Adventure Island (NES Game)

Adventure Island is about as whimsical an NES game as you're likely to find in the world. You play a little island boy whose island girl has been kidnapped (Think Ghosts n' Goblins with an island theme, because that's pretty much exactly what this is). You try to track her down while fighting snails, crows, pigs, and other villains along the way.

You start out on foot, which is where you'll spend most of the game unless you're really really good. Occasionally you'll stumble across eggs which contain weapons and the occasional skateboard like the one you see in the picture above. You character is sorta funny looking and definitely has an interesting walk. He sort of walks on an angle, but his whole body slides left and right as if he had wheels on his feet or something. You'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about. Anyway, you make your way through increasingly difficult levels, fighting a boss who looks like a pro wrestler with interchangeable heads at the end of each area. Once you've defeated his current head, another will pop up and he'll scurry to the next area.

Adventure Island is a strange little duck, but it's absolutely enjoyable. Many of the stages are best played at a full run, which is a whole lot of fun if you don't know a level and yet somehow manage to race right through the dangers. If you die, each round (there are four rounds per area) is split up into 4 stages, so you'll never start far from where you died. The difficulty gets pretty steep pretty fast (another good reason to compare it to Ghosts n' Goblins) and soon you'll find yourself staring at the screen in disbelief, wondering how you'll get through (cheat codes).

Everything from the backgrounds to the music to the enemies themselves are pure whimsical delights. Even the fire than can kill you is animated in an almost cute way. Adventure Island is a perfect summertime treat. I highly recommend it and give it the fairly high rank of...