My favorite tidbit about master Takahashi was from his Game Center CX interview, he was also famous for being able to hit 16 button presses per second (actually 17 when accurately timed) but people accused him of cheating with a spring. When he heard this, instead of being upset he thought “whoa that’s a great idea, why didn’t I try that”, but turns out that doesn’t actually work better than his manual technique.
I remember when Adventure Island came out I thought I was crazy. I had a friend who had a Master System and had Wonder Boy, but it didn't click with him so we played it one afternoon and that was it. When Adventure Island came out a different friend got it and was 100 percent into it. But I was watching him play it and kept saying "I know I've seen this game before." And my friend was like "Umm. No. This JUST came out. You couldn't have." I concluded he had to be right but it just messed with my head to the point where all these years later I still remember that. It wasn't until years later I rediscovered Wonder Boy and went "I knew it!"
Takahashi's shifting responsibilities can't help but remind me of the "other duties as assigned" part of my own job description at work. It must be feel odd to be so affable that you become a company's defacto mascot.
Oh man did I have no idea as a kid that Adventure Island was a reskinned Wonder Boy. The Wonder Boy remake was one of our launch window Switch games, that was my first experience with the actual Wonder Boy franchise. But I had happily rented Adventure Island games all the time as a child. I can't stress enough how fantastic this weekly series is. I learn so much, and it's fun. I'm sure my son will be interested in these more as he gets older. He's 8 and a half, and I'll put on key episodes about games he knows on Saturday night (our 'Campout Night' where we stay up and do fun stuff together). He is definitely interested, but he's also 8. Haha. I have no idea if my daughter will be into it, since she's just recently turned one, but she is willing to watch things I put on. She loves dinosaur documentaries like her older brother Adrian, who passed away two years ago. He loved games so much, but he hadn't been playing long when he got sick. He beat Yoshi's Crafted World with his big brother, they were both proud of that and it's a memory his big brother will always treasure. To people who don't get video games: my late son got so much pleasure from his Switch Lite when he was so sick with his horrible brain tumor and all the chemo and radiation. It means more than people think.
I really love the brief clips of contemporary films or TV to start the videos, they do fantastic to frame what else was happening in the world, which is often kinda lost in reviews of older games. Castlevania was released in September 1986, but I don't know immediately what else was going on then. ...and in this case, I learned Fast Car's release window, which is mostly weird because I never considered a world where Fast Car didn't somehow exist.
Yeah, "Fast Car" always strikes me as a song that was invented at the dawn of radio. It's timeless, and nothing about its production or style pegs it to a specific period of time outside of sounding cleaner than anything anyone recorded prior to, say, 1970.
I agree with you on those Famitsu covers and the SG-1000. I've noticed the similarities myself and Matsushita did art for plenty of game boxes beyond these...
Something that gets me about Adventure Island (1) is how cheeky it is with sprite usage. While the Famicom/NES can display 64 sprites on the same screen at once, which was gigantic by home console standards at the time, there were two pretty big caveats. Each was only 8x8 (about the size of one of Mario's fireballs), and if there were more than 8 on the same line some sprites would drop out. With some programming, the sprites could be made to cycle priority, causing flickering instead of disappearance, but it was a ugly work-around against an even uglier default. That's just four Mario-sized objects--even fewer, if the programmer stacked sprites atop each other to get more colors. Even the C64, which was generally inferior to the NES in sprite capability with only 8 total, could still get them pretty big if it needed to. This caused most NES developers to be careful and clever with their sprite use. Mega Man's health bar, weapon and enemy health bars were vertical for this reason. Other games would try to keep too many enemies from appearing in the same line, or similarly use large vertical objects instead of horizontal. But, look at Adventure Island! It uses sprites for the score display! It has a horizontal health bar, implemented with sprites! It uses sprites for large horizontal platforms! It has those long fish enemies! But it's pretty clever about it, mind you: rarely do other sprites appear up around the status display, and platforms also rarely have other moving objects on the same scan line. Pre-e-ety clever! Also: while I have not been timed, and don't claim to get up to 16 presses per second, I can press a fire button very rapidly, maybe at 13 a second. Part of this has to do with the influence of an old Commodore game called BMX Trials, which is way my original C64 grew to have a wobbly space bar.
As a kid, I didn't have an NES, and had to get by playing the classics at the houses of friends and family members. I stayed the night with some cousins once and excitedly tried to sample every NES game they owned in one night (that they were willing to put up with this is surprising in retrospect), and I wish I'd kept a record of how long I played each game, because as I remember it, I made them suffer through two hours of me flailing at Adventure Island until I beat the first world and felt some sense of accomplishment before moving on to another game. By way of contrast, I remember tolerating Milon's Secret Castle for less than five minutes. I didn't understand it, and when I asked my cousins for help, turned out they didn't understand it either.
We had lot of Famiclones back in India in 90s. My mum got so good, she got furthest in Adventure Island than the gamer neighbor brothers. It's the only console game she enjoyed.
Oh, I never knew Do-Re-Mi Fantasy was the sequel to Milon's Secret Castle. I only played the sequel, which was great. My girlfriend and I took turns beating it and we both loved it.
I do wish Hudson continued the Do Re Mi evolution of Milon, just to see where it may have gone. Finally putting the Wonder Boy/Adventure Island thing to rest in fully explained context is some catharsis I didn’t realize I needed. I had vague recollections on the licensing but the employee mascot aspect was totally new to me. Man...
Whoever did those SG-1000 cover art definitely carried on well into the Master System and Mega Drive eras, look at Basketball Nightmare and Wonderboy III (The Arcade version) console box art.
As a younger person I've never actually heard Fast Car until watching this episode. It got into my head so much that I searched it up to listen to the whole thing and now it's become one of those songs that I just inexplicably hear everywhere including the overhead at work.
