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Super Adventure Island (SNES, 1992)
With its success on the NES, it was only natural that the series made the jump to the new and popular SNES. At this point, he's still dating Jeannie Jungle (so it must take place prior to New Adventure Island), but alas, the malevolent Dark Cloak has other plans for this romance. He flies in while they're having a snuggly rendez-vous and turns her to stone! (Almost makes you wonder whether Dark Cloak is really vicious ex-girlfriend Tina in disguise.)
Super Adventure Island is actually a bit shorter than the NES games, offering only five different islands with four levels each. Each island, however, is genuinely unique, delivering such backgrounds as a desert, a volcano, and even the inside of a whale! The gameplay differs very little from the original Adventure Island game; there are no dinosaurs to ride this time, and Master Higgins is limited to an axe, a boomerang, and a strange set of pink balls. Yeah, laugh it up. On the plus side, the graphics are a grand improvement and the music is beyond funky with its island rhythms and hip-hop stylin', courtesy of Yuzo Koshiro, famous for such other beloved soundtracks as those of ActRaiser, Etrian Odyssey, and the Streets of Rage series. Super Adventure Island keeps it simple, and maybe that's for the best so we can focus more on the direct action this time.
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