113 · Adventure Island

• Blurb: In the South Pacific, Master Higgins lives peacefully wearing only a grass skirt and a cap. That is until the Evil Witch Doctor decides to capture Tina and hold her as his own. It's up to Master Higgins to gather throwing axes, fireballs and skateboards in order to aid his noble quest.
• Back of Box: https://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/adventure-island/cover-art/gameCoverId,206803/
• Introductions
• Overview
  • Super Mario Bros knockoff
    • Caveman Mario has to survive 8 worlds (4 stages in each) by running and jumping his way through each stage. At the last stage of each world there is a boss.
• Hudson Soft
  • Adventure Island began development as a direct port of the Sega arcade game Wonder Boy, the partial rights to which Hudson Soft obtained from developer Escape
  • Takahashi Meijin
    • is something of a legend in his native Japan. You might know him as '16 Shot' thanks to his famed ability to hit a controller button 16 times in a second.
    • TM: Back in about '85, there was an arcade game called Wonder Boy. So there was an arcade game, Wonder Boy, that was already out. Back then, PC games like Lode Runner and those games were transferring to console games, and this was one of the games that we wanted to do, alongside arcade ports like [Tecmo's] Star Force. Back then, our vice president Mr. Kudo said, "The main character is not looking very strong, and you're very popular right now. Why don't we just put you in there?" That's how it started.
• Adventure Island
  • The Jump
  • The Platforming
    • GFX versus Display size
  • The Skateboard
  • Spawn-in items
  • The Timer
    • Visible Checkpoints
  • The bosses
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Two sequels were produced for the NES, Adventure Island II and Adventure Island 3, as well as a fourth game for the Famicom that was released exclusively in Japan.
  • This game was remade for PS2/GC (GFX update) in Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uScHrGvdqA0
  • Super Adventure Island and Super Adventure Island II for the Super NES, New Adventure Island for the TurboGrafx-16, Adventure Island: The Beginning for the Wii
  • Adventure Island Quest for mobile in 2010
  • appears as a playable character in the crossover fighting game DreamMix TV World Fighters, released in Japan for GameCube on December 13, 2003.
  • The rights to the Adventure Island series are currently owned by Konami, who absorbed Hudson Soft in 2012.
• EGL
• POST SHOW
  • NINTENDO POWER MAILBOX
    • 2 write ins
    • TOP GAMES
      • Zelda
      • Punch Out
      • Metroid
      • SMB
      • Kid Icarus
    • Looks forward to
      • Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
      • Bayou Billy
      • Bionic Commando
• 46:00 EGL

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 The Evil Witch Doctor has set lots of traps for you before you can face him one on one. Are you up for the challenge? Can you live through Adventure Island to save Princess Leilani?

00:28 And welcome to NEStalgia, chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Joe. And who do we have up? I'm Sean. All right, we got Sean and Joe in the house. All right. Some might consider that a full house, but usually you need Uncle Jesse and Bob Saget on the show too to make it a full house. You don't remember his name, do you? Well, I don't remember his name on the show. Danny. Danny Tamarillo. Danny Tanner. Danny Tamarillo is all that. He's all that. That's funny. But you know what? Even if I can't remember names, people remember us and sometimes they write to us on the show. Wow. And we did get a write-in from Steven.

01:10 Okay. What's up, Steven? Yeah. Steven wrote in, Dear Sweet Baby Boys of Nostalgia. I love it. All right? He said he's been working through our back catalog and savoring it like fine wine. He's currently on the RC Pro-Am episode, hopefully a little later into the show by now. He said that he would like to know what is the best Capcom box art. And he even attached some images, for example. But we should keep it to just the ones that we've played so far.

01:38 And with that in mind, I'm going to automatically disqualify Mega Man from being the best. That's not fair. That's not fair, Mike. Why isn't that fair? It's favorite, not best, right? I don't even get any joy looking at this. I feel so much joy when I look at that. I still wonder what's even going on. I don't even remember anything from any of the levels that represent that part of the box art. So you don't watch bad movies for the fun of it? Yeah, you can like it ironically or even just because it's funny looking. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm conceding the point a little bit, but I still don't think... It is definitively not enjoyable.

02:16 For me, box art is all about like, if that's what you're picking... It's like a record cover. If you're going to pick to listen to or to play something based off of just the box art alone, Mega Man doesn't really sell me that that's an awesome game, which is currently on our essential games list. Well, it's like the old adage goes, judge a book by its cover. Yeah, that's true. Exactly. And that's exactly how everybody did it at Blockbuster, right?

02:37 Like that's how... 100%. That was my thought process on things was like, you know, maybe if it came down to it, I'd read the back of the box also to like... I like you every day read the back of the box. Very good. Every Friday. That's how I... Well, it's every day that we record these. Yeah, we've been recording every day for three years. Yeah. Gun Smoke is the one that I think is the best because it captures that whole... Like it's a cool cover first off, but then it also captures the vibe of like a Western and has like a cool like spaghetti Western thing going on.

03:09 And I just think like that for me is the best, is the closest. Is this maybe something like 1942 like actually just straight up tells you this is a World War II shooter flyer game? Like maybe that's good too? What do you guys think? Well, going on the idea of like when I was a kid, what would have drawn me in? Gun Smoke is a good one. I also really like Section Z. Oh, yeah. Section Z is cool. I think there's a badass on there. This little like guy in a Iron Man looking suit.

03:39 I think I would have been drawn to that. Yeah. And also like it looks like the rest of the backdrop is just black. But if you look carefully, there is like a lot of detail of other ships and stuff going on in there. So, yeah, I'm a fan of that one. Sean? Well, since you've disqualified the one that I actually enjoy the most, and since Gun Smoke is probably the best looking, I'm going to just have to go with, you know, just another tidbit. Like, you know, I like the Ghosts and Goblins one because it looks like a really bad family photo.