I loved Milon’s Secret Castle. It was tough at first when I got it as a kid, but gets somewhat easy after a while. (Which I could also say about Blaster Master or Legacy of the Wizard.) You just need to learn how to explore. With MSC, they use the same patterns over and over again so it’s not bad once you get used to it, and maps never change. Such as, main rooms have one honeycomb, one bee, one key, one instrument, et cetera. I actually do revisit some rooms as I go. It’s wasteful to get a Hudson Bee when you already have a shield, and sometimes it eases the game to skip a honeycomb and get it later (because refilling your health with hearts is a grind). Plus there are minor infinite money spots, so you can’t get stuck, but if you play poorly and need them, they can be a grind too. Most money sources are one-time but give you plenty for what you need if you don’t get tricked into the expensive item sales. The area in the upper-left of the room can be gotten a few times before it exhausts but the entry is from another floor. Recovering the musical instruments gets you a lot of money, $1 per 1, 2, or 4 notes depending on how many you get. The instruments are optional for beating the game, but if you miss them or do really poorly collecting notes, you may need to grind for money. The one kind of broken thing is Milon has extremely short invincibility frames. You take about 2 damage per second. A poorly timed enemy or projectile can wipe out your health or kill you from full health. Filling your health from hearts is a grind, which is why I do leave some honeycombs for later. As is getting umbrellas, though not nearly as bad. And as I said, if you poorly manage your money, you may have to grind for it. They were good memories for me. Oh, the ending is lack luster. Queen is saved, then a congratulatory message. Not uncommon back then, but still a little disappointing considering the effort.
We had Milon’s Secret Castle as a kid. And we all got stuck pretty early. Not sure we ever figured it out until maybe the internet, long after we had rid ourselves of it. Shame, because we actually did enjoy the game.
Adventure Island is such a strange series. When put up against other NES franchises, it makes so little sense that it lasted as long as it did. Remember that Mega Man 3 "It's out!" commercial? Nobody I knew clamored for Adventure Island games like that.
The rooms are setup using the same patterns over and over, so I found it not so bad after a while. It really gets easier the more you play. And the rooms never change. My main complaint has always been the really short invincibility frames- a bad luck hit can wipe out your health or life from full health, and filling up using hearts is a grind. And the ending is underwhelming for the effort (which was not uncommon for games at the time), but at least the game was fun.
@@DavidRomigJr Yeah I agree with that I do like the ending thought I just wish that it didn't go back to the title screen until you press start or something but yeah I should probably play the game again so I can get better at it because I haven't played it in 6 months
As a kid i was never able to beat Adventure Island. Between that and the fact many many many MANY levels are just homework copies of each other, I was under the impression it was just one of those games that looped and had no ending. Hearing evidence that confirms otherwise is comforting in a way. Also, obligatory "Capulina" comment.
Adventure Island is one of those games on paper I wouldn't think I would like, a strict timer and one-hit deaths are all things I don't care for, but something about the game's kinetic energy just paves over those bumps and I have a ton of fun every time I play the games. Also, the fact that both Adventure Island and Wonder Boy would become progressively more RPG-inflected independently of one another is both odd and fascinating
Hudson's success with elevating Takahashi Meijin to mascot status would a few years later lead to them suggesting that Turbo Technologies Inc. should do the same thing in the United States. Hudson's candidate for this role was John Brandstetter, a TTI employee that made frequent trips to the Japanese offices and who seemed to be an enthusiastic and friendly person from their perspective. However, Brandsetter's American coworkers did not share Hudson's glowing assessment of the man as he was a frequent target of ridicule among them. And so, directed with the task of creating an advertisement campaign based around the office butt-monkey, Turbo Technologies Inc. put forth into the world... Johnny Turbo.
Man that Adventure Island bit was so great! I had no idea of any of that trivia. I was rather confused when WonderBoy looked soooo much like Adventure Island I thought I was going crazy. I loved the adventure Island games as a kid, but never owned them. I rented them a ton. The constant forward pace made think it was kind of a racing game.
Yeah, in the first area, you have two options to buy one of the key items (the shoes, maybe?), one of which is crazy expensive but easier to find. If you buy the super expensive one, you can lock yourself out of having enough cash for some other items you need, unless there's some way to farm cash in the area I am not aware of. Also, some of the items like the bee and the honeycomb can only be collected once per appearance per game, and certain sections can be almost impossibly difficult if you waste those power-ups early.
@@JeremyParish Been a bit since I've played, so my memory is a little rusty. I guess I never bought the super expensive one. I do know that having a good run in the bonus stages with the musical notes gives you a chance to get some extra cash, which helps as well (also love the detail that the more you enter the stage, it adds an instrument each time to the background and the music as well. It's the little touches sometimes).
Milon's Secret Castle was the bane of my childhood. That game made absolutely zero sense. I've watched long plays of the game as I've grown older and for the life of me I have no idea how anyone would have ever figured out how to beat this game.
I would love a remake of Milon’s Secret Castle. There’s enough quality there to work with. Just update mechanics and have actual clues for most secrets.
I always assumed that Milon's Secret Castle was mostly Zelda inspired and had not made the Metroidvania connection, and now I can't decide which is the greater influence, both influences seem to be about equal in my head.
@@chepin74 it was a colloquial thing and not something official. The sprite of the character remind us of the comedian, hahaha. Watching in this video that Master Higgins is based on a real person was a very interesting fact I didn't know.
Adventure Island! Hooray! Big fan of this series, especially Adventure Island 3. I've also had a crack at Adventure Island 4 and this one. Never played the second one oddly enough! Thank you for the detailed explanation on the Adventure Island/Wonder Boy thing, that's always baffled me as I don't know much about Wonder Boy. Even better to hear the origin of Master Takahashi Higgins's (Yeah, I know its a cop out, but I love both the names!) character being just some guy who worked at Hudson!
