Back in 1986, when it was time to bring the game Wonder Boy to home consoles, Hudson Soft, who were previously known for Bomberman, and would later be known for Mario Party and Bonk, had acquired some rights to port the game themselves. However, the developer of Wonder Boy, Escape, then signed off the rights of Wonder Boy to Sega, and in turn, would be released on the Sega Master System and the Game Gear. Although, instead of completely abandoning the game altogether, in a similar fashion to Journey to Silius, Hudson Soft decided to take Wonder Boy, remove Wonder Boy himself, as well as his girlfriend, Tina, and inserted original characters in their place. Not sure how they managed to get away with this without Sega suing them out the ass, but nevertheless, Hudson Soft then shortly after released Adventure Island, which, again, is more or less the same as the original Wonder Boy, so think of this as a double review of both Adventure Island and Wonder Boy.

It is kind of hard for me to have a solid opinion on what I think about this game. On one hand, they are alright games when it comes to the gameplay, visuals, and music, but in terms of length and variety, DEAR GOD, they are some of the most repetitive and unenjoyable messes I have seen in a while. Sure, they aren’t completely awful, and like I said, the gameplay is enjoyable at times, but there are plenty of other problems that keep these games from being enjoyable for more than like 10-15 minutes.

The story is incredibly generic for the time, but I guess they just wanted to ride that Mario success, so they did that, the graphics on both of the games are pretty good, with me especially being a fan of the more cartoony art styles on the games, the music is pretty good, although repetitive with the instruments and melodies, the control is good enough, but it can feel a little awkward when it comes to running and jumping, and the gameplay is decent enough for a couple of platformers from 1986, but it all falls apart when it comes to several elements of the game.

The games are 2D platformers, where you move from left to right, defeat enemies (but only when you find a weapon, which is completely unnecessary, but whatever), get food and items along the way, including powerups for your weapons and a skateboard that you can use to take an extra hit and go through levels faster, and fight bosses at the end of each world. It is all pretty standard stuff, but as you have come to expect, there are one or two elements that make them stand out from other games. For example, these games have a hunger meter, which will gradually decrease throughout the level, and in order to keep it up, you have to eat food that you find across the level. Sure, it isn’t too complex, and it is pretty easy to keep your hunger meter up, but it does add an extra layer of difficulty that some may not even consider when playing the game.

Now, all of that is fine and dandy, and the gameplay is simple enough to be fun for a bit, but everything else comes crashing down due to the games’ problems. You remember how earlier I said these games wanted to ride on Mario’s success? Well, I meant that in the most literal sense. These games are structured about the exact same as the original Super Mario Bros., where there are 8 worlds with 4 levels each, where you fight a boss at the end of each world that is basically the same one throughout. However, where Mario managed to make these elements memorable, fun, and replayable, Adventure Island and Wonder Boy manage to make it the exact opposite.

First and foremost, a lot of the levels in this game are just repeats of previous levels that are used over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! They are reused so much to the point where most of the levels in the game are just repeats of previous levels rather then their own original levels. Now, in terms of the original Super Mario Bros., the game also reuses level themes as well, but the environments and enemies are changed up, providing a different set of challenges to overcome not just in terms of the enemies, but also your own platforming skills, which feels incredibly satisfying to take on. Here, however, the layouts for the levels are practically the exact same every time, and the only things that are changed are the placement and amount of enemies seen in them. It makes things REALLY repetitive REALLY fast, and this can be seen as early as the second world of the game.

Secondly, when I say that the bosses of the game are the exact same, I literally mean they are THE EXACT FUCKING SAME. They are repeated almost exactly in every single world, and again, this is something that Super Mario Bros. does as well with Bowser, but every so often, the methods of attack Bowser has changes to make the fights somewhat different, such as him moving more sporadically, shooting more fireballs, there being platforms in the fight, and even him throwing hammers at one point. In this game however, every boss has the exact same set of attacks and movement patterns. The only thing that changes for each repeat is the head that it has, and how much damage it takes until it dies. Again, this makes things feel extremely repetitive and draining, making you wonder what the point is in traveling through all 8 worlds. Even Super Mario Bros. has the advantage of warp points throughout the game, allowing the player to have the freedom of choosing what route they want to take to make it to the end of the game, but these games don’t have that whatsoever.

Aside from that, there are a few other problems I could bring up, such as how you don’t immediately start out with a weapon, the weird running and jumping physics, the lack of invincibility frames, and the abundance of enemies in some levels, but those things didn’t bother me as much as what I have already mentioned. Again, the core game itself isn’t actually that bad, but it is all brought down by those elements, and I can only recommend that if you were to play the game yourself, just play through like the first or second world, and then never touch it again, because nothing else afterwards is worth it.

Overall, while it can be fun in short bursts, the game unfortunately can’t be saved when considering the full package, and if you were to try out either of these series, you should just stick to the sequels. From what I have seen for both franchises, the sequels do change things up to make things more unique and less repetitive, so they may have a good amount of fun to be found within them, but for the original Adventure Island and Wonder Boy, there is little of that to be found.

Game #207

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (called Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan) is one of the most underwhelming sequels of all time.

I could give Nintendo a bit of slack here, considering that I think they probably didn't know exactly how to follow up one of the most iconic games of all time, but just giving us a harder version of the 1st game is disappointing.

Unlike the original game, which had a pretty good difficulty curve (until the last world), this one just decides to constantly play with you, giving you traps and gotcha moments, and making invisible blocks mandatory for progression.

The only reason why I'm giving the game the score that I'm giving is because it plays like the 1st game, and looks like it (with some minor extra graphical details).

But its level design is so bleh that it barely gives me any fun at the beginning, and gives me no fun by the end.

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is a bleh sequel.