04:11 And the rest of the box arts are just sort of bland to me. At least this one just looks like Monsters, Inc. Is the main character like posing with the Ghosts and Goblins? Yeah. They're all like, oh, let's get in for a group photo. Yeah, and then one that I also have to call out is the Commando one because it says destroy the enemy army over it in just like aerial text. You know, like yellow aerial text. Destroy the enemy army.

04:41 Like that's how it's written out. Nice. So we're not going to talk about Capcom today, though. We are talking about Adventure Island. Have you guys ever heard that name before? I knew of it before this. I had never played it, but I think I've even seen like some screenshots of it before. Got it. It sort of sounds like a generic like template game. So that's what I had to expect. It's the name of like every theme park in every state, right? Like every state needs to have an Adventure Island. Yeah. So yeah, I knew of the franchise. Like I had heard of that there was like many of these different types of games, but I never played any of them. So I was excited to get into it.

05:19 Basically, it's a Super Mario Brothers knockoff in many ways, which is funny because in the last episode, Sean and I had discussed, Joe, you weren't on it. I wasn't. We had discussed that one of the things I was looking forward to is somebody just taking the Super Mario Brothers formula and just trying to get like close to it. Like not do something so stupid. We were referring to Karnov and being like, why did they have to add all those extra things? Like just you didn't even get the jump right. At least focus on that.

05:44 And so I get huge Super Mario Brothers vibes out of Adventure Island. What about you two? Particularly because of the way it controls, I get those vibes. I mean, it's also like it seems like it should be a given, but it's not when it comes to platformers. It's also just like well-designed and enemy placement and platforming. But just the fact that you have, I think we said it about Mario, your character has like weight and momentum and that makes it feel to me so much better to control. And that's where I got the most like, wow, this reminds me of Super Mario.

06:15 I agree. It has tastes of Super Mario in it and that's all I'll say on it for now. Cool. Just to give an overview of the game, Caveman Mario has to survive eight worlds, four stages in each. Each, running and jumping his way through each stage and at the last stage of each world, there's a boss.

06:38 So emphasis on Caveman Mario because that's pretty much Super Mario Brothers. There's the same amount of number of levels as Super Mario Brothers. Now, why did you say Caveman Mario? Because I think that this is just, you know, based on the way that this game plays. It's like taking Mario and putting him in the Flintstones. It sounds like you were like actually reading something. No, I wasn't reading anything. I said that. I think actually there's a backstory to the main character's name because he's based off of a Hudson Soft employee, Takahashi Majin. And this guy is something of a legend in Japan because he was known as 16-shot. Why do you think they called him 16-shot?

07:25 I imagine he has a loaded gun in the office at all times. That's a good idea for an employee to have. No, it's because he was able and documented to hit the A button on an NES controller 16 times in a second. Wow. 16 times in a second. He's like a human turbo button. Yeah, I think that's pretty impressive. I don't know what I was hitting per second. I would like to know how long he can sustain that, though. Well, he did an injury much later on in like his 50s, and he said he'd be better. He'd be closer to like 13-shot by now. Oof. He doesn't think. 16 is kind of unheard of.

08:00 Like, as far as I know. Do people record this? None of the guests. Well, there's a game. There's like, just to go on a tangent for a second, there's a mini game in Mario Party, like, 4 or 5, where even, it's called Domination.

08:14 This is how we figured it out. Yeah, and the whole time you just hit the A button for 10 seconds, right? And then I figured eventually, once I was scoring like in the 100 pluses, I was like, oh, how many, like, is that per second? And then I'd be like, oh, you just divide by 10. So, I think I did. You're taking us through like the way you learned. Yeah, so I got to like 100 and maybe like 11 at one point, and that's 11 A presses per second. That's more than 11. 11.1, yes. You can go ahead and round that up. I don't care about it at .5. You can round up at .1. Just to one other decimal. And that's not even close to 16, though. Like, if I'm getting 111 in 10 seconds, that means that Takehashi would get 160.

08:54 Astounding. This is astounding. Yeah. You know what's funny, though? It has nothing to do with Adventure Island because you wouldn't gain any benefits from having like turbo-like features in Adventure Island. Another quick fact before we get into the game is that Hudson Soft made this game, but it is a direct port pretty much of the Sega arcade game Wonder Boy. I love it. Which is just weird because, you know, like, Hudson Soft attained the partial rights to Wonder Boy, but Wonder Boy wound up being sold to Sega at the same time. And so they weren't allowed to use the name Wonder Boy, but they owned the rights to use the game. Wow. So they just figured, oh, we'll just call it something different.

09:36 And that's how they came up with Adventure Island on the NES. It does suck. Wonder Boy's a great name. You can play Wonder Boy on, I believe, the Sega Master System and probably even the Sega Genesis. But I just think that's funny because Wonder Boy is still around. I don't think Adventure Island is.

10:12 And now it's time to talk about Adventure Island itself. Joe, you mentioned that there's this whole weight and momentum thing. I think it's really important, since we've emphasized so many times about the jump in platformers, that we really get nitty-gritty on this. So, Joe, if you could just kind of start the conversation and we'll go from there. Yeah. So, I mean, by weight, I just mean that as you move, when you take your finger off of the direction you're moving, you kind of slide a little bit or you keep running a little bit. And as much as when you say that out loud, it sounds like, oh, that sucks.

10:41 But really, in practice, it feels to me, maybe it's because we're conditioned by games like Mario, it feels much more natural. Yeah. And it feels like you can use that to time your jumps a little better, which also leads to the fact that there are two jumps in this game. There's your regular jump if you're standing still, where you jump kind of low. And then if you're running and jumping, you jump pretty high. Or you can just press both buttons at the same time if you want to cheat it.