In loving memory of Hudson Soft. After a good long life with humble behind the curtains beginnings to being in Dream Mix TV World Fighters with Japanese Barbie and Optimus Prime to hitting big back with Nintendo making Mario Party, it was eventually sold off to the video games industry's "cool uncle who fell to a vice and is now a near unrecognizable shadow of their former self". I always thought Master Higgins had a gnarly case of the downs, but now after seeing Takahashi from the time in multiple angles, I suppose I can see the resemblance. The artists sure did him dirty though!
Wow, I've known about DoReMi Fantasy for years but never noticed the "Milon" in the title, nor the connection. It certainly is a refreshing experience compared to how miserable I was playing Milon's Secret Castle as a kid, having absolutely zero clue what to do! Interestingly, DoReMi Fantasy: Milon no Dokidoki Daibouken got a translation patch relatively recently, so it's even friendlier to folks worldwide these days.
I've always had a big soft spot for Milon's Secret Castle despite absolutely never playing it. Tips and tricks for it appeared in gaming magazines at the time (for understandable reasons) and they made the game sound interesting and full of fun secrets, but I was poor and never got around to even renting a copy. I just WANT the game to be good.
My mom liked Adventure Island when I was a toddler. I remember one night she got pretty far, got a game over, then she took a phone call and was chatting a while. I grabbed the controller and pressed start, not knowing you needed to hold A to continue, and basically lost all her progress. So that was the end of the game, lol. Sorry ma.
Nice to see Hudson finally making their NES debut. Adventure Island was one of those NES games I owned as a kid, and it would only be years later that I learned that it was a reskin of Wonder Boy. Wonder Boy definitely got the more interesting evolution with games like The Dragon's Trap and the Asha game. Still Adventure Island still strikes my nostalgia. Excellent episode.
It's interesting how the Adventure Island games stuck to the tropics and felt, as a whole, a lot more "Western" in some respects, especially in the SNES entries where the soundtracks started to veer more towards chillout, dance, and funk, whereas Wonder Boy stuck with various fantasy themes musically. I'll agree Wonder Boy is probably the better series but I have so much fondness for Adventure Island. I wish it got half the remake/spiritual sequel love that Wonder Boy got. Adventure Island IV absolutely deserves an official North American release and localization.
The only thing I remember about Milon's Secret Castle was that there was a weird sweepstakes tied in with I think Chip's Ahoy that was basically a lottery scratcher and if you "beat the game" you won prices. It was about as exciting as the actual game.
As a kid I found master Higgins absolutely baffling. It’s the confidence by which they presented this completely absurd and nonsensical scenario that made it so confusing then and hysterical now. “He’s a rich, chubby, socialite caveman in a baseball cap who has to rescue his smoking hot girlfriend from monstwrs. What’s weird about that?l
I originally was typing out a comment about the obfuscation of Japanese origin in regards to 1980s video games. See the film “Gung Ho” for a somewhat accurate look into blue collar American sentiment at the time. That was dashed to bits by talk of “blood boiling”. Can’t wait for next week. I’ve waited for nes works Jackal for about 5 years.
The evolutionary tree of the Wonder Boy and Adventure Island series is interesting. Hudson ported Wonder Boy's sequels to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 with some changes. Wonder Boy in Monster Land became Bikkuriman World, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap became Dragon's Curse, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (yes, there are two Wonder Boy IIIs, which are completely different games) became Monster Lair, and Wonder Boy in Monster World became The Dynastic Hero. Tec Toy altered the Sega Master System and Mega Drive versions of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, and Wonder Boy in Monster World for the Brazilian market, replacing Wonder Boy with Monica from the Brazilian comic book series Monica's Gang. A Journey to the West-themed port of Wonder Boy in Monster Land for the Famicom was developed by NMK and published by Jaleco as Saiyūki World. Jaleco released an original sequel to Saiyūki World, titled Saiyūki World 2: Tenjōkai no Majin in Japan, which was adapted for the North American market into the NES game Whomp 'Em.
Funny you mention the canteen in Milon's Secret Castle. I got stuck at that part because the shop hint said to look for a "water pot in an icy room" I had no idea that the translation actually meant canteen, and that I already had what I needed. Spent so much time looking for a freaking pail or watering can or something to that effect.
When comparing Wonder Boy and Adventure Island, looks aren't everything. Adventure Island has a seriously upgraded soundtrack. The nine note riff that plays all through at least 80% of Wonder Boy becomes quite maddening.
Indeed. Although, I will say that there is a bit more effort put into some aspects of "Wonder Boy". In "Wonder Boy", after you defeat a boss, you a receive an item to give to your girlfriend. You also can't access the final Area 8, until you've collected 28 Dolls. It's also easier to see the eggs where Death is inside of (they're covered in spots).
I played the NES sequels (2,3 and the Japan-only 4th game) and the SNES sequel, until I didn't knew that the series is based on Takashi Meijin. The original Adventure Island btw (in it's original Japanese version) is common in bootleg multicarts. Good episode btw. Hope there will be episodes on the sequels soon.
I wish Milon's Secret Castle would see a release on the Nintendo Switch Online service because it's one I'd really be interested in trying for a little while to see if I could puzzle anything out within it. Its infamous obtuseness has always intrigued me.
@AmateurThespian Oh of course, it's just the convenience of being able to boot it up quickly on Switch that's made me look into a number of games I've otherwise passed up before.
Awesome episode!! I remember playing a lot Adventure Island as a kid wanting to get to the ending. Then one day I found in the ancient internet the cheat for infinite continues and I got happy I finally will be able to beat it!! I was so wrong.
I remember seeing the first Adventure Island in Nintendo Power and thinking it looking neat, but when I rented it I ultimately didn't enjoy it very much. I finally played through it via emulation about 2 years ago. It gets very difficult! Milon's Secret Castle was absolutely incomprehensible to my friends and I back then. I've never gone back to give it a serious try, and this retrospective doesn't make me want to do it either. I did play through DoReMi Fantasy a few years ago and found it to be good.
