Planet Bob

I've played the NES version a bit - never realized that Wonder Boy = Adventure Island! - and never been impressed. Colorful, cutesy, but the controls are sloppy and the levels are boring IMO, especially compared to, say SMB. Never got very far, though, maybe it's better further in.

Love Wonder Boy but alas no copy of it yet for the SMS but am on the look out for one.

...and the levels are boring IMO, especially compared to, say SMB...

 

I think I agree with you on that. The game has 10 areas, each of which has 4 rounds, which are subdivided into at least 4 parts again. That makes 160 parts for the game, but according to the manual there are only ~15 different parts, so the "Jungle", "Cave", "Cloud", "Hill" and other parts are constantly repeating, with just minor enemy/fruit/obstacle re-arrangements, making them more difficult later in the game.

And yet another first for the "Playing..." series! I'm going to change to another system right in the middle of it, i.e. I will continue with Adventure Island on the NES from now on

 

The music from the SMS version forced me to do that! If anyone thought the 1942 NES morsing beeps were horrible, try listening to the main 25 second loop for two hours in a row!!

 

The repetitiveness of the level design is nothing against the repetitiveness of that loop

 

If you dare trying it, you will find a WinAmp Plugin (worked with XMPlay for me) and the Wonder Boy tunes themselves on smspower, starting from here: http://www.smspower.org/music/

 

For a progress report, I made it to area 5 today. Let's hope I can use the gained experience and skills for the NES version as well

I have fond memories of Wonderboy in the arcade. I used to sluff school and sneak off to a nearby convenience store to play.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Boy

 

It's kind of interesting how the series branched out. My favorite is Mosterworld IV for the Megadrive (with translation patch). It's quite a departure from the original game... an action platformer/rpg that's actually fun. I usually don't do RPG games.

 

Anyway, I digress.

It's kind of interesting how the series branched out. My favorite is Mosterworld IV for the Megadrive (with translation patch). It's quite a departure from the original game... an action platformer/rpg that's actually fun. I usually don't do RPG games.

 

I have a feeling the Wonder Boy branch turned out to be far better than the Adventure Island branch...

 

Anyway, I digress.

 

... so I will digressing too. Adventure Island on the NES is so damned hard, that I decided to have a look at the sequel and the PC-Engine version the next two days instead of biting through that sucker

A few months ago I played through Super Adventure Island (using save states - I'm such a cheater). It was enjoyable once I got into it, but pretty difficult... or maybe I just stink at these games.

Same here, I didn't get far in Adventure Island, even _with_ savestates

 

But there's this review at Gamefaqs so I'm not worrying too much:

 

And you thought Ghosts 'n Goblins was difficult

So, I'm finally trying to bring this entry to a proper end

 

I have to apologize for this "Playing..." entry being so unfocused, fragmented and delayed. My best friend got married these days and I was his "best man" (Do you really also say groomsman as my dictionary suggests? Sounds silly ). There also was a big "final bachelor days" party and other events going along with it, so I was neither often sober nor spending much time playing games during the hangovers between

 

Well, back on track. I did check out "Adventure Island II" on the NES and subsequently added it to my eBay searches, since it looked really good. Also bought "New Adventure Island" for the VC, which didn't look quite as good, but I haven't seen much of it yet.

 

Tonight I then thought to bring this entry to a proper end and forced myself back to the Sega Master System Wonder Boy:

 

Turning the volume down, it wasn't as bad as before and after the hardcore NES experience the SMS version suddenly felt really playable in comparison

 

I didn't sink any extra effort into finding all 36 doll figurines to activate the "secret" level, so this is probably only the "cheap" end, but still:

 

 

Well, there goes another SMS title onto the "for sale" stack

 

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see its sequel "Wonder Boy in Monster Land", but first it will continue with an adventure I think.