascot platformer. Oh how naive you can be, Mr. Bones.

By far the most notable thing about the game to those who have beaten it is its difficulty. Because the loves to find new ways to make your experience miserable, they crank it up to high heaven. Especially in the later stages, the player would be bombarded with waves of enemies that require always being on your toes to fight against. They can be placed in the most inconvenient spots, or be stuck close together and force you to make tight jumps to pass. But the platforming itself is nothing to gloss over. Take the final section of 8-3 for example. You are required to perform near-pixel perfect jumps on falling platforms. Along the way, bats will swoop down and force you to kill them, with the final one being especially annoying for being right in the way of where you land and being super hard to kill without the right set-up. This turns the game into a trial for how much bullshit one person can take.

But of course. Hudson decided that wasn't enough. They needed something else: the hunger meter. It is a meter at the top of the screen that goes down unless you eat the fruit that appears. And if that bar is fully depleted, Higgins dies of starvation and you lose a life. What results is you having to juggle the already-hard platforming with collecting fruits that disappear if you take too long. This can piss you off when you are trying to deal with all the garbage mentioned above, sometimes forcing you to slow down so you can save yourself from succumbing to a lack of nutrients. It only serves to add another stone block to the rest that are already crushing you.

Now, all of this would be fine if I at least had some power-ups to help me. And luckily you do with eggs that can drop a variety of goodies. The axe is going to be your best friend. Sections that are a pain normally can be completely cheesed and put more focus into collecting fruits. The worst part about the axe is losing it. Dying results in you having to give up the ax until you can find another one. While the game will give it to you for free in sections the developers felt required it, this is a luxury. The late-game has many sections where there is not an axe in sight, forcing you to deal with the waves of enemies unarmed. There were times where I lost the axe mid-way through one level, and I would not have a chance to retrieve another one until I was a decent way through the next level. Unsurprisingly, this makes the game even more of an endurance test.

There is also the skateboard. On paper, it seems like a good idea. It lets you move faster and allows you to take an extra hit. But in practice, it is completely wasted and, dare I say, better off avoided most of the time. For one thing, it is impossible to come to a complete stop, only slow down. So this can cause complications when you can just careen into oncoming obstacles. And on top of that, the extra hit point is largely negated considering that there are no I-frames. So if you hit an enemy and there is one right next to it (which there probably will be), consider yourself deceased.

But by far the worst thing about the eggs is that they can potentially turn against you. The eggplant will drain your hunger meter to two, giving you mere seconds to find fruit before you die, and even then it might be too late. And there is no way to get rid of it, only delay the inevitable by finding the milk power-up that fills up the meter completely to give yourself more time. The most egregious eggplant is in 8-4. It is placed right in the middle of a series of tight jumping to avoid spiders. And it is practically unavoidable unless you are unbelievably precise. But in the likely scenario in which you do touch it, your only hope to reaching the next checkpoint is grabbing the egg which contains milk that can easily be missed or go off-screen right before you notice that it's there.

And after all of that, you would think that the game would reward you for your efforts by ending each world with a satisfying boss fight. Put your skills to the test for a similarly hard showdown with the main villain. Yea-NOPE! The boss fights have even less variety than the stages. All eight of them are exactly the same: the Witch Doctor moves back and forth throwing fireballs while you throw axes at his head. That's it! At least Bowser in SMB1 had some variety with his encounters, such as throwing hammers or making the fight area smaller. Here, the only difference is that the boss takes more hits to kill and maybe throws fireballs at a faster rate in the final level. So you are thrown through hell hole after hell hole all for the sake of essentially target practice.

It is nice that, from what I've researched, the later games in the series are a stark improvement, so maybe I'll check them out some day. But this was a really bad place for Master Higgins to make his start. If anything, this game makes me appreciate Super Mario Bros. even more than I did already. Because it shows just how much Nintendo could have shat the bed if they weren't dead set on making an enjoyable experience.

I like the fast and reflexive gameplay. It really locks you into a certain zone and gives it a unique feeling compared to the sea of other 8-bit platformers. It is fucking hard though. It's also just a reskin of Wonder Boy, but I find this game's visuals much more charming, and the music is worlds better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCWzCQOrR6w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcoqPzRt1OQ

Like come on, it's not even a contest.