Did he actually manage to make an interesting segment focused on Milon's Secret Castle?! I am starting to think his talent is vastly under appreciated.
I played a TON of Wonder Boy as a kid. I always thought it was a little weird, like there was something subtly wrong with it, but I still played the hell out of it. That, and Wonder Boy 3. Always thought they were from 2 different series, since WB3 is a metroidvania.
Adventure Island is hard. Ghosts n' Goblins hard. Like, possibly beyond that. It's a well put-together game for the most part though. It's entertaining to me that most reviews never show past world 2 lol. World 7 & 8 will drive a sane man to madness.
I think I prefer the NES/Famicom version, Adventure Island, not only because it has better music but because they were forward enough to replace the blackface island people the white Wonder Boy kills mercilessly with penguins
Milon's Secret Castle was a consolation game when we almost couldn't get SMB2 that Christmas (Santa to the rescue!) ...man I fucking hated that game. So unnecessarily obtuse
Recently played through Super Adventure Island 2. Unlike the other games, it's a Metroidvania, where usually you'll be fighting with a sword. Making it more like the Monster World games. So the Adventure Island series ended ripping off Wonder Boy, again.
I remember playing Milon's Secret Castle's sequel DoReiMi Fantasy many years back. (Gah! I'm so old!) Played Secret Castle awhile back, and yea it was definitely rough. Though never was I frustrated with it, just annoyed.
huh I never thought about that, why we got 'adventure island' instead of 'wonderboy' but yeah that explanation makes the most sense. Definitely one I need to add to the collection! (also never knew about the connection to Famitsu with the artwork, but somehow I'm not surprised!) I never got the hang of milon's secret castle, although I played a rom of part 2 which was kinda fun
...speaking of the Family BASIC manual, has anyone actually translated that and posted it online? There are hardly any tutorials about it, as far as I know. Also, for some reason, I'm reminded of some obscure TV series that was floating around online called Bugtte Honey. Has something to do with Hudson Soft and TMS, but I could only find two episodes. I think it was Kiddocabbusses' TH-cam channel that made me aware of it.
Gaming Alexandria just announced a few days ago that they’re trying to preserve Famicom Basic creations. Not quite the same thing, but extremely cool all the same.
![A Bullet Proof legal argument: Tetris [Tengen] | NES Works Gaiden 061](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TjtT5ML_I2I/mqdefault.jpg)
My favorite tidbit about master Takahashi was from his Game Center CX interview, he was also famous for being able to hit 16 button presses per second (actually 17 when accurately timed) but people accused him of cheating with a spring. When he heard this, instead of being upset he thought “whoa that’s a great idea, why didn’t I try that”, but turns out that doesn’t actually work better than his manual technique.
GTV Japan has a good video of him clicking fast as crap and newer
I remember when Adventure Island came out I thought I was crazy. I had a friend who had a Master System and had Wonder Boy, but it didn't click with him so we played it one afternoon and that was it. When Adventure Island came out a different friend got it and was 100 percent into it. But I was watching him play it and kept saying "I know I've seen this game before." And my friend was like "Umm. No. This JUST came out. You couldn't have." I concluded he had to be right but it just messed with my head to the point where all these years later I still remember that. It wasn't until years later I rediscovered Wonder Boy and went "I knew it!"
I love all the brief cameos you have in your videos before it really gets going. Hearing or seeing, "Fast Car" is always welcomed!
Now it's time for me to tell you about Master Higgins, arch-rival and nemesis to Wonderboy, with powers COMPARABLE TO WONDERBOY!
You'd think that Jack Black would be singing about Pitfall Harry, given his history in old Activision commercials.
At least for the first game. After that both guys' careers took vastly different paths.
What powers you ask? I dunno how ‘bout the power of flight? That do anything for ya?
@@adamking6645
they didnt tho! Adventure Island 4 on NES and Super Adventure Island 2 on SNES is an RPG similar to Monster World
Takahashi's shifting responsibilities can't help but remind me of the "other duties as assigned" part of my own job description at work. It must be feel odd to be so affable that you become a company's defacto mascot.
"Okay, deal, but you have to provide me with fruit every 30 seconds or so or I'll collapse from exhaustion from the added job duties"
Takahashi-meijin still appears on Japanese TV from time to time, so his fans remember him to this day.
most memorably for me: He appeared in Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, where he told players to keep the room well lit and not to sit too close to the TV.
Oh man did I have no idea as a kid that Adventure Island was a reskinned Wonder Boy. The Wonder Boy remake was one of our launch window Switch games, that was my first experience with the actual Wonder Boy franchise. But I had happily rented Adventure Island games all the time as a child. I can't stress enough how fantastic this weekly series is. I learn so much, and it's fun. I'm sure my son will be interested in these more as he gets older. He's 8 and a half, and I'll put on key episodes about games he knows on Saturday night (our 'Campout Night' where we stay up and do fun stuff together). He is definitely interested, but he's also 8. Haha.
I have no idea if my daughter will be into it, since she's just recently turned one, but she is willing to watch things I put on. She loves dinosaur documentaries like her older brother Adrian, who passed away two years ago. He loved games so much, but he hadn't been playing long when he got sick. He beat Yoshi's Crafted World with his big brother, they were both proud of that and it's a memory his big brother will always treasure. To people who don't get video games: my late son got so much pleasure from his Switch Lite when he was so sick with his horrible brain tumor and all the chemo and radiation. It means more than people think.
Man so sorry to hear about your son you have my thoughts and prayers
I really love the brief clips of contemporary films or TV to start the videos, they do fantastic to frame what else was happening in the world, which is often kinda lost in reviews of older games. Castlevania was released in September 1986, but I don't know immediately what else was going on then.
