Adventure Island III

[yamamanama]

83 days until the vernal equinox


Previously on Adventure Island, Master Higgins completed his doctoral thesis in adventuring.


In one way, it’s the Super Mario World to Adventure Island II’s Super Mario Bros. 3, that is to say, gone are the discrete worlds themed around a certain level type and instead, we’re back to a cluster of large Adventure Islands instead of Adventure Archipelago.


In other more important ways, this is the same exact game, except Master Higgins can now duck. I mean, see the burning question.



Now the levels all have names.


Naturally, the first enemy you encounter is a sneil.


There are secret eggs in this game too.


There’s a surfing minigame now. Good thing it’s only for bonus rewards because it’s clunky as fuck.


You have to stay on the wave while it moves and then jump to the next wave, all while grabbing all of the fruit.


At the end, it’s usually a crystal. The crystal is a lot like the shield in Sonic 2, that is to say, it gives you an extra hit.


There’s a game called Skitchin’ for the Genesis which I might play. On the box is a warning to seriously never attempt this in real life because you will end up as roadkill.
Master Higgins wears a helmet when skateboarding.
Be like Master Higgins.


I lose it immediately.




Skeleton will just sit there and yes, I know it’s just a skull. We all know it’s just a skull. Shut up.


Spiders (not to be confused with Zigmo, who is also a spider), drop to the ground and then walk towards you. The new enemies still aren’t named and I still haven’t bashed my head against a stone countertop so that I can think like the Adventure Island manual writers.





The dinosaurs are named by the manual.


Red Taylor can walk on lava.


The music in the Oak Forest, the Abyss, the Desolation, the Lost Woods, the Ice Cave, Blizzard Peak are all the same as the music in their Adventure Island II counterparts.


The green dino’s name is Poley because he rolls and he’s called a Tripetaurus in the manual. I think they meant triceratops, kupo. There’s a carnotaurus but that’s entirely different.

This game came out a year or so after Sonic the Hedgehog was released. Adventure Island II predates Sonic, which is why the blue dinosaur is just your standard dinosaur. That came out a few months after Super Mario World.


Coyote still drops a controller when hit from behind for points but you can’t do that while riding a Poley.


We also see a cloud bonus game. Same thing.


In Adventure Island III, each world has at least one water stage. Except for world six. And some of them are hidden so you won’t necessarily see them.


Like in the second game, the game doesn’t like to give you Classies in the underwater levels so you have to bring them over from elsewhere, usually a bonus game. Unless you really, and I mean really, suck at this game, you shouldn’t worry about it.

The generic ostracoderm from the second game has become what I think is an acanthothoraci.


Jellyfish is the same as it ever was.


Turtles weren’t in the previous game, though.


They just get all the water enemies out at once.




Pooter got himself some angry eyebrows and sunglasses because nobody took him seriously before. Zigmo is more threatening. Hell, Sneil is more threatening.





Here’s Oct.


And here’s Monty Mole.


The angry clouds launch lightning at you.


So I thought that the Eggplant Wizard in Captain N was a reference to Adventure Island, which I guess in retrospect would be an odd choice because it started out as a Genesis game with the serial numbers filed off and then kind of split off from Wonder Boy in future iterations, but no, he’s from Kid Icarus.
Maybe Japanese people don’t like eggplant.
Anyway, I still haven’t made it to the end of a stage with one of them draining my life.


Hey, it’s Waler. At least, I think it’s waler, because he’s less a sturgeon and more a swordfish.




The desert levels are called Desolation.


These are the ostriches from the first game. They look like, uh, roadrunners, turkeys, I don’t know.


This might be your only source of Don Dons.


Poley doesn’t sink in sinky sand.


He kind of sucks for this fight, though.


When he changes colors, he shoots two bullets. Wow.


The UFO flies off after every stage.


The lobster eurypterid things jump.


The clock freezes enemies in place. It works a lot like the honeygirl/eggplant.


there’s no random order in this game. if you pick “skip” you do the A and B stages instead. There’s nothing noteworthy about them and there’s no real point in doing them. Unless you’re playing for points in which case maybe it does matter.

I have no idea how to get the crystal.


Aha! A coyote will soon spawn.


The slope makes it impossible to show off here.


I have no idea why I came into this level without a blue Taylor.