11:11 But that felt kind of, it took a little getting used to, but it felt kind of good once you got the hang of it. And how about at full speed, right? Like Super Mario Bros. has that arch, right, of the maximum jump that you can get. And what's good about that is if you start going the other way or while you're in midair, there's a lot of flexibility so that you don't have to be so perfect about your positioning at any given time. Because you can kind of back out of decisions when you see a platform arise. Or you can move forward a little more. Or you can stop right where you are and just fall straight down. How does that feel here?

11:48 To be honest, I'm not, I can't think of how exactly it works, which makes me think that it works in a similar way. I think it felt heavier. Like it's harder to get to your max speed. It's harder to, you definitely can adjust in midair, but it feels like there's much more resisting you when you do that. But all in all, it feels like the same technique with the numbers tweaked. Yeah, and I think actually the weight thing comes from a graphics thing, actually. The way that the graphics are designed in this game to make them look nicer than, say, Super Mario Bros. did back in 85,

12:29 is that they've increased the size of every kind of graphic. So the sprites are bigger, but now you have less on your display at a given moment. And so I don't even know if, like, well, if you did just shrink everything down, would it actually get very close to Super Mario Bros. And is it just the fact that because he's bigger and because you're seeing less of the stage that it just feels more weighty on every action? You would think that it would feel faster, though, if it was actually the one-to-one. Right. That's why I think it's not.

12:57 Got it. Yeah, and when you mentioned before, like, the arc that Mario has, I think his is a much wider arc, whereas this guy, whatever his name is, he has, like, a very high arch, but he falls fast, too. So I think that makes it a little harder, not necessarily in a better or worse way, but just it's a little more difficult, I think, to time. Like, I want to land in between those two enemies. I want to land in between those two rocks. How many times did you have this phenomena while playing the game where, like, you jump over something,

13:28 and then you immediately, like, as you're coming down, you're, like, prepared to do just another jump just in case. So you, like, jump over something, and then you're just ready to do the next jump already, and you just, even if you just jump straight up and come right back down, I just felt like I was tapping the jump button a lot because this game doesn't have the Super Mario Bros. there's a mechanic of stomping on enemies, so you can only throw your hammers at enemies to take them down, which works a lot like the fireball in the Fire Flower Power Up.

13:58 I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of jumping, emphasis on jumping on this game, more so than using the hammer, but the hammer comes in handy, but because you're taught to jump more often than you're taught to throw the hammer, there was a lot of times I just found myself trying to avoid everything rather than, like, take things slow and combat the situation. Well, you're sort of incentivized to fireball or hammer things just so that you can get those eggs that may or may not have something good in them, or points, which, you know, points is points, but you do get extra lives that way.

14:36 But I think I did like a combination of the two. Like, I would avoid if I definitely knew I didn't have time to destroy it, but I think I was pretty balanced. Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. I wasn't really super heavy one way or another. I was doing a lot of jumping, and I was constantly throwing axes because, I mean, I feel like I definitely had a lot of agency and, like, oh, I want to hit this guy, I want to hit that guy, but also when I wasn't aiming for things, I was just throwing axes because odds are I'm going to hit something. And there's no limit to the axes, correct? No. They don't do anything in terms of that meter that acts as a timeout. Just spam them. Yeah. So I actually like the idea of, like, having permanent fire flower.

15:20 I thought it would be strange because that same button that you use to throw the hammers is the same button that you use to run. Yeah. And that gets a little trickier later on. Oh, it's definitely tricky. Yeah. Later on, it definitely has, like, more enemies appear on the screen, and the real estate of your platforms shrinks. It becomes a little bit of, like, well, what does the game want me to do?

15:44 Does it want me to rush through this stage as fast as I can, or does it want me to figure out, like, the best way to deal with the enemies? Because that's another huge problem with this whole balancing of the jump and the platforming is that there's that timer that acts as, like, your life at the same time that, basically, if you ever trip over a rock, you lose some of that chunk of meter that acts as your timer. Just as it goes on throughout the stage, it slowly goes away, too, and the only way to increase it is to eat a bunch of fruit. Now, granted, the fruit spawns all over the place randomly.

16:21 Poppin's pretty bad on this. It feels like sometimes it appears while I'm, like, right next to it. It's like, how did I not see it yet? I liken that to if the coins in Super Mario Bros. just popped on whenever. Like, whenever you see that, as soon as you see them, they're just like, oh, cool, those are the coins. They don't just, like, show up randomly.

16:38 But the fruit just is like, oh, here's a banana all the way up there, and then there's a cherry down here. I never got one in a spot where it would spawn and kill you. You know, like, you would jump into it and then fall into a pit. So they must be thinking about where these things are going to spawn, but they just didn't think about, like, oh, you have to see them to know that you should grab them. Yeah, and there are some times where it's spawning.

17:00 It spawns so late where it's like you kind of have to plan to be running so you can jump high enough. You have to kind of, like, plan ahead to get a few of them. So there's a few times where I definitely missed some because of some. Yeah, I definitely wasn't a fruit completionist. I collected them when they were convenient, but I ignored them if I didn't. I wasn't either, but as far as the way I normally play, I definitely collected a lot more than I usually would if it was just for points or something like that. Because I knew it was helping my life.

17:27 And there was just something satisfying about collecting them. So I was, like, trying more than I usually do to, like, collect as many as I could. It's a balance of things, right? Because, you know, Joe, as you just mentioned, it incentivizes collecting them because it actually does something.

17:40 But, and maybe this is just, like, my 2020 way of thinking that there just shouldn't, if there's going to be some kind of limit like that, it's just put a timer on the top right of the screen and just tell me, like, I got 200 seconds to make it through the stage. I feel like we would complain about the timer. Yeah. We would have complained about the timer regardless, right? Yeah. But I'm saying, like, to complicate it in a way where it's, like, you know, everything in this game one shot kills you except for these rocks, which happen to just take away some measly meter from you.