...and in this case, I learned Fast Car's release window, which is mostly weird because I never considered a world where Fast Car didn't somehow exist.
Yeah, "Fast Car" always strikes me as a song that was invented at the dawn of radio. It's timeless, and nothing about its production or style pegs it to a specific period of time outside of sounding cleaner than anything anyone recorded prior to, say, 1970.
@@JeremyParish “You got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere” is easily one of the greatest opening lines.
That song as a whole, truly magnificent.
@@g.u.959 seriously one of the greatest songs ever written
I really love that Hudson's Adventure Island is just 'but she's got a new hat!' for Wonder Boy, quite literally XD
"Next episode, your blood will boil."
Jackal! Jackal? I think it's Jackal! Jackal? Jackal! Is it Jackal?!
The only NES game I know if when they bluntly say "This battle will make your blood boil. Good luck."
Here?
I agree with you on those Famitsu covers and the SG-1000. I've noticed the similarities myself and Matsushita did art for plenty of game boxes beyond these...
Hey rndstranger nice to see you here
I still miss the chiptune Evangelion outro. Either way, these are still a great watch!
Something that gets me about Adventure Island (1) is how cheeky it is with sprite usage.
While the Famicom/NES can display 64 sprites on the same screen at once, which was gigantic by home console standards at the time, there were two pretty big caveats. Each was only 8x8 (about the size of one of Mario's fireballs), and if there were more than 8 on the same line some sprites would drop out. With some programming, the sprites could be made to cycle priority, causing flickering instead of disappearance, but it was a ugly work-around against an even uglier default. That's just four Mario-sized objects--even fewer, if the programmer stacked sprites atop each other to get more colors. Even the C64, which was generally inferior to the NES in sprite capability with only 8 total, could still get them pretty big if it needed to.
This caused most NES developers to be careful and clever with their sprite use. Mega Man's health bar, weapon and enemy health bars were vertical for this reason. Other games would try to keep too many enemies from appearing in the same line, or similarly use large vertical objects instead of horizontal.
But, look at Adventure Island! It uses sprites for the score display! It has a horizontal health bar, implemented with sprites! It uses sprites for large horizontal platforms! It has those long fish enemies! But it's pretty clever about it, mind you: rarely do other sprites appear up around the status display, and platforms also rarely have other moving objects on the same scan line. Pre-e-ety clever!
Also: while I have not been timed, and don't claim to get up to 16 presses per second, I can press a fire button very rapidly, maybe at 13 a second. Part of this has to do with the influence of an old Commodore game called BMX Trials, which is way my original C64 grew to have a wobbly space bar.
Remember kids: Only play a game for an hour each day. At this rate, you might actually finish this game, just before the heat death of the universe.
As a kid, I didn't have an NES, and had to get by playing the classics at the houses of friends and family members. I stayed the night with some cousins once and excitedly tried to sample every NES game they owned in one night (that they were willing to put up with this is surprising in retrospect), and I wish I'd kept a record of how long I played each game, because as I remember it, I made them suffer through two hours of me flailing at Adventure Island until I beat the first world and felt some sense of accomplishment before moving on to another game.
By way of contrast, I remember tolerating Milon's Secret Castle for less than five minutes. I didn't understand it, and when I asked my cousins for help, turned out they didn't understand it either.
We had lot of Famiclones back in India in 90s.
My mum got so good, she got furthest in Adventure Island than the gamer neighbor brothers. It's the only console game she enjoyed.
Wow! That's a cool story! So your mom was good at Adventure Island? And I like the fact that you guys played on clone hardware!😊
Oh, I never knew Do-Re-Mi Fantasy was the sequel to Milon's Secret Castle. I only played the sequel, which was great. My girlfriend and I took turns beating it and we both loved it.
I do wish Hudson continued the Do Re Mi evolution of Milon, just to see where it may have gone.
Finally putting the Wonder Boy/Adventure Island thing to rest in fully explained context is some catharsis I didn’t realize I needed. I had vague recollections on the licensing but the employee mascot aspect was totally new to me. Man...
Today I learned, Milon's Castle had a sequel.
Whoever did those SG-1000 cover art definitely carried on well into the Master System and Mega Drive eras, look at Basketball Nightmare and Wonderboy III (The Arcade version) console box art.
i love how deadpan and serious jeremy parish is with the very small amount of social commentary he has. it makes the point stronger great guy
All hail Hudson soft. Adventure island was a constant rental.
It’s a fun series
As a younger person I've never actually heard Fast Car until watching this episode. It got into my head so much that I searched it up to listen to the whole thing and now it's become one of those songs that I just inexplicably hear everywhere including the overhead at work.
Tracy Chapman is really a classic. Her first album is a masterpiece. And you hear her a lot in stores singing "Give Me One Reason."
I loved Milon’s Secret Castle. It was tough at first when I got it as a kid, but gets somewhat easy after a while. (Which I could also say about Blaster Master or Legacy of the Wizard.) You just need to learn how to explore. With MSC, they use the same patterns over and over again so it’s not bad once you get used to it, and maps never change. Such as, main rooms have one honeycomb, one bee, one key, one instrument, et cetera.
I actually do revisit some rooms as I go. It’s wasteful to get a Hudson Bee when you already have a shield, and sometimes it eases the game to skip a honeycomb and get it later (because refilling your health with hearts is a grind). Plus there are minor infinite money spots, so you can’t get stuck, but if you play poorly and need them, they can be a grind too.
Most money sources are one-time but give you plenty for what you need if you don’t get tricked into the expensive item sales. The area in the upper-left of the room can be gotten a few times before it exhausts but the entry is from another floor. Recovering the musical instruments gets you a lot of money, $1 per 1, 2, or 4 notes depending on how many you get. The instruments are optional for beating the game, but if you miss them or do really poorly collecting notes, you may need to grind for money.
