Name: Adventure Island
Platform: NES
Year Released: 1988

When I was growing up in the NES era, platformers were all the rage. The first three Super Mario Bros. titles were among the earliest video games I ever played, so it was only natural that, as a child, I would be drawn to games with similar gameplay aspects. Adventure Island and its ensuing sequels were among some of the most-played games in my household, but I had not attempted to play through this one in years before I finally picked it up again recently. While it hasn’t aged as well as some of its 8-bit counterparts, it’s still a memorable adventure.

Adventure Island is a side-scrolling platformer that takes place, as you may have guessed, on a tropical island. The protagonist, Master Higgins, is trying to find his lost girlfriend, and on his journey must fight creatures like spitting snakes and giant snails, ride skateboards, and eat lots and lots of fruit in order to stay alive. Each board is littered with foes and obstacles to make the quest more difficult, as with most games in the genre. Controls are simple: as the hero, you can run, jump, or use a weapon, and that’s about it. As I mentioned before, Master Higgins does sometimes ride a skateboard, but if you happen upon it, you don’t have the option to use it; you simply ride it until you hit an enemy.

One of the most memorable things about Adventure Island is its notorious difficulty. The game would be hard enough to get through with just the usual challenges of the game, such as moving platforms and enemies. However, there are also a few extra elements that make this game even more difficult. First of all, touching an enemy results in death, unless you happen to be riding a skateboard. While it may seem like having a skateboard would give you an advantage, it can also be a burden in levels with lots of moving platforms and jumps that need to be carefully timed, due to the fact that you cannot stop while boarding. You can slow down, but sometimes that is not enough. There are no continues, and the game only gives you three lives to start out with. Memorization is the key to this game, meaning that it will take a long, long time before you know each level and world well enough to safely make your way through.

There’s also the infamous vitality bar that appears at the top of the screen, and consistently drains until Master Higgins is dead. To stop it from draining, the player must collect pieces of fruit, which disappear after a few seconds if you do not get them. As a child, I never questioned this, but trying to deal with it now, it seems a bit unnecessary. Even if you have a fairy of invincibility following you, you’re still not safe from the depleting vitality, and it doesn’t seem fair to lose a life because you missed a couple of apples while trying to get through an already-tough level without dying.

One thing Adventure Island does have is a memorable soundtrack. Sure, it’s simple, but it sets the tone of the game perfectly, and all these years later, I can still recall the background music when I think about certain levels of this game. Playing it through again, I found the music to be quite pleasant, and considering that so few games of this era have distinguishable soundtracks, that’s an achievement. I also enjoyed the detail of the different environments, as simple as they were; for the most part, you didn’t have to traverse the same type of level twice in a row, and the variety is appreciated.

Even with the often-frustrating elements of this game, I still consider Adventure Island to be a classic. I’m clearly not the only gamer who feels this way, as it went on to have several sequels and was released on the Virtual Console last year. This one isn’t my favorite of the bunch (in Adventure Island II, you got to ride dinosaurs, a feature that’s hard to compete with), but I still enjoy playing it from time to time. Of course, since it’s been years since I had the levels memorized, so I can’t get nearly as far as I used to, but I like to imagine that I was once very good at this game. As far as 8-bit platformers go, it doesn’t hold a candle to Super Mario Bros. 3, but it’s still a good time for the five dollars Nintendo will charge to you download the game.

Related Articles:

Toe Jam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron - Genesis

SSX Tricky - Gamecube

Driver - PS1