18:08 It's, like, at what point do we just say, like, screw the meter, the game's hard enough as it is. But it's not. It's not. I just want to get that out of the way. It's not too hard. You know, the meter just seems like an extra layer on top of an overall, like, fun, laid-back kind of game. Yeah, you know, Mike. It made it stressful. I think that, yeah, we should just definitely redesign all the levels so that you just have to press right until you hit the end. There shouldn't be any platforming. Yeah. Or obstacles. Yeah. I don't understand how in these caves there's all these holes.

18:37 You know, like, it just doesn't check out. No, I'm not crazy about the meter or a timer, but I think I actually prefer the meter just because I like the idea that you have some control in, like, building the timer back up. It feels a little less arbitrary. Yeah, exactly. It feels like I'm doing something. Yeah. If I were, if it were my option, it would just be a game where the platforming is challenging enough where you don't need that. But, I mean, that's a different game. I mean, that's just my preference.

19:05 Right. So, I mean, you know, there's a lot to say, though, about the relaxing element of this game with the music. It's fantastic. And it's fun to be, like, in these prehistoric times. And the only thing you're going up to get. Is it prehistoric? It's got to be, right? No, I kept thinking that, too. But is it? It definitely plays in its own universe. I'm not saying it takes place for our dinosaurs. It says in the manual, you're on an island in the South Pacific, which I feel like it wouldn't say if we were in prehistoric times. I don't think we're. What, because it'd have to say Pangea?

19:35 I don't know. I guess it's just, like, weird to specify, like, a location. Mike, I think you sort of headcanoned this into the Stone Age. So forget the prehistoric thing for a second. Maybe the Flintstones are hot. He's wearing a baseball cap. Yeah. Maybe the Flintstones are hot at this moment and they just figured they'll cash in on the dinosaur aesthetic. But forget about that. I just think, like, the graphics are fun and silly. The only enemies you ever face are not really that scary by any means, except for the boss, which is a little bit of a weird misnomer. But there's just, like, most of this game is actually fun and enjoyable and colorful.

20:11 And I think there's something to be said there about the color palette of this game versus regular NES games we play. I feel like most NES games we play are not that vibrant. Yeah. This is almost, like, making me think more of, like, Super Mario Bros. 3 colors. Like, that's a really colorful game. And I don't think we've had anything like, well, maybe we have, but not that many things that are, like, this close to that kind of aesthetic feel. Yeah. But we should probably talk about those bosses or it's just one guy whose head just continues to change. Because is that not the most disappointing part of this entire game?

20:51 It is very disappointing. I have problems with both instances of this game between the levels themselves and the bosses. Yes, the bosses are disappointing because it's the same thing every time. You just try and Dracula them.

21:07 Like, jump up, hit the head, jump up, hit the head. And it's not even that many. Right. And, like, the hardest part of, like, not dying is, like... Make sure you're not jumping when he throws. Right. Like, just... He has a very slow, arced thing. He's easier than some of the regular enemies that come up. And then he, like, walks towards you to a certain point. So, just, like, don't be there when he's walking there. It's, like, really that simple.

21:29 Did I miss something, though, about, like, the memo on being able to jump higher? Or is it just during this particular part of the boss fight where all of a sudden your character jumps a little higher so that he can reach the head? No, I think you just jump higher by using B. If you use B and A at any time when you're standing still...

21:47 Maybe that wasn't. I think it's when you... When you press a directional button and jump, that's when you jump high. But also, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure if you were just holding B as if you're running and then press A, you jump high, even if you're standing still. Huh. Okay. Both of those things check out because maybe because it's a limited space that you're in with the boss.

22:08 I was just trying to use just the A button and the directions. But what it turned out was that what I had to do was... And this is just in my own head. I'm not saying the manuals that do this. Is that I'd have to kind of run, jump, and then use the left pad and then switch to the right pad immediately to jump up high. And then I could throw the hammer. And that just felt like I was like, all right, nobody ever trained you for this morning.

22:36 And so I was throwing hammers at the first boss for an awful long time thinking like, does he just take a lot of hits? Like, why isn't he throwing anything at me? And then it's like, no, you need to hit the head.

22:54 Right. Yeah. But yeah, to your point, there's no point in the game where you notice like when you hit anything before these bosses that they like glow as if you've hit them, that they give you that kind of feedback. And now that's the only feedback that this boss's head gives you. So like if you're hitting its body, you don't know to look for feedback because nothing else has given you that. There are some enemies that will change color though when they require two hits.

23:18 Yeah. But that's still not the same thing. No, no, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like sometimes color has been indicative of like, you know, oh, that means you have to do something. Right. Oh, yeah. Or those things that run up behind you and they turn blue and freeze for a second. What the heck are those? Actually, I have the manual right here.

23:34 All the names. They're coyotes. Okay. Yeah. But the names of the rest of the enemies are literally just keyboard mashes. What? You don't think pooter? What is that supposed to be? It's a pig. A pooter is a pig? Okay. Sneal? The snail? Sneal the snail. Snail is probably... Sneal and coyote are the only ones that bear any resemblance to what they're supposed to be. Cobra? Okay. Sorry. Cobra. Three. One that doesn't resemble. That's it. Yeah. Whaler isn't really like a swordfish.

24:09 Red oct and blue oct. Check out though. Stop picking apart my hyperbole. I'm sure you could take any sentence I've ever said on nostalgia and just rip it to shreds if you just tried hard enough. The one thing though on these bosses and the reason why we're spending so much time on them is because...

24:27 So you defeat the first boss and was I the only one thinking like, okay, whatever, he grew another head and he goes up to the next stage and now you've got to take care of him.