The one kind of broken thing is Milon has extremely short invincibility frames. You take about 2 damage per second. A poorly timed enemy or projectile can wipe out your health or kill you from full health. Filling your health from hearts is a grind, which is why I do leave some honeycombs for later. As is getting umbrellas, though not nearly as bad. And as I said, if you poorly manage your money, you may have to grind for it.
They were good memories for me. Oh, the ending is lack luster. Queen is saved, then a congratulatory message. Not uncommon back then, but still a little disappointing considering the effort.
We had Milon’s Secret Castle as a kid. And we all got stuck pretty early. Not sure we ever figured it out until maybe the internet, long after we had rid ourselves of it. Shame, because we actually did enjoy the game.
Wow, was waiting for this one for a long time. Thanks so much, Jeremy!
Finally I know why Adventure Island had the weird hat guy! Nice video, as usual
Adventure Island is such a strange series. When put up against other NES franchises, it makes so little sense that it lasted as long as it did. Remember that Mega Man 3 "It's out!" commercial? Nobody I knew clamored for Adventure Island games like that.
Super Adventure Island II was a fantastic Metroidvania styled game. A hidden treasure for sure.
I love Milon's Secret Castle and I love it so much that I played it for 11 hours straight to beat it
Sounds about right…
How did you figure it out? It’s so cryptic. Did you have to use a guide?
@@MaxOakland I used a guide for like 2 things the rest I figured out on my own
The rooms are setup using the same patterns over and over, so I found it not so bad after a while. It really gets easier the more you play. And the rooms never change. My main complaint has always been the really short invincibility frames- a bad luck hit can wipe out your health or life from full health, and filling up using hearts is a grind. And the ending is underwhelming for the effort (which was not uncommon for games at the time), but at least the game was fun.
@@DavidRomigJr Yeah I agree with that I do like the ending thought I just wish that it didn't go back to the title screen until you press start or something but yeah I should probably play the game again so I can get better at it because I haven't played it in 6 months
As a kid i was never able to beat Adventure Island. Between that and the fact many many many MANY levels are just homework copies of each other, I was under the impression it was just one of those games that looped and had no ending. Hearing evidence that confirms otherwise is comforting in a way.
Also, obligatory "Capulina" comment.
Adventure Island is one of those games on paper I wouldn't think I would like, a strict timer and one-hit deaths are all things I don't care for, but something about the game's kinetic energy just paves over those bumps and I have a ton of fun every time I play the games.
Also, the fact that both Adventure Island and Wonder Boy would become progressively more RPG-inflected independently of one another is both odd and fascinating
Hudson's success with elevating Takahashi Meijin to mascot status would a few years later lead to them suggesting that Turbo Technologies Inc. should do the same thing in the United States. Hudson's candidate for this role was John Brandstetter, a TTI employee that made frequent trips to the Japanese offices and who seemed to be an enthusiastic and friendly person from their perspective. However, Brandsetter's American coworkers did not share Hudson's glowing assessment of the man as he was a frequent target of ridicule among them. And so, directed with the task of creating an advertisement campaign based around the office butt-monkey, Turbo Technologies Inc. put forth into the world... Johnny Turbo.
Man that Adventure Island bit was so great! I had no idea of any of that trivia. I was rather confused when WonderBoy looked soooo much like Adventure Island I thought I was going crazy. I loved the adventure Island games as a kid, but never owned them. I rented them a ton. The constant forward pace made think it was kind of a racing game.
Hudson certainly must have seen Adventure Island as their big breakout, since they even gave it a cartoon show in Bug-tte Honey.
I’ll be touching on that one next episode.
How have i never seen this channel before, these vids are great
I've beaten Milon's Secret Castle quite a few times and honestly never knew you could buy the items in a bad enough order to force a restart.
Yeah, in the first area, you have two options to buy one of the key items (the shoes, maybe?), one of which is crazy expensive but easier to find. If you buy the super expensive one, you can lock yourself out of having enough cash for some other items you need, unless there's some way to farm cash in the area I am not aware of. Also, some of the items like the bee and the honeycomb can only be collected once per appearance per game, and certain sections can be almost impossibly difficult if you waste those power-ups early.
@@JeremyParish Been a bit since I've played, so my memory is a little rusty. I guess I never bought the super expensive one. I do know that having a good run in the bonus stages with the musical notes gives you a chance to get some extra cash, which helps as well (also love the detail that the more you enter the stage, it adds an instrument each time to the background and the music as well. It's the little touches sometimes).
Milon's Secret Castle was the bane of my childhood. That game made absolutely zero sense. I've watched long plays of the game as I've grown older and for the life of me I have no idea how anyone would have ever figured out how to beat this game.
Seriously! I like the graphics though
I would love a remake of Milon’s Secret Castle. There’s enough quality there to work with. Just update mechanics and have actual clues for most secrets.
I always assumed that Milon's Secret Castle was mostly Zelda inspired and had not made the Metroidvania connection, and now I can't decide which is the greater influence, both influences seem to be about equal in my head.
As a kid I loved Adventure Island (known in Mexico as Capulinita). Indirectly lead me to discover one of my favorite series of games: Wonder Boy.
So was the game named after the Mexican comedian Capulina? If so, that's very interesting!
@@chepin74 it was a colloquial thing and not something official. The sprite of the character remind us of the comedian, hahaha. Watching in this video that Master Higgins is based on a real person was a very interesting fact I didn't know.
Adventure Island! Hooray! Big fan of this series, especially Adventure Island 3. I've also had a crack at Adventure Island 4 and this one. Never played the second one oddly enough!
Thank you for the detailed explanation on the Adventure Island/Wonder Boy thing, that's always baffled me as I don't know much about Wonder Boy. Even better to hear the origin of Master Takahashi Higgins's (Yeah, I know its a cop out, but I love both the names!) character being just some guy who worked at Hudson!
