A Nintendo community
by the fans!
           
  Forum main
 + 
Retro Game Club Discussion Thread - 02 - Wonder Boy/Adventure Island [community]
 



Wonder Boy is really where it all started. Developed by Sega and Westone for the arcade, the game was a fast-paced platformer starring some boy, presumably wonderful, trying to save his girlfriend from some monster, and doing so shirtless in a kilt made of leaves. Now that takes some brass balls.

Wonder Boy plays as a platformer designed to eat your quarters should: it is very challenging. A lot of that challenge comes from the slipperiness of the character, a one-hit-kills-you design philosophy, and especially a strict time limit. Oh, no, there is no countdown ticking away in the corner of the screen. Instead, you have a "hunger meter" which slowly drains away unless you can keep feeding Wonder Boy fruit.

The title did well for Sega, and Wonder Boy became one of their mascots, enjoying about the same level of popularity as Alex Kidd (who?). But interestingly, Sega only owned the rights to the character and the lore of the game. The level design, the gameplay, the code, all of that belonged to Westone, who decided to team up with Hudson Soft to create an NES version of the game. The character still wears only a bunch of leaves, still uses the same weapons, still has to satiate his hunger with fruit, except that this time, the hero is not the blonde and lean Wonder Boy, but instead a chubby guy with brown hair and a cap, named Master Higgins after Hudson Soft's spokesperson in Japan. He looks nothing like him.

The games are almost identical, except that most people would agree that Adventure Island looks much worse.

So, you can chose whichever version you like (both are 500 pts on the Virtual Console) and start playing and discussing (and possibly cursing!).

Thank god for infinite continues...

edit - As Roykoopa suggested, why not add either Wonder Boy or Adventure Island to your collection, and indicate you are currently playing it?


List of Awesome:
ludist210 (finished Wonder Boy)
anon_mastermind (finished Wonder Boy)
nate38 (finished Wonder Boy)
RoyKoopa64 (finished Wonder Boy)
X‑pert74 (finished Wonder Boy)
Zero (finished Wonder Boy)
TriforceBun (finished Adventure Island)

Guillaume (finished both Wonder Boy and Adventure Island)

URL to share (right click and copy)
04/09/11, 03:07    Edited: 05/05/11, 04:30
 
   
 
I just beat the game I too only went up to 9-4; perhaps someday I'll take the time to completely beat the game, but I'll leave those dolls alone for now.
04/12/11, 14:16   
I'm on 4-4 of Wonder Boy, and yes @TriforceBun, there are stages with volcanoes that spew lava at you (which you can destroy with your axe). 4-4 actually is in the sky (versus traditional boss stages which go through the forest and end in a temple).
04/12/11, 16:05   
So I downloaded Wonder Boy, and was pleased to see the Master System logo finally on my Wii dashboard. The tag on the top is red.

I made it to the third world and I'm enjoying myself quite a bit. The best thing about this game is the bright, vibrant colours. I guess it helps to be playing in 480p, but this game just pops off the screen, and I love it. A few of the powerups blend in too much with the background but it's alright. The music, while annoying at first, actually grew on me. I got used to it. It's funny how the game over screen and the boss have the same music.

The gameplay is slippery but not uncontrollable...except when you get the skateboard. I hate that thing, it's supposed to be a powerup? I guess it does let you take one hit before you die, but I'd rather be able to backtrack a bit than be speeding ahead. This brings me to another qualm - the berries pop out literally at the last second, and many are just bound to be missed unless you backtrack a bit. It hampers the flow of the game, I was tapping right on the dpad instead of holding it like I would normally in a platformer.

