Super Adventure Island II (1994)

Preliminary: Oooo a series I love, and I read that this is underrated and has good music, and it seems like it lends itself to following a guide (hopefully not too puzzly/confusing). Weeee. I can see why people didn't like that, since I at least think of Adventure Island as straightforward fun pick up and play fast-paced etc, but hopefully this clicks!

Wow there are actually islands that I am adventuring between this time :-p Nice introductions to the controls. The dialog could move faster and the menu seems unnecessarily convoluted. The tropical music of Poka Poka Island is giving Tomba and, well, good vibes. Where my dinos at?! And I assume I will eventually be able to walk faster I hope?

The combat so far has been quite tedious and/or slow but I assume upgrades will help with that. Also enemy placement is quite annoying but again, I assume upgrades will address this. And ahhh noooo infinitely respawning enemies >.<. Luckily the jumping is mostly solid.

Ok I'm getting a flow going. Several things are still clunky, but.

Day 1

Well, it's still not fully clicking and if it likely wont be above a 3 star anyway, I might as well move on. The first boss was underwhelming, with some sprite overload slowdown. The enemy placement and level design and infinite respawn all continue to annoy me. And the controls' flaws were highlighted later in the first level and boss. But I do really like most of the music and the settings/Looks. SOme really beautiful places like the Cave in frmo of Waku Wau that you use the Light Strone at

One of thsoe games I keep debating whether to continue lol. The momentum of movement and jumping is so slippery and it was annoying for the Lizard boss. But so much potential! And beautiful world map, great colors, great tunes ugggh. And I love that I now can move boulders etc, they had the right idea here. Maybe I just need a break then return to it. (I utterly hate these random battles though, not so much that they exist but the format of the enemy placement/concept. Like Zelda 2 style. Thakn goodness for the rejuvenation caves....

After burning out on the world map with the random battles and the first boss, this Ice level is a breath of fresh air. Amazzzzzing music, slightly better level design/enemy placement, and a nice faster-paced flow than the others. Plus the upgrades and items are more frequent adding a nice drive to it. Hopefully it can keep the momentum

Some of the puzzles are getting very convoluted and frustrating. Just let me play and upgrade! And the popout mechanic overused by enemy spawns... ugh. I really should just give this a 3 and move on, but part of me still somehow thinks it has a chance at a 4. After all, Tomba had convoluted puzzles and having to go throug hell to return to places that were tedious to get to, often with enemy popouts too... With similar Sound and Look and Feel. Hmmm.

Ok even tho I don't hate this Mammoth boss.... it's like the programmers literally just accepted the terrible collision mask of the Sword and embraced it as a mechanic of this boss lol how embarrassing. Ugh I guess I'm moving on. I'll save thisf or tomorrow in case I change my mind cuz I really wanted to get t=hrough more of it and it's not that long. (Instead I just mashed attack and jumped when I could and I got through the boss... lame... and that fart sound for the hit lol... so why do I feel like I am going to finish this despite all logic smh)

Day 2

Lol the sword collision mask is so faulty. But at least it typically errs in the player's favor. The music continues to be amazing, the action continues to be meh but the action-adventure/adventure elements continue to be addicting

The Turtle boss was super easy. I just hit, jumped over projectile, and repeat. Kinda boring. But great music. The fart sound effect is still very confusing how it made its way in this game of great Sound lol.

At this mpoint I might as well finish the game... I can fast forward for what I read is the bulk of the game... mindless minigames for casino money (?!) Another bad gameplay choice. With that in mind, I can't imagine how this would get above a 3 star... So I should just give it a 3 and move on... Maybe if it takes more than one more day

Uff this whirlpool maze/puzzle. Thakn goodness for maps. And idneed regarding the Casino... I just cheated lol. So in the end, this really should have to be a 3 star. The Casino games weren't bad but I am not going to rely on that to get the Light equipment. I probly will cheat for, say, Pokemon Casino too since uh, I can lol.

Yeahhh I dunno but aroudn the time I got the water lever, I just decided I had had enough of the same repeated annoying enemy placement etc.

Look: 8.5/10 Definitely a highlight

Sound: 9/10 The influence on Tomba is palpable

Play: 7/10 Had great ideas and adventure game elements, frustrating action platforming though

Feel: 7.5/10 Again, the Tomba vibe in all ways. The Play really dragged down what could've been an amazing Feel/Joy.

Attachment: 7.5/10 Love this series, just wish the mechanics and action element design weren't so frustrating in this one.