In loving memory of Hudson Soft. After a good long life with humble behind the curtains beginnings to being in Dream Mix TV World Fighters with Japanese Barbie and Optimus Prime to hitting big back with Nintendo making Mario Party, it was eventually sold off to the video games industry's "cool uncle who fell to a vice and is now a near unrecognizable shadow of their former self".
I always thought Master Higgins had a gnarly case of the downs, but now after seeing Takahashi from the time in multiple angles, I suppose I can see the resemblance. The artists sure did him dirty though!
Hudson Soft was folded into Konami as of 2012.
I loved Milons secret castle back in the day. I don’t think I ever made it past the first room or 2 but I didn’t care I was 3 playing Nintendo
That’s cute
The NES just wasn't suited for the glorious tropical palette required by Wonder Boy, it looks muddy and sad in comparison IMO.
The NES doesn't have a true yellow, apparently. That may play a part.
Wow, I've known about DoReMi Fantasy for years but never noticed the "Milon" in the title, nor the connection. It certainly is a refreshing experience compared to how miserable I was playing Milon's Secret Castle as a kid, having absolutely zero clue what to do!
Interestingly, DoReMi Fantasy: Milon no Dokidoki Daibouken got a translation patch relatively recently, so it's even friendlier to folks worldwide these days.
I've always had a big soft spot for Milon's Secret Castle despite absolutely never playing it. Tips and tricks for it appeared in gaming magazines at the time (for understandable reasons) and they made the game sound interesting and full of fun secrets, but I was poor and never got around to even renting a copy. I just WANT the game to be good.
My mom liked Adventure Island when I was a toddler. I remember one night she got pretty far, got a game over, then she took a phone call and was chatting a while. I grabbed the controller and pressed start, not knowing you needed to hold A to continue, and basically lost all her progress. So that was the end of the game, lol. Sorry ma.
milon's secret castle holds a special place in my nostalgic heart. actually both of these games, but milon in particular.
there is only one maharito
Nice to see Hudson finally making their NES debut. Adventure Island was one of those NES games I owned as a kid, and it would only be years later that I learned that it was a reskin of Wonder Boy. Wonder Boy definitely got the more interesting evolution with games like The Dragon's Trap and the Asha game. Still Adventure Island still strikes my nostalgia. Excellent episode.
It's interesting how the Adventure Island games stuck to the tropics and felt, as a whole, a lot more "Western" in some respects, especially in the SNES entries where the soundtracks started to veer more towards chillout, dance, and funk, whereas Wonder Boy stuck with various fantasy themes musically.
I'll agree Wonder Boy is probably the better series but I have so much fondness for Adventure Island. I wish it got half the remake/spiritual sequel love that Wonder Boy got. Adventure Island IV absolutely deserves an official North American release and localization.
The only thing I remember about Milon's Secret Castle was that there was a weird sweepstakes tied in with I think Chip's Ahoy that was basically a lottery scratcher and if you "beat the game" you won prices. It was about as exciting as the actual game.
JP makes Wednesdays worth tolerating!
As a kid I found master Higgins absolutely baffling.
It’s the confidence by which they presented this completely absurd and nonsensical scenario that made it so confusing then and hysterical now.
“He’s a rich, chubby, socialite caveman in a baseball cap who has to rescue his smoking hot girlfriend from monstwrs. What’s weird about that?l
I originally was typing out a comment about the obfuscation of Japanese origin in regards to 1980s video games. See the film “Gung Ho” for a somewhat accurate look into blue collar American sentiment at the time. That was dashed to bits by talk of “blood boiling”.
Can’t wait for next week. I’ve waited for nes works Jackal for about 5 years.
I'm afraid Jackal is the next NES Works episode... but not next week.
@@JeremyParish Every “works” video is a gem and waiting a little longer for coverage of my favorite 8-bit two-player co-op game is hardly a big deal.
Keep making these videos man. Nes works, gb works, all of them theyre all damn good ive seen almost all of them keep it up!!
Who else stopped to listen to ‘Fast Car’ before returning to watch the video?
The evolutionary tree of the Wonder Boy and Adventure Island series is interesting. Hudson ported Wonder Boy's sequels to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 with some changes. Wonder Boy in Monster Land became Bikkuriman World, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap became Dragon's Curse, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (yes, there are two Wonder Boy IIIs, which are completely different games) became Monster Lair, and Wonder Boy in Monster World became The Dynastic Hero. Tec Toy altered the Sega Master System and Mega Drive versions of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, and Wonder Boy in Monster World for the Brazilian market, replacing Wonder Boy with Monica from the Brazilian comic book series Monica's Gang. A Journey to the West-themed port of Wonder Boy in Monster Land for the Famicom was developed by NMK and published by Jaleco as Saiyūki World. Jaleco released an original sequel to Saiyūki World, titled Saiyūki World 2: Tenjōkai no Majin in Japan, which was adapted for the North American market into the NES game Whomp 'Em.
I'll be getting into some of that in next week's episode, and some of the other stuff when Segaiden gets to Wonder Boy. It's a big dumb mess.
Funny you mention the canteen in Milon's Secret Castle. I got stuck at that part because the shop hint said to look for a "water pot in an icy room" I had no idea that the translation actually meant canteen, and that I already had what I needed. Spent so much time looking for a freaking pail or watering can or something to that effect.
When comparing Wonder Boy and Adventure Island, looks aren't everything. Adventure Island has a seriously upgraded soundtrack. The nine note riff that plays all through at least 80% of Wonder Boy becomes quite maddening.
Indeed. Although, I will say that there is a bit more effort put into some aspects of "Wonder Boy". In "Wonder Boy", after you defeat a boss, you a receive an item to give to your girlfriend. You also can't access the final Area 8, until you've collected 28 Dolls. It's also easier to see the eggs where Death is inside of (they're covered in spots).
