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A playthrough of Hudson Soft's 1994 action-adventure game for the Super Nintendo, Super Adventure Island II. Super Adventure Island II marked Master Higgins' final starring role of the 1990s, and it was the last time we saw him until 2003 with the Japanese-only throwback for the PS2 and GameCube (). It all feels very similar to Adventure Island IV () in that, instead of being another straight rehash of the Wonder Boy formula, Super Adventure Island II couples the series' traditional run-and-jump gameplay with large, open level designs that encourage exploration, and progress relies on finding items and weapons to open new paths forward. Actually, a better comparison might be to DuckTales 2 (). Super Adventure Island II was the final game developed by Make Software, a company that focused on creating 8 and 16-bit console titles for Capcom and Nichibutsu in the mid 90s, and it lifts a lot from the blueprint they established while working on DuckTales 2. The few puzzles that you'll find are nicely integrated, and the platforming is much improved over Super Adventure Island's, feeling much smoother thanks to the tighter controls. That being said, its structure does come off as a bit contrived - many obstacles feel placed to artificially drag out the play time, and the elemental weapons and armor are rendered useless halfway through the game by the light equipment that can be bought at the casino. This leads me to my biggest gripe with the game: the exorbitant prices of the casino's items force you to spend hours playing mindless, glacially paced gambling minigames to grind for gold. These items are optional, but if you want to head into the final battle with the best equipment available, you have little choice but to suck it up and endure. What a way to drive the game's pacing head first into a brick wall. And, to make the investment worthwhile, you'll need to do this as early as possible, but if you do, you'll end up so overpowered that the rest of the game becomes a cakewalk. (The casino grinding ends at 2:50:41. Just because I suffered through it doesn't mean you have to force yourself to!) The graphics are a bit of a mixed bag, disappointingly. Many of the backdrops, sprites, and animations are impeccably well done, while others look oddly unfinished. Why are there so many areas that feature a single color for the backdrop? It's not a huge deal, but it does tend to leave the impression that the game needed a little more time in the oven. The sound, on the other hand, is excellent, and the soundtrack is arguably even better than Yuzo Koshiro's work in the previous game (). It bounces from tropical and breezy to heavy and dramatic when it needs to, and the quality of the sample work and the mixing do the SNES's sound hardware proud. I'm still scratching my head over that wildly out-of-place speech sample on the title screen, though. I didn't like it nearly as much as Adventure Island IV, but even with its significant flaws, Super Adventure Island II served as a nice 16-bit facelift for an aging franchise. If you're looking for a game with a chill summer vibe, or for a passing opportunity to beat Tails to death with your bare hands, check it out. (And how about that king? “Higgins, my boy! Save her now and I'll do you right!“ What a hoot!) _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete () punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