24:37 Then you go and do the same fight again? It's the same. Yeah, it's exactly the same. It's not even more difficult. It's not even like he takes more hits to die or anything. It does take more hits. Oh, he does. Yeah, but it's ever slightly increasing. Gotcha. They are supposedly. They're not the same guy though. They're different characters technically. I thought they were the same guy and he changes the head. He just changes his head like in his wardrobe? He just changes his head, yeah. Yeah. He never like falls through the pit, does he? No, no, no. But he does blow up. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So it's more like Bowser being like, I was really a Goomba. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay.

25:13 Yeah, the difference is though is that in Super Mario Brothers, even though you always fought Bowser at the end of each world, he got more complicated each time. Yeah. Where he would do like, oh, now there's this platform that you have to like try to jump over or now you have to come in on something where you must, you can't jump over right away. You have to go under and then jump over Bowser. There was like a, there was a thing to it.

25:38 Here, he doesn't gain like any new powers. He doesn't like throw hammers at you as well or anything or do or stomp to like paralyze you. It's just, hey, here's that like slow ball, fireball thing I got again. You want some of that? But that's my problem with the levels themselves as well. Like, yeah, like this is sort of going into what you mentioned about it sort of being zoomed in.

26:02 And to me, these are just very basic designs. Like, it's too basic of a design for it to be that interesting because you're running forward and you're jumping when you need to jump. And the, yes, there are enemies in places that like it's intuitive to hit them, but I don't see it as all that creative. There's no real sense of progress either. No. Going along. I don't really feel like I'm getting closer to an end. No. And maybe that's just because of the four stages, eight worlds, four checkpoints in each stage. What did you guys think of those like little checkpoints? I didn't understand the reason they were there. I liked them actually. I thought that it was, I mean, when you die, you go back to that checkpoint.

26:47 Yeah. So I thought that was a nice little, it made the levels feel really long. I guess that makes more sense. And then also like the levels felt really long because there wasn't like a moment, nothing happened when you get reached a checkpoint. You just keep going. So it doesn't, there's not like a break. I guess the only reason that I would know that I was any further in these levels is that the checkpoint number changed because there's no variety of layout.

27:09 Yeah. The layout repeats itself constantly. And you need those goal markers actually. All the platforms are, I feel like all the platforms are cut to the same size. Like it's always this like one eighth of the screen taken up by a platform and then you jump to the next one. That's the exact, that looks exactly the same.

27:29 So I was, I was not smitten by the level design. Yeah. And there's actually, there's more things that Super Mario Brothers has in terms of platforming layouts than Adventure Island has. And meanwhile, this game comes out four years later. Yeah. You know, three years later. So it's like, that's a little strange that they managed to copy a lot of things that it had, but that they couldn't fit in all of it or rather even think of newer solves for platforming.

27:57 Yeah. You know, it's almost like this game needed either a different kind of a variety of enemies at some point introduced into the game, or it needed a like a new jumping feature where you could maybe like double jump with a certain power up. But instead they went the wrong way with the platforming power ups and they give you that skateboard. Yeah. It makes you worse at things.

28:24 Basically the only good it gives you is, yeah, you're a little faster and you technically have an extra hit. I think of it, I only thought of the skateboard strictly from an armor perspective. Yeah. All I cared about was like, oh, well, I can get a little bit further before I lose it. I actually didn't hate the skateboard because I thought it was intentionally like a plus in that if you get hit, it's an extra hit that you get to take.

28:49 But then intentionally also a minus that you can't stop moving, which makes it harder. I thought it was kind of a cool little like take on, like instead of giving you a star, which they have their equivalent of the star in this game anyways, but they give you something that like, oh, this boosts you up, but it's going to be harder to keep because you have to keep moving. I thought that was kind of a cool little fun aside. I just didn't enjoy being on the skateboard, so I count it as a negative.

29:13 I also just think that the idea of constantly moving forward because you can't stop the skateboard. Yeah, you can't adjust your platforming if you fall into a hole. There just comes a point where, you know, depending on which levels you get the skateboard in, you're bound to like maybe get like two or three jumps over something before you lose it again because it's just the screen is just littered with like sort of perfect jumps required to keep that skateboard going because you can stop when you're yourself, you know, like you can kind of land perfectly without like skidding too much and take care of the next enemy.

29:47 But on the skateboard, you're forced to continue moving forward and it's like, I just don't have that kind of movement. And that's where there's that little bit of like risk reward you have to do in your head real quick of like,

29:58 is the next section going to be hard enough where I might as well have the skateboard? You don't always get that time to deliberate though because the way that these eggs sort of spawn is that if you're just running through them, they will pop and fall right next to you. You just have to pick it up. I barely ever saw anything come out of an egg before I just had it.

30:18 You know, like. See, I felt like I usually was able to see the egg ahead of time, shoot it, open it and see what it was. You would crack the eggs. I cracked the eggs until I started to notice the eggplant thing, which is another thing. You can. It's just if you're trying to like, if you're in a flow, you're not just going to slow down and have to speed up again. So I just would run through it and hope it was a honey girl and I'd be invincible. Sean, just clarify for everyone listening at home. What's a honey girl? It's like your own turn. Yeah, you know, like a little, you know.

30:53 Yeah. Basically, they give invincibility for a period of time. It's more fun. It's the star. It's the star from Mario. Yes. Yeah. That's also a great analogy. Yeah, because again, they're not reinventing anything yet. In fact, I'm sure that somebody could romhack a skateboard into Super Mario Brothers and people would hate it. It wouldn't be any cooler in Super Mario Brothers. Yoshi is now skateboard.

31:18 All right. Joe, you mentioned eggplant. Yes. Okay, which to some people is just a food. So why don't you tell us what's going on here? So it's the opposite of the honey girl, the star power-up, where you get it and it's a bad thing. I guess it's not really the opposite, but you get it. It follows you and depletes your meter that we talked about, the time meter. It's because it's his least favorite food. Right. It does say that in the manual.

