Adventure Island (GameCube) Playthrough
346A playthrough of Hudson's 2003 platformer for the Nintendo GameCube, Hudson Selection Vol. 4: Takahashi Meijin no Boukenjima (ハドソンセレクションVol.4 高橋名人の冒険島, lit. "Master Takahashi's Adventure Island").
In this video, I play through the entire game on the normal difficulty level. Following the ending, at 1:16:56 I show all of the bonus unlockable stuff, including a stopwatch that gauges how fast you can buttonmash, TV commercials for the NES Adventure Island games, and a gallery featuring the game's 3D character models.
Similar to approach Sega took with their "Ages" collection, the Hudson Selection series was a line-up of Japan-only budget-priced games for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 that "reimagined" classic 8-bit Hudson titles for sixth-generation console tech. Some entries, like Bonk's Adventure (https://youtu.be/oONZyiTp8s4), were fairly straightforward remakes with updated graphics and music. However, contrary to what the internet seems to believe, Hudson Selection Vol. 4: Adventure Island is no such thing.
First impressions could easily fool someone into thinking that this is the same Adventure Island that everyone played on the NES (https://youtu.be/vL3urZJBkQM). The first few stages are indeed faithful replicas of AI1's opening areas, but pretty much everything that follows is either "new" or has been borrowed from New Adventure Island (https://youtu.be/vbAWLo5FIcs). The stage layouts are original and a few new enemies and gimmicks are introduced, but the gameplay is built on the same skeleton and feels eerily familiar. It's a "remake" or "sequel" in the same way that The Lost Levels was to Super Mario Bros - the content is fresh, but it's all made up of recycled parts. The goal in both cases was the same: to provide fans with more of the same gameplay that they loved the first time around.
The biggest selling point for this Adventure Island was the updated presentation. The simple 3D character models are sharp and the tacky yet stylish backgrounds are drenched in the hyper-saturated, crudely "realistic" CG aesthetic that was so popular in the early 2000s. It's a bold design choice - some might even venture to call it charming - but it's a busy, messy look. The characters in the foreground regularly get lost among the details of the garish backdrops, and the style is oddly inconsistent between stages. The new music is nice, at least.
The gameplay fares better, thankfully. The controls are tighter and more comfortable than they were on the NES, and the stage designs nicely reflect the spirit of the originals. It's a fun game, generally speaking, so it's a real shame that the graphics end up dragging the playability down so much.
Hudson Selection Vol 4: Adventure Island ultimately fails to live up to its namesake, but it is one helluva time capsule piece. If, like me, you're a fan of the NES game, this might be worth checking out. I didn't fall in love with it, but I liked it enough to not regret the time I gave it.
If you like this one, you might also want to check out the Wii follow-up: https://youtu.be/NARJPkgOZpA
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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