Overall: 7.9/10 So close to a 4 star. In many ways this could've gotten that. But in the end, Play trumps all other elements for my ratings, so I'm okay that this wound up at a 3 even tho it has all the makings of a 4. After all, the first Zelda got a 4 even though I don't really enjoy the Play of that. Meh. Moving on.

Beat the game. I enjoyed the whole Metroidvania style and had an overall great time with the game. I did find that too many of the weapons are swords. I switched to the throwing dagger when I found it until finding the next sword. Same with the axe. I found the fireballs useful for one part where you jump from rope to rope. I bought the boomerang from the casino and used it for the rest of the game. The only magic I used was exit and the basic heal, which I used in boss fights for the invincibility frames. I did not bother with any of the ultimate equipment from the casino because I hate gambling and found there was no way to cheese it using save states. I did refer to a walkthrough several times to find out what to do next, especially near the end when you have to backtrack through every level.

Great game with fun gameplay and decent story. The only real complaint I have is the random battles on the overworld, which add nothing and are a waste of time. In fact I used turbo mode on my emulator to get them done in a few seconds and sucked up any health loss.

Most people know Master Higgins as some tubby dude who runs to the right, trips over rocks, chucks axes, and has to eat something every single minute or he falls through the ground. To my surprise, there are actually Metroidvania Adventure Island games! And one of them has an English release, so I figured, what the hey?

The plot is simple. Master Higgins and his wife Tina are floating along at sea, storm happens, they get separated and both lose their memories. Tina ends up engaged to some king, but then she gets kidnapped! So Master Higgins has to punch stuff in the face to rescue her. At least until you get a sword. About half of the weapons you get are swords, which you'll be using for 70% of the game. (You do get the Axe eventually, and there are other ranged weapons.) In addition to weapons, there's also armours and shields, the former reducing damage from certain attacks and the latter blocking some projectiles. There's a fairly small number of armours and shields, and most are only useful in the area you find them in. You also eventually gain the ability to cast magic, with eight different spells at your disposal. And like any Metroidvania, you'll use weapons, special items, and new abilities to open up new areas.

There's really not that much to the gameplay. It's a fairly small game, but most of the game length comes from how often you'll need/want to run through the areas over again to obtain all of the items or open new paths. Each of the first five (out of six) levels has a switch that turns on or off a different type of block. Thankfully, there aren't too many times where you need a switch on to get one item in a level but you need to turn it off again to get a different item in another level. Still, remembering all of the places where you need to switch a switch or have the up/down stab to get to a chest is tricky. A lot of these chests contain life and magic powerups, but you'll want as many as you can grab in the late-game areas where enemies can drain nearly an entire heart in one hit (out of six with all power-ups). There's a few times where you need to go far out of your way on the world map to find a vital item without any hint to its location, and the random encounters on the world map can get far too frequent at times. (They're like Zelda II's encounters. The annoying part is that you can get out of an encounter in less than ten seconds, but the encounter music is pretty damn good.)

It's not all bad, though. Super Adventure Island II is a pretty pretty game, with varied environments and vibrant art. The music is pretty darn good too. (Though, like Super Metroid, one boss theme is kinda lame and one boss theme is totally kickass.) There's a nice hint of silliness and humour in the gameplay and text. The controls are excellent. You might get tripped up early on since, unlike Mario, Master Higgins can't "sprint" while already in the air, but that's an understandable mechanic. The boss fights are kind of hit-and-miss; the second boss is hilariously easy, the fifth and sixth bosses are the best in the game, and the final boss fight takes waaaaaaaay too many hits to kill (and is too impractical to hit even with the ultimate sword from the casino). It's not a difficult game in general, but it really cannot be understated how much of a spike in difficulty and tedium the final boss is, especially given how few hits you can take in comparison even with maxed-out life and magic.

Super Adventure Island II is a fun game, but it suffers the usual flaws of many Metroidvania games. It's ultimately a game where I wish there was just more actual content, rather than so much padding via backtracking and collecting all of the treasure. At least it's not a cryptic pain in the butt.

I don't remember how long ago it was that I played this, but I had made a fair bit of progress into it and I had saved just after getting the secret ability to hold a sword upwards while jumping.

I've just picked this game back up and I have no idea what I need to get to progress or where anything is that I can now access with the Up Stab or even where on the world map I've already been. Dammit, Metroidvania game design!

(Also, when the heck did Adventure Island become a Metroidvania where Master Higgins stabs everything with a sword instead of throwing axes at baddies and tripping over rocks?)