I feel like the scoring system is actually pretty good in Wonder Boy, and I'm curious if you guys could post your high scores for comparison's sake.
04/12/11, 17:07   
The highest score I ever got was 61,000-something points. That was when I replayed the first few stages again a day after buying the game, so I was able to get through them without losing a single life.
04/12/11, 23:52   
I got over 200k getting to Area 4 on one continue.
04/13/11, 00:31   
Guess who just got Wonder Boy!
04/13/11, 02:57   
My high score is 78850. I'm sure I could do a lot better if I were to play through the game again!
04/13/11, 03:27   
I think my high score is like 45000 but I sucked at first, and haven't restarted from the beginning. Once I beat the game I will do so, and I'm sure I'll get a decent score. Made it to 5-1 tonight, shit got real in the 4th world! Damn volcano rocks!
04/13/11, 06:19   
I'm at 4-1 now. Clearly I am the slacker of the Retro Game Club.
04/13/11, 06:26   
@nate38

I haven't even started.
04/13/11, 18:23   
@Kal-El814

Well? What are you waiting for!? It's fun and not that long.

Please no "that's what she said" jokes.
04/13/11, 21:51   
@nate38

No, clearly I am. I just got to 3-1 earlier... (though I did just get the game yesterday)

(And I'm still working on StarTropics, I made a lot of progress on that though, up to the second dungeon of Chapter 6 now.)
04/13/11, 22:13   
@Guillaume
Are you still gonna play through the original Adventure Island?

And how do you pronounce your new username? It took me years to finally get the pronunciation of your old one!
04/13/11, 22:18   
@TriforceBun

If I've got time before the next retro game club. I'm unsure when I should put up the new poll, I want to give everyone the chance to at least start... but then I don't want you to go ahead and beat all of the other choices in the next week.

And it's "Gee" (but with a hard G) - Yo - hmm

Kinda.

Be on another episode of the podcast at some point and I'll tell ya.
04/13/11, 22:34   
Edited: 04/13/11, 22:37
So Wonder Boy and Adventure Island AREN'T the same?

And the standard Adventure Island final stage is the special super-hard one you unlock?
Sounds about right..


Of the people that have completed it, only Wonder Boy has been beaten?
No Adventure Island folks yet?
04/13/11, 23:04   
@Guillaume
I just need to get a better mic system so I don't sound so darn fuzzy.

Mr_Mustache said:
So Wonder Boy and Adventure Island AREN'T the same?

And the standard Adventure Island final stage is the special super-hard one you unlock?
Sounds about right..


Of the people that have completed it, only Wonder Boy has been beaten?
No Adventure Island folks yet?
Me! Me!

..But never again.
04/13/11, 23:16   
@Guillaume Don't rush into the next game club man! We need time!
04/13/11, 23:22   
@TriforceBun

You beat Adventure Island?

Oh man, congratulations.

I don't know if you saw before, but I got to 8-3 on my NES a few years ago in about 15 hours of playtime.
Could not beat it. That was it.
04/13/11, 23:26   
Mr_Mustache said:
@TriforceBun

You beat Adventure Island?

Oh man, congratulations.

I don't know if you saw before, but I got to 8-3 on my NES a few years ago in about 15 hours of playtime.
Could not beat it. That was it.
Yes, I saw that! In fact, I was extremely close to turning off the NES at that point. I decided to leave it on and go do something else because 8-3 (section 4) was just nutters and extremely hard to time. If it makes things any more of a consolation, though, you can run into the fire at the end without dying--it's hiding a jar.

In fact, 7-4 to 8-4 (the relatively painless 8-1 excluded) is a nightmarish stretch of terror. DO NOT LOSE YOUR WEAPON IN 7-4 OR 8-4. And 8-2 is a merciless enemy swarm.
04/13/11, 23:30   
@TriforceBun

Yeah, I know about the spoiler thing. I never got that far.. I always made it about one or two platforms from the end, and either fell in the hole or caught a bat. Once you get into a groove of doing the wrong thing, its tough to break out. So freakin' hard.

Watching videos on YouTube, I feel like I can do it.......but I'm not going to try again anytime soon.

Which was the stage with a pile of spiders? SO awful.
04/13/11, 23:32   
  Forum main
 +