Super Adventure Island. Don’t let the name fool you. The following conversation slice sums up my feelings toward this game quite nicely:
Vulcan Wieland: this game is not very fun!
Vulcan Wieland: its very bland and average
Vulcan Wieland: nothing super about super adventure island!
Vulcan Wieland: aaaahahaahahahhaahahahahaha
xthebigp: ahahahahah
xthebigp: you should use that!!!!!
Vulcan Wieland: they should call it boring and bland adventure island!
xthebigp: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Vulcan Wieland: or HAS LITTLE REPLAY VALUE adventure island!
Vulcan Wieland: AAAAAAAAAAAAAahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
xthebigp: d;lfa;sldfja;sldfjkas;dlfkjas;dlfjkasd;flk
xthebigp: USE THAT
xthebigp: WORD FOR WORD
xthebigp: WITH ALL THE HAHAHAS
The game is more or less a wannabe Super Mario Bros.; and, as with most wannabes, it just doesn’t live up to what it was imitating.
The audio and visuals are nothing new and fancy, just sitting around at the average mark, obviously not helping to liven up or bring much–needed excitement to this game. The controls are also quite…boring. You move, you throw either a rock hammer or a boomerang, and you jump. Although they are easy to learn and use, they lack some of the basic features that similar games include.
Most annoyingly, as far as I’m concerned, is the exclusion of the “run” feature. By “run,” I mean holding down a certain button in order to make the character move faster. Why this wasn’t included is beyond me, but it makes the whole game quite…slow.
If the hero would naturally move fast, it wouldn’t be a problem, but he just plods along at a tortuously slow pace. When you are going up a hill, you might imagine a few snails and turtles and sloths and such racing past you, if you catch my drift. In a few levels this is remedied by the addition of a skateboard, but unfortunately it only lasts a short time (as the levels are quite short), and if you don’t expertly maneuver yourself around enemies and obstacles, it will be an even shorter time.
Unfortunately, this poor attempt at a Super Mario Bros. game includes some of the less-than-wonderful elements of the legendary series. The main less-than-wonderful element I am referring to is the inclusion of everyone’s favorite type of level…the water level! What could be more fun than swimming (pressing a button repeatedly so you don’t sink to the bottom of the screen and die because obviously bodies of water do not actually have a bottom and instead have a pit of despair) around as slow as can be avoiding monsters that can generally move about 60 times faster than 
you, since they are built for swimming? Of course, this game’s controls do wonders to make the water level an even less fun place to be.
Despite the fact that it may be difficult to avoid some of the obstacles or enemies in this game, it is not very exciting. It may have been exciting to run around quickly trying to jump here and there, avoiding all kinds of things coming at you, but plodding along at a tree’s pace and trying to avoid a handful of tropical penguins does not capture the same feeling.
Note: This element does not serve to make the game any better or worse than it already is, but it interesting to note that in order to defeat the final boss in this game, you have to stand under him while he jumps up in the air, and make him land on and eventually break through various platforms so he falls to his doom. Is there any other game that has something similar happen? Hmm…I can’t think of anything…except maybe SUPER MARIO BROS. 3. Ha. Proof. This game IS a crappy rip-off of Super Mario Bros. Anyway, back to the review.
The fact that this game is not very fun to play makes it even less fun to replay. In fact, I cannot honestly say that I believe most people who play this game will actually play through the entire thing. You may get the urge someday to play it again, but you are sure to be quickly reminded of how not fun this game was the first time you played.
If you are a big fan of this type of game, you may get some enjoyment out of it, but, again, it doesn’t stand up to other games in its genre. This game comes an entire generation after the original Super Mario games, but it still can’t hold a candle to them. This just goes to show you that increased graphical quality cannot make up for decreased quality of gameplay.
By now, this game is probably about four cents at your local GameStop or EB Games, and although it may be worth the price, it probably isn’t worth the effort of getting up and going to the store just to get it. If you are picking something else up and happen to see this, whoopie. If not, don’t bother. If you really want to play a game like this, just go with Super Mario.
