Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise Review (Game Boy, 1993)

You wouldn’t know it now but Hudson Soft used to be a big name developer. With classic franchises like Bomberman, Bonk’s Adventure, and Star Soldier most retro gamers are going to be pretty familiar with them even if they don’t realize it. Of their many series Adventure Island has always held a soft spot in my heart. These games never got the attention that they deserved. For the most part the series stuck to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and later, the Super Nintendo. As is pretty typical for this era the developers ported the titles to the Game Boy. Unfortunately they messed up the naming scheme. Adventure Island on the Game Boy was actually part II on the NES. The next sequel also saw release for the Game Boy but for some reason is called Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise. That’s the one we’re looking at today.

Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise has the same classic scenario pretty much every game has used, but with a twist. The intro depicts Master Higgins and his girlfriend Tina sitting together on an island when out of nowhere a UFO flies overhead and beams her up into the ship. There’s no witch doctor or voodoo entity this time around. It’s aliens. Hence the title of the game. While an extraterrestrial theme sounds interesting given the tropical set up of the game it’s severely underplayed. For the most part you’re going to fighting against the same jungle based enemies which are pretty much just animals. It’s a shame that what could have been an interesting twist to the franchise is pretty much squandered here.

The game itself stays true to the rest of the franchise. Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise is a two dimensional action platformer wherein you play as the portly Master Higgins. Your ultimate goal is to run and hop your way through forty eight different stages. As you can probably guess our hero isn’t alone. Each stage is teaming with various enemies. Common fodder here consists of animals like frogs, squirrels, pigs, etc. Unfortunately Master Higgins cannot jump on their heads. He’s not wearing shoes, after all. Instead he must use either tools to fight off the enemies. The two weapons he can pick up are stone hatchets and boomerangs. These are both thrown, and acquired via power-ups in each stage. Unfortunately they’re lost when you die, and Master Higgins is quite vulnerable. The little guy perishes at even the slightest touch of an obstacle or enemy.

He also gets really hungry. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at him but Master Higgins is constantly on the brink of starvation. There’s a hunger meter at the bottom of the screen that’s always counting down. Tripping over an obstacle brings him closer to withering away for some odd reason. When you run out of bars you lose a life and must start from the beginning of the stage. To counter this you’ll find various fruits and sometimes meat suspended in mid-air. These restore varying amounts of hunger points. I’ve always found this mechanic interesting. Food is often tucked away near hazards thus forcing the player to proceed through dangerous areas you could otherwise skip. Normally hunger mechanics are determinantal to a game’s basic design, but in Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise I really liked it.

The high point of the game however is in the power-ups. I’ve already touched on the hatchet and boomerang as Master Higgins’ primary weapons, but let’s take a deeper look. These projectile attacks both have different trajectories. The hatchet slopes downward when thrown, and the boomerang curves back around to the user. These are a little quirky, and in some situations it can be either easier or more difficult to hit foes with them than you would suspect. Where things get interesting are the dinosaur buddies. Master Higgins hitch up on these fellows like Mario rides Yoshi. These power-ups are designated a different card suite, and there are five different ones. On top of their innate abilities and special attacks they also let Master Higgins survive an additional hit. The dinosaur buddy is lost, but at least our little guy is still alive.

There are five different animal buddies in the game. They’re generally pretty diverse, and all have specific instances in which they’re most useful. You have two palette swapped upright dinosaurs that attack by either shooting fireballs or swinging their tail. The red one (well, he’s white here) can survive in lava, and the dark dino can walk through shallow water. Then we have a triceratops that can roll into a ball giving it temporary invulnerability while also attacking foes. Next up is a camptosaurus that allows Master Higgins to glide effortlessly through the water. This is extremely helpful because without it our hero is really slow in aquatic stages. The last, and most interesting dino, is the pterodactyl. Obviously it allows you to fly over hazards, but can also drop rocks on enemies. Honestly it’s these power-ups that make the game so darn fun to play.

The level designs also make Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise a real joy. Each level is thoughtfully laid out with challenging, but not impossible hazards to overcome. Mostly the game just wants you to acclimate to Master Higgins’ momentum. He has a lack of it. Every jump seems to have the same trajectory even when you’re moving at top speed. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Aliens in Paradise is, after all, designed around it. Moving enemies can be difficult to jump over when careful timing is required. That’s why the weapons are so useful. The game even lets you bank power-ups to save them up for when they’re needed. This includes the dinosaur buddies. As long as you still have them at the end of a stage you can put them in storage for use at a later time. Smart players will amass a collection early on.

Boss encounters are a real highlight here. Adventure Island II is divided into eight different worlds with six stages apiece. At the end of these you fight against a big baddie. These encounters are surprisingly well done. You’ll face off against the likes of man eating plants, exploding dinosaurs, a giant beetle, and more. These not only fit the themes of the game really well but they require alternate strategies and planning. Bringing the right weapon (or dino buddy) to the fight can make a world of difference. Generally these encounters feature multiple platforms and figuring out just where to stand when the enemy is in specific locations is the key to strategy. There’s a big element of trial and error, but for the most part I loved these end of world encounters.

Unfortunately Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise isn’t a big upgrade from the last Game Boy iteration. I’m pretty sure that most of the sprites have simply been re-used. Except of course for the new triceratops dinosaur, and additional enemies of course. The backgrounds do tend to have a bit more detail which is nice, but this game doesn’t seem to push the Game Boy hardware particularly hard. That’s okay because it’s a decent looking title. Aliens in Paradise does look better than most titles on the platform from this era, and runs better too. The soundtrack is decent, but noticeably downgraded from the NES release. It features a lot of the same music but with different notes. It’s okay, but if I’m being honest, I prefer the soundtrack of the console version.