31:48 But yeah, what's annoying about that, which I found where I didn't find the skateboard annoying, where I felt like I did have time to decide if I want to pick it up, if you crack the egg and it's an eggplant, it's yours. It just jumps on you. Yeah. And you have it for, I don't know, I guess just a certain amount of time. I don't think it kills you. I mean, I have died from it, but I don't think that if you're at full health, it will kill you. I think, oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. But it will, if you're at half health, it will deplete you. Yeah, it'll kill you. Yeah, you better just finish the level beforehand.

32:47 At the end of the game, even though the back of the box told you that you were saving Princess Leilana, it turns out that the girl's name is just Tina. And it just shows you. You got the wrong island. It's like, I'm not so sold that I saved the right person.

33:04 So that was interesting. That threw me in for a bit of a loop. It just says, congratulations, you have saved your lovely Tina. I guess the fact that it says your lovely Tina implies that. Oh, it is yours now. Yeah, it's a nickname. So it's like, you came here to find this thing on the island, and now you got it. I love these informed stories. It's not actually, the story's not being told in the game. It's just like, this is what you're actually doing when you play Tetris. Right, right. Which was supposed to be a trilogy of movies.

33:41 Yeah. I'm aware of that. Adventure Island, I don't know what kind of adventure we really went on, though, because throughout this game, I felt like I was just always on an island. You know, like it never got scarier, the aesthetic of the game. It never went like deep into dungeons or anything. I was mostly just seeing trees and water and beaches, and I was like, all right, what did I do? Like a lap around the perimeter? Did we talk about, I know we mentioned that the levels start to get, like the level itself starts to get repetitive. It feels like you're looping or it feels like you're going through. But even as you go, there's eight worlds or areas as they're called in this game.

34:19 And even as you get into the later ones, it's recycling exact levels, like layouts of the levels and everything. Maybe with just a few more enemies here and there. And then like once in a while, suddenly there's a new one where I'm like, well, why aren't there just new ones every world? Why doesn't it feel a little different every world? And that really was a big, like, bad mark. It was a bad mark. Yes. Thank you for saying exactly what I said. It was a bad mark. It was a bad mark on this thing's report card. Yeah. Thanks. I need you to do that every time I'm starting to get a loss for words. Yeah, every time you forget what you're going to say. Exactly. All right. The NES, Adventure Island 2, and Sean? Adventure Island 3.

35:41 Correct. Very good. Nice. There was a fourth game released, Adventure Island 4, on the Famicom, but it was released exclusively in Japan. So we will never play Adventure Island 4 unless you go out of your way for the extra credit. I know that you guys got the extra credit assignments. Right. On the report card, like Adventure Island. Yeah, and then this one, Adventure Island 1, was remade for PS2 and GameCube in Japan only as, like, a graphics update only. They didn't change any of, like, the way that the platforms go. It's just that 2.5D, PS2-era-looking graphics. They didn't change how anybody controls or anything.

36:23 It seems like you'd have to, right? It's not like you could take the code from the game and then just, like, be like, oh, now I've just redone the textures to be, like, HD.

36:33 PS2 games are not HD, of course, but I think GameCube games could get, like, really close to HD. I mean, PS2 could go 480p. Okay. A progressive scan. That's important to know. Yeah. I'm thinking GameCube could use component cables, so I'm not sure. You're a component. Yeah, I'm not sure what the resolution is on that. Super Adventure Island and Super Adventure Island 2 come out for the Super Nintendo.

36:58 New Adventure Island for the TurboGrafx-16. Adventure Island The Beginning for the Wii. A prequel? You knew we needed it, right? Before the Stone Age? Yeah, like, what happened at the beginning of time? It takes place right before the Big Bang.

37:15 And Adventure Island Quest came out for mobile in 2010, and I didn't even want to look up what that looks like. I do want to see what it looks like. Okay. I'm going to do that now. Yeah, so you do that, and I'm just going to continue to mention some cool things.

37:28 Master Higgins, who by this point is like, wait, who? That's totally a caveman name, Mike. That's the main character. That's Cave Mario. His name is Master Higgins in the North American version. He appears as a playable character in the crossover fighting game Dream Mix TV World Fighters, released only in Japan for the GameCube in 2003. I've just never even heard of that kind of crossover game. Who else is in this game? Dream Mix TV World Fighters.

37:58 I always get excited when there's like a new crossover fighting game that you find out about, because then you're like, oh, who's in it? Who's in it? And I remember one time there was like a Sega Saturn fighting game that had the car from Daytona. As a secret unlockable fighter, you could be the car and punch with your wheels and stuff.

38:19 Fantastic. We probably won't see Adventure Island games for a while, though, because the Adventure Island series is now owned by Konami, who absorbed Hudson Soft in 2012. And Konami don't like to make video games no more. True. So I don't think we'll be seeing any Adventure Island from them. Sean, any update on Adventure Island Quest? I don't see anything about it. That stinks. Yeah. Maybe I made it up. I see Lost Island Blast Adventure. Okay. I see New Island Adventure. I see Fishing Simulator. I don't see Adventure Island Quest. Oh, that's the one. Yeah, it was Fishing Simulator. I see. Well, while we continue to look at that, maybe it'll be in the show notes for everybody.

39:04 It'll probably be very hard to find because it was only like in Japan mobile. Oh. So it was probably. Who uploaded like a YouTube video of that? Like, oh, I should preserve this. Someone must have. I did want to get back to our friend 16shot. Nice. Because he had a little thing to say for the interview that they did. With us. Yeah, with us for this game, Adventure Island. And he said, back in about 1985, there was an arcade game called Wonder Boy. So there was an arcade game, Wonder Boy, that was already out. Back then, PC games like Lode Runner and those games were transferring to console games. And this was one of the games that we wanted to do alongside arcade ports like Tecmo's Starforce.

