Adventure Island

For the Game Boy version of the game entitled Adventure Island, please visit the Adventure Island II guide.

Adventure Island (sometimes referred to as Hudson's Adventure Island) is a game developed for the NES and MSX in 1986. It is known in Japan as Takahashi Meijin no Bouken Jima, which translates to "Master Takahashi's Adventure Island". The North American NES release came in September, 1988, and the game was released as Adventure Island Classic in European in 1992. Developed by Hudson Soft, the game was an adaptation of the arcade game Wonder Boy, which was ported to Sega home gaming systems under its original name. Adventure Island would go on to found a successful video game franchise with many sequels.

Adventure Island is not an entirely original creation by Hudson Soft. Hudson licensed the game from a company called Escape (later known as Westone OneBit Entertaiment) and it is even said that Escape helped Hudson developing Adventure Island. Escape was responsible for developing the arcade version of Wonder Boy. Because Wonder Boy was a game that Escape had created for Sega, the latter company owned the rights to the characters and bosses, and therefore the franchise could not be used as a release for the Famicom or NES. Escape, however, owned the rights to the regular monsters and the game itself. As a result, Hudson changed the sprites, music, and some of the items from Wonder Boy, removed the continue feature and renamed the game.

For trademark reasons, Hudson Soft renamed the game, and revamped the main character to be Takahashi Meijin, who was the spokesperson for Hudson at the time, and was apparently very good at Star Soldier. He bares no resemblance to the pudgy persona in the games. In the English language version they dubbed him "Master Higgins". Wonder Boy and Adventure Island are essentially the same game. Adventure Island's stage design more closely resembles that of the Wonder Boy arcade version than the Sega Master System version. Adventure Island managed to sell more titles than Wonder Boy due to the lack of popularity of the Sega Master System in North America and Japan. Adventure Island II, and all other Adventure Island sequels, were purely developed by Hudson; Escape had nothing to do with those games.

In 2003, the game was updated in high resolution graphics for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube as Hudson Selection Volume 4: Takahashi Meijin no Bouken Shima. That same year, Hudson also released a slightly updated version of the game for mobile phones. In 2004, the game was released as part of the second set of the Famicom Mini series for the Game Boy Advance. Adventure Island was naturally included in the 2006 GBA compilation of Adventure Island games known as Hudson Collection Vol. 6: Bouken Jima Collection. In 2007, Adventure Island was made available for download on the Wii Virtual Console.

Story
The Evil Witch Doctor has kidnapped Princess Leilani from Master Higgins and taken her to Adventure Island in the South Pacific. It is your mission to help Master Higgins and save Princess Leilani, but it's not going to be easy. On the island, there are forests, mountains, caves, many enemy characters, and traps waiting for you. Can Master Higgins save Princess Leilani from the Evil Witch Doctor?