I played the NES sequels (2,3 and the Japan-only 4th game) and the SNES sequel, until I didn't knew that the series is based on Takashi Meijin. The original Adventure Island btw (in it's original Japanese version) is common in bootleg multicarts. Good episode btw. Hope there will be episodes on the sequels soon.
I'm afraid you won't be seeing Adventure Island II and 3 any time soon, sorry to say.
@@JeremyParish Chronological order is a harsh mistress.
These two are the epitome of mid-tier NES games
Milon's Secret Castle is a lot of fun, but wayyyyyyyyyyyy too cryptic
I look forward to these videos more than any other
I wish Milon's Secret Castle would see a release on the Nintendo Switch Online service because it's one I'd really be interested in trying for a little while to see if I could puzzle anything out within it. Its infamous obtuseness has always intrigued me.
@AmateurThespian Oh of course, it's just the convenience of being able to boot it up quickly on Switch that's made me look into a number of games I've otherwise passed up before.
Ah, yes, Mr. Takahashi, the vocal of main theme from Robowarrior.
Awesome episode!! I remember playing a lot Adventure Island as a kid wanting to get to the ending. Then one day I found in the ancient internet the cheat for infinite continues and I got happy I finally will be able to beat it!! I was so wrong.
Love that this video starts with a bit of Bruce Springsteen music.
So, truly, was the entire SG-1000 series timed to be a long leadup to doing Wonder Boy and Adventure Island in order?
I remember seeing the first Adventure Island in Nintendo Power and thinking it looking neat, but when I rented it I ultimately didn't enjoy it very much. I finally played through it via emulation about 2 years ago. It gets very difficult!
Milon's Secret Castle was absolutely incomprehensible to my friends and I back then. I've never gone back to give it a serious try, and this retrospective doesn't make me want to do it either. I did play through DoReMi Fantasy a few years ago and found it to be good.
Takahashi Meijin and Milon even got to meet in Saturn Bomberman as two of the ten playable characters.
Did he actually manage to make an interesting segment focused on Milon's Secret Castle?! I am starting to think his talent is vastly under appreciated.
That little bit of Fast Car 🚘
Fast Car is a classic
These retrospectives are so good 😊
Well that solves that mystery of the last 35 years, haha
GREAT VIDEO!
Milon's Secret Castle was an odd one, but it was good for a play or two.
I played a TON of Wonder Boy as a kid. I always thought it was a little weird, like there was something subtly wrong with it, but I still played the hell out of it. That, and Wonder Boy 3. Always thought they were from 2 different series, since WB3 is a metroidvania.
Adventure Island is hard. Ghosts n' Goblins hard. Like, possibly beyond that. It's a well put-together game for the most part though. It's entertaining to me that most reviews never show past world 2 lol. World 7 & 8 will drive a sane man to madness.
Even Master Takahashi has said in an interview, “LOL no I can’t beat that game in an hour”
Another masterpiece by Jeremy Parish.
I really hope we get a rerelease of the adventure island series. Always a great rental
Tracy Chapman at the start of the video???? *claps and bows*
I think I prefer the NES/Famicom version, Adventure Island, not only because it has better music but because they were forward enough to replace the blackface island people the white Wonder Boy kills mercilessly with penguins
Making matters worse, the blackface-style caricature natives in Wonder Boy were called "Coal Kids". Yikes!
I play Hudsons Adventure Island 🏝 a lot when I was a kid and it's still lots of fun. 😀👍🎮
what is that song that was played at the beginning of the video?
I had Secret Castle as a kid. Never made it to the first boss….
I finally understood the horrible sprite art used for the Adventure Island games.
I mean, for the protagonist.
Milon's Secret Castle was a consolation game when we almost couldn't get SMB2 that Christmas (Santa to the rescue!) ...man I fucking hated that game. So unnecessarily obtuse
talking fast for a minute there! whew
Milons may not be a good game, but ill always have a soft spot for it. Never beat it though
Welcome back NES Works
See you again in a few months
Recently played through Super Adventure Island 2. Unlike the other games, it's a Metroidvania, where usually you'll be fighting with a sword. Making it more like the Monster World games. So the Adventure Island series ended ripping off Wonder Boy, again.
I personally like "Milion's Secret Castle" a lot, but I can understand if others don't.
How did you progress without a cheat book?
@@MaxOakland Weren't many free-roaming games in those days considered "guide games"?
@@VahanNisanian not sure I’m not old enough
I remember playing Milon's Secret Castle's sequel DoReiMi Fantasy many years back. (Gah! I'm so old!)
Played Secret Castle awhile back, and yea it was definitely rough. Though never was I frustrated with it, just annoyed.
huh I never thought about that, why we got 'adventure island' instead of 'wonderboy' but yeah that explanation makes the most sense. Definitely one I need to add to the collection! (also never knew about the connection to Famitsu with the artwork, but somehow I'm not surprised!) I never got the hang of milon's secret castle, although I played a rom of part 2 which was kinda fun
Amazing content, as usual 👏🏻
So Milon is side scrolling Druaga?
Adventure Island was good but Milon's Secret Castle was terrible.
I love ❤️ this channel
...speaking of the Family BASIC manual, has anyone actually translated that and posted it online? There are hardly any tutorials about it, as far as I know.
Also, for some reason, I'm reminded of some obscure TV series that was floating around online called Bugtte Honey. Has something to do with Hudson Soft and TMS, but I could only find two episodes. I think it was Kiddocabbusses' TH-cam channel that made me aware of it.
Gaming Alexandria just announced a few days ago that they’re trying to preserve Famicom Basic creations. Not quite the same thing, but extremely cool all the same.
I like adventure island but milon's secret castle is just plain awful
Milons Secret Castle is like budget Legacy of the Wizard but nowhere near as cool.
Needs more Yuzo Koshiro for sure