39:48 Back then, our vice president, Mr. Kudo, said, the main character is not looking very strong. And you're very popular right now. Why don't we just put you in there? And that's how it started. This is nothing. That was a nothing statement. He just explained how he became the main character. Takehichi Maishan is Master Higgins for the Japan people. We'd like to make games. We're going to make this game. You look big, strong man. You take control. I don't know what to make of that last one. The main character not looking very strong is like, do these companies usually do a marketing campaign around their main character? Maybe it just means that it's not up to snuff. Got it. Okay. We should probably just do the essential games list at this point, right? Yeah. I think we skip it. You know what? It's funny. You think we should skip?

40:39 The pause sound. I actually had a moment to think about it. I think that it had a moment of, it actually felt like finality. Like you may never start this game again. It was pretty sharp, right? It was like, do do. Yeah. I thought something. It's funny because I kind of forgot exactly what it sounded like. But I do remember making a note of like, oh, that's kind of. It was like halfway. I was like teetering on the edge of do I mention it or not? I think that like it's such an iconic pause sound that like you.

41:11 You're higher at it than I was. The first moment that I paused, I just contemplated not playing again anymore. You're like, wait, this is over. Yeah. It's done. I get it. This is over. It's a better ending. Yeah. Wow. That's a. Yeah. I like the idea of like finality. Yeah. Pause sound. I want that to be a pause sound in that game in the future. You press pause and it powers off the system. You're done. Boom. All right. We should do the essential games list vote. Let's do that right now on the essential games list.

41:43 Okay, Joe, just get right into it. Tell me all about it. I think this is a really fun game. As far as platformers go, I think controls really well. I think it is designed really well to an extent.

41:59 And I think there are just a few things that it has that are hurting it. One is how repetitive it is. At the beginning when I started playing this game, I was really thinking, oh, this is going to be an essential game. I really was.

42:11 As it went forward and it started to get repetitive and I started to kind of, I just noticed I wasn't having as much fun with it because it's just the same thing over and over again. Overall, I think that it is definitely a step in the right direction compared to most of these platformers we have. I just don't think it's enough for me to put on the essential games list. That makes sense. That adds up. Sean? I have more problems with this game than I do fun spots. I like the way it looks. I like the way the character handles.

42:51 But overall, I need more variety in the game that I'm playing if you want me to play eight very long levels considering. So I have no problem concurring with Joe as a not essential. Got it. And to add to all of this with the variety talk and stuff like that, there's two trains of thoughts here. It's like, well, what if you just made the whole game shorter, right? What if you just did that loop of the first one four times and that was just perfect gameplay

43:21 similar to the length of a game like Donkey Kong? Or just press right. Right. No, but the idea of just four stages like how Donkey Kong is. And it's like, well, my answer to that is we kind of said Donkey Kong was good in 1980, but we don't think it's essential today. Like we made that decision. So I don't think, you know, even if you halved it and you were like, oh, there's only four worlds. It's that the problem is that the game doesn't add on to itself in any way. What you experience in those first four stages could be the entire game for you regardless. And that is just not enough here.

43:52 I think that while I was curious to see what a game like Super Mario Brothers could be like, I'm still am, even though I'm not voting this one essential. I still think that somebody who understands like this was who my brothers did right. And we can also add this, this and this in terms of platforming layouts could, you know, like could work well. There's still there's still a recipe there. And I'm sure Nintendo is going to nail it if nobody else does. So we're waiting for it. But this one didn't scratch the itch that I had last episode. So as I just mentioned, I've been itchy for a whole week. Wow. Somebody please send help.

44:27 So, yes, not essential by all three of us. And that's really all I have to say about that. All right. Goodbye. Yeah. No, I would like to say something about the podcast. Oh, okay. And that is that NostalgiaCast gets by every week on the like, what is that called?

44:44 The phone. Goodwill. The goodwill. Oh. The goodwill of all of our listeners who continue to spread the good word. Yeah. Maybe that's more. The goodwill. I've seen people on Twitter saying like NostalgiaCast is a podcast you should listen to. And that's very nice. We love that. Continue to say exactly that. Hashtag. NostalgiaCast is a podcast you should listen to. Yeah, if you just do the hashtag, I'm sure that'll get like Google will eventually pick that up and they'll have to post it on the front page of Google. What is on the front page of Google?

45:14 Usually some obscure holiday. And what should be on the front page of Google? NostalgiaCast. Yes, us. Okay. So, if you guys agree at home, tell your friends. Write into us. Write into Google. Write into Twitter, however. Yeah, write to anybody in the world and see if they can get the message to us. Sometimes you guys are like, how do I contact you? And it's like, just how do they say that to you? But they're already contacting you. Like, just figure, you know, like find the way.

45:38 Like, the world used to not have all of these digital connections. And I'm sure people still talk to Napoleon, you know, like back then. Like, I'm sure they found a way to get in contact with him. They'd be like, sir, we need more food over in this part of the world. Oh, I thought you meant like today. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Nobody can talk to the dead.

45:57 I thought you were implying that Napoleon was still alive. And that's just like personal finance advice, too. Like, if you're spending money to talk to anybody who's dead, stop immediately. Like, they're not doing it. We're not trying to tell you how to live your lives. If you do know how to commune with the dead, if you do know a psychic or a medium that isn't lying, tell us. Yeah, if they're proficient in lottery numbers, that's great, too. I would love to know where the S&P 500 will be on August 13th. So we are going to end the episode here.

46:31 But just a quick note that we have a fun post-show coming up. So maybe you'll listen to that one as well. I had no idea. Yeah, you guys have no idea. I'm excited. We're about to do it. Thank you so much. I'm Michael Spito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. You can find Nostalgia on at NostalgiaCast on Twitter. Tell your friends all about it. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye.