These penguins slide at you. Anyway, this tells me that Adventure Island is in the Southern Hemisphere (technically, this is not true; the Galapagos penguin’s range extends north of the equator)


However, walruses are a holarctic species.


Like in the second game, I won’t be doing that.


They call the cloud level Misty Maze but it’s not actually a maze.


Running too fast into the egg will cause it to fall below. I assume there’s ocean down there but at this height, the impact will break every bone in Master Higgins’ body.


Remember that invincibility lasts as long as Honeygirl is on screen.


This isn’t the Legend of Zelda: throwing the boomerang at an object will not bring it back to you.





This also isn’t Super Mario World: you can’t get a boost by jumping off your dinosaur.


I like the way this bonus level looks.




If you get lost, you turn into a Stalfos. Wait.


Red Taylor is also immune to poison swamp water. Or boiling mud. Or I don’t know.


The chameleon will lick upwards.


The flower, when it blooms, causes a bunch of petals to fall down around it but it’s easy enough to avoid


The whole thing changes color.


This is Oak Forest.


Not much of a forest.


It’s night so those black birds will blend in with the background.




The salamander will sit there.


Eventually, eight fireballs will swirl around and it will move to a different platform. Red Taylor can not save you from fireball damage, and if you’re standing in the lava when you get hit, you’ll die as well.


Some of the level types are unique.


You’d think Pyramid Crypt is the boss level but no.


Those mouths shoot arrows. Or maybe they’re claws.


It’s like Metal Man’s stage.


Secret passage.


It leads to this altar and some meat and also a spade dinosaur. I think that’s Blue Taylor.


This level, despite having a shipwreck, is just The Abyss.




We go in the ship for the next boss.




Be sure to bring a Classie.


I mean, you could bring a don don to get that diamond card and some meat.


You’re going to lose him anyway if you bring him.


this fish, instead of being an actual prehistoric fish, just looks like something less refined than a gar.


He’s surprisingly hard because he’ll spawn orthoceras from the ground and they’ll hit you if you’re not paying attention. When he turns red, he rushes at you.




I’m surprised it took this long to have podoboos.


Ghosts will bob back and forth but if you press the b button, they’ll zone in on you.



This place is called Fossil Lair.


He shields himself with fireballs and then launches them where you’re standing.


You can hit the head while it floats around.


I love this detail. So I said that gone are the themed worlds but we had to keep the ice world.


However, in the background, you can see tropical islands instead of the frozen due to Ice-9 or unstable dimensional rift island.


This place is called Bone Crossing, by the way.


Well, that’s a strange thing to give me.


Food is scarce in the ice world.


The bunnies jump and things fall from the sky when they land.


Blue Taylor sees a lot of use here.






If you came into the fight with the pteranodon, you’re just going to have to take a hit and lose him. Which is unfortunate because the whole point of going through the level with the pteranodon is to keep him for a later level.


For whatever reason, you cross to this world by going underwater.


Mini seahorses.


There’s a reason they save Fire Gorge for the late game.


The volcanoes in the background spew lava and the spiked sneils just stand there. Well, maybe not stand, as they have no legs, but you know what I mean.


Shaft of Darkness is one of those cave levels with water in it.


This area is called Thunder Clash.


It’s what Don Don was made for. I mean, he could fly over other levels but the game developers figured you’d skip past these levels so they included hazards like Cavas and angry clouds and excluded food.


Mothra will swoop around in a figure eight.


If you don’t have Don Don, you’ll have to make careful jumps.


We’re on to the final world.


Double Eruption doesn’t seem any different from the ordinary volcano stage.


There’s more lava but maybe, just maybe, that’s because this is the final level. I’m surprised too because Adventure Island II had a unique final level.


The spaceship will move back and forth on the top of the screen and shoot lasers down at you.


You have to hit the real alien.


It’s pretty easy.


Oh no, the cave is collapsing. You can’t see that in a still image but trust me.


You hijack an alien ship.


And, unfortunately, this game doesn’t throw in an unexpected shmup level.


Instead, we just kind of fall.


But hey, we’ve rescued Tina.


Or was it Jeannie Jungle? I say this because Tina was written as Jīna.


Or Leilani?


I have no idea.



Next time, Master Higgins discovers his true identity in Adventure Island IV: The Adventure of Doctor Island. But not next year. Next year I have something planned. The year after that. *checks calendar* That is to say, if we survive August 5.

burning question: why radically change what works?