Super Adventure Island

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Super Adventure Island

Developer(s)	Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)	Hudson Soft
Release date(s)	January 11, 1992
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	SNES, Mobile phone

Super Adventure Island is a platform game by Hudson Soft for the Super NES. It was first released in Japan under the name 高橋名人の大冒険島 (Takahashi Meijin no Daibouken Jima, or Master Takahashi's Super Adventure Island) on January 11, 1992. The game was then released in the United States in April of that year, and in Europe that November 19. It is the third game in the Adventure Island series, and was followed by New Adventure Island, Adventure Island 3, Super Adventure Island II and Adventure Island 4, a Japanese exclusive for the Famicom.

The plot is as follows: while Master Higgins and Tina are enjoying some time alone on a treetop, an evil sorcerer named Dark Cloak suddenly turns Tina into stone. The player's job is to guide Higgins through five worlds with three levels each as he finds a way to confront this being and cure his wife. At the end of each world is a boss. The levels consist of:

a jungle and volcano
a beach and the inside of a whale
treetops and a mine
the desert
a snowy mountain and castle

While the game features improved graphics and music from the NES games, it also removes the ability to ride dinosaurs and has significantly fewer weapons than Adventure Island II and Adventure Island 3. However, a new ability with weapons is that if you collect a certain number of weapon icons, your weapon will become more powerful and will resemble a cluster of fireballs.

Super Adventure Island, level 2

While many people have slightly mixed feelings about the game itself, the soundtrack is well known for including lots of island funk beats, calypso-like tracks, and even some forms of hip-hop, but also being one of the earlier Super NES soundtracks to really take advantage of the Sony SPC700 sound chip. Yuzo Koshiro composed the entire soundtrack.

In 2005, a mobile phone game, also called Super Adventure Island, was released by Hudson Soft. This game is completely different from the original Super Adventure Island however, and plays more like Wonder Boy in Monster Land. It does still feature Master Higgins and Tina.