New Adventure Island (TurboGrafx-16) Playthrough
277A playthrough of Hudson's 1992 platformer for the TurboGrafx-16, New Adventure Island.
New Adventure Island was the fourth mainline game in the Adventure Island/Takahashi Meijin series, releasing between Super Adventure Island (https://youtu.be/rJXyhLoJBNo) and Adventure Island 3 (https://youtu.be/UGCbrm5xXnY). This was an interesting period for the series: whereas the numbered entries steadily evolved between iterations (AI2 introduced world maps, an item system, and dino buddies; AI4 became a Metroidvania), the games made for the next-gen consoles were largely rooted in the spirit of the original Wonder Boy.
Like Super Adventure Island, New Adventure Island rejects the additions made by Adventure Island II (https://youtu.be/ZISo83NM2Ug) and returns to the basics. Worlds are each split into four sub-stages that contain checkpoints, and the focus of the gameplay is on making it from point A to point B within the time limit. Our chubby islander hero still must gorge himself on whatever flying fruit he finds in order to keep the timer going. If it runs out, it's instant lights out for Higgins.
Of course, trying to thwart his attempts at speed-platforming across random tropical locales is a wide assortment of cartoony enemies. The usual suspects are all here - bug-eyed snails, flying swordfish, and flower-loving foxes are present and accounted for, alongside some unique new additions. I loved the occasional appearances of giant enemies (like the giant mommy snail) and the boss monsters that, though similar to the ones in AI1, pack their own unique powers and attack patterns.
Higgins can arm himself with his trademark axe, the boomerangs introduced in SAI, and the new throwing spears, but like always, he has to be careful about which eggs to break. If he's lucky, a 1up, an invincibility fairy, or a bottle of milk might hatch. If he isn't, well, that evil eggplant is still lurking about, prepared to make life absolutely miserable.
New Adventure Island is an excellent game. Now Production leaves behind many of the innovations they introduced in AI2, and as a result, it feels like a faithful, refined next-gen reimagining of the original game. It's still quite tough, but it feels like a fairer, better controlling game than the original thanks to the improvements in control and stage design that it inherited from the sequel.
While the soundtrack doesn't hold a candle to Yuzo Koshiro's work in Super Adventure Island, the tunes are light and breezy and make good use of the TG16's sound chip, and the sprites are smaller than SAI's, but the game's improved speed and fluidity more than make up for the difference.
I've often thought that Now Production was a criminally underrated development studio, and as was the case with the TG16 version of Jackie Chan (https://youtu.be/hrHzRbpZPn4), New Adventure Island highlights their ability to deliver a quality game regardless of the platform.
And besides, where else are you going to find cutscenes of Master Higgins bustin' sweet moves like he's Napoleon Dynamite?
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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