46:47 Bye. All right, guys. Very exciting news for this post-show. All right? All right. We are now in September of 1988, and we have missed the very first issue of Nintendo Power coming out. It came out in July and August of 88. And something I'd like to kind of incorporate into the post shows at least is going through the magazine as it comes out month by month and just reading the fan mail and responding to it as if where are those people in the fan mail. So there's this section called the mailbox at the end of Nintendo Power. It's after they do the players forum section, which is just them saying, look, celebrities play NES. Yes, that's usually a photo op thing.

47:55 So after they're done shilling, they get to this part where they answer people's burning questions. These aren't really questions, but I'd still like you guys to respond to them. These are just things that they've written in. Okay. So this first one comes from Michael Johnson in Durham, North Carolina. Durham. Not Durham. That's important to note. I'll do that in the future.

48:17 He says, If you're like I am, that is crazy about martial arts, the legend of Kage is the game for you. I don't see how they get all this fun and adventure on one game pack. In the game, you are Kage, a young ninja warrior with one dangerous task, to save the shogun's daughter, Princess Kiri from the clutches of the evil warlord Yuki. On your journey, you will encounter evil ninjas, fire-breathing monks, and even Yuki's right-hand man, Yoshi. You are armed with two weapons, your ninja sword and a limitless supply of star knives that you can be hurled at your opponents like stones. If you wish to be reunited with your beloved Kiri, you must prevail.

48:58 Sound fun? Think you have what it takes? Purchase the legend of Kage, a game you will treasure. Wait, my fan wrote this in? That's not them being done shilling. That is not a fan. You don't think that Michael Johnson wrote that? I don't think it's hilarious that that's so transparent.

49:15 I think it's so funny that he also loves this game that we just dunked on so bad in that episode. I just remember being confused when I put it up that game. Yeah, you have to catch a butterfly or something at one point. Yeah, and there were also like the lightning strikes with the wood, trees everywhere, and you just jump in leaps of faith throughout the air to other ninjas and have to take them out. I just think that Michael Johnson was a ghost name for the president of Nintendo Power, and that was nothing. That was not a question. I don't know. Who could make up a name like Michael Johnson?

49:52 I don't know. There couldn't have possibly really been any questions for the first issue. How do you prepare people for that? That's true. Like what kind of... I would figure that there'd just be people writing into Nintendo and asking them questions like, can I work on your next game? Right. Do you know when Super Mario 2 is coming out? It'd be funny if someone wrote into the magazine, can I work on your next game, and they just answered in the magazine, no.

50:13 Okay, so this one comes from the Videoizers from Massachusetts. My friends and I have a club called the Videoizers. Here are a few suggestions for some other clubs. Try saving up weekly for a new tape every month. So far, our club has 13 tapes. In our club, we save a few dollars a week for extra money to call the Nintendo Hotline. A friendly game counselor kindly helps us out when we have trouble on something. Wow. That was an action... They paid for tips?

50:48 You didn't know about this. I didn't know about that. I knew about the tip. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Nintendo Hotline was actually done by... You had to pay. You would pay by the minute. And you would tell them... So how long would they take to give you the answer? Would they draw it out? I think they probably would try to take long. But basically, you could be at any point in any game, right? Call them while you're there and ask for help. And then they were supposed to be able to help you right there. Be like, oh, we got to do this thing. Or try jumping over that.

51:18 Or press these combinations of buttons. It was just like the original game FAQs, I guess. But I actually did this one time with my mom for a game called Mischief Makers on the N64, which is now considered a classic. I hated the damn game. But we were stuck at a point. Like, all of us. We couldn't wrap our heads around it. And my mom called into, I think, the Toys R Us hotline because they had one as well. Really? And we bought the game from them. So maybe there was like a free thing for a limited time. And the guy could not help us over the phone. He had no idea. He just could not figure it out. He's like, people usually call me about Super Mario 64 or Wave Race 64 or Star Fox 64. Your game doesn't even have 64 in the title.

52:02 But also, what do you think about this guy calling cartridges tapes? I figure he was actually talking about tapes. Yeah, that's what I thought, too, until you said that right now. Like cassette tapes. I just don't know. Why would he share that idea with Nintendo? I mean, why would somebody contact Nintendo to shill Legend of Kage? Like, I think it's just people from the 80s being goofy.

52:25 So you think that the videoizers. The videoizers. Maybe they're talking about VHS or Betamax. Yeah, okay. VHS tapes were around in the late 80s. That's true. Yeah. So maybe those are the tapes. It's the tapes. VHS tapes. We have to get a hold of the tapes. That's the only way to know. Yeah. Or I'll just have to go back in time and ask somebody in 1988, like, what do you call cartridges?

52:45 Just like shake them. Like frantically and with urgency. And it'd be shocking if they said tapes. You know, because I just prompted them. They're like, what's the cartridge? Yeah. The Nixon Watergate tapes. Yes. The Watergate cartridges. That's actually what that guy was collecting. The videoizers collected the Nixon Watergate tapes. Oh, yeah. Oh, I've heard of them before. Yeah. All right. So we'll do more Nintendo Power in the future. I hope that you guys have more. Hopefully there are actual questions that I can respond to. Yeah, I hope you guys will continue to listen. Right now, the top games on Nintendo Power is July, August, 1988 issue.

53:16 The top five games, number five, Kid Icarus. Number four, Super Mario Brothers. Number three, Metroid. Number two, Punch-Out. Okay. So what's number one? Legend of Zelda. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And in the next issue of Nintendo Power, we'll be looking forward to Castlevania II, Simon's Quest, Bayou Billy, and Bionic Commando. Sweet. All right. Thanks so much for listening. We're out.