Adventure Island 2 was released for the NES in early 1991. It is the sequel to the first Adventure Island, and there have been some things that have been improved this time around. Master Higgins is back, but the plot is no different from last time. He still has to rescue Princess Tina (who is now his girlfriend) from monsters on this new island. There is a little more creativity put forth this time with overworld maps of each of the 8 islands of the game. A new item system was added to Adventure Island 2 as well. Despite all this, I think this is a game that is still very hard to beat, and I haven't been able to get any farther than world 4. I am going to take a look at how much better this game is when compared to the original.

Graphics 9/10: By now, the NES was starting to produce some games that were pretty nice looking. Adventure Island 2 is no exception. The sprites are very well detailed and have lots of color to them. These sprites look amazing, and the backgrounds aren't that bad either. I thought this was a game that looked very animated. For some reason, it reminds me of something out of Pee-Wee's Playhouse. For an NES game, that is saying something! It's only an 8-bit game, but it looks more like an early 16-bit game. The backgrounds aren't quite that good, but it looks like a lot of time and effort was put into making these characters and sprites look very good.

Music 10/10: I thought Adventure Island 2 also had a very impressive soundtrack. This is a game with a lot of catchy melodies. Many of these songs stay stuck in my head well after I have quit playing the game. This game includes tracks that are very memorable. There are so many different overworld themes. It also brings in music for the underwater stages. The underground areas also have their own theme, as do the cloud levels and ice caves. Adventure Island 2 has a great library of 8-bit NES music, and all of them are very nice to listen to while you are playing through the game. The graphics and sound are two areas where this game is very strong.

Gameplay 4/10: Master Higgins is trapped on Adventure Island, and he has to collect fruit along the way through the stages to keep from running out of bars on his time meter. There are some differences for this sequel when compared to the first game that make this one more playable. One of those differences is the inventory of items that Higgins can bring into a level before he starts playing it. These items are mainly dinosaurs that he can ride that shoot fire at enemies. They also give Higgins an extra hit. The axe is also included in his item library, and its function is the same as it was in the first game.

This game also includes overworld maps of each section of Adventure Island. Although, there is no way to tell where Higgins is going next after beating a stage in this game. Many of these sections include a lot of levels. The difference is that the levels are shorter and similar in length to the levels in a game like Super Mario Bros. 3. In a lot of ways, Adventure Island 2 is very similar in design to that game which is a good thing. One of the differences is that Higgins picks up items that are found in eggs. These eggs are found in the stages. Come to think of it, the eggs contain several different surprises like: skateboards, axes, and playing cards that bring forth the dinosaurs that were mentioned earlier.

The dinosaur buddies are a nice addition to this second game. Not only do they shoot fireballs at enemies, but they also help clear the stages of boulders and other obstacles that drain Higgins' life bar. Adventure Island 2 contains a lot more surprises and goodies that weren't found in the first game. The design of the game itself is better also. The 8 islands are all unique and have their own theme. You have: an ice island, an underwater island, a desert island, a cloud island, and even a volcano island. There are some other islands as well, but I can't remember them all. I've only gotten to the ice island which brings me into the problems with this game's difficulty that really hurt it.

To start with, it's not as bad as the first game, but this is still a pretty hard game. You only get a maximum of 9 lives, and if you get a Game Over you do get to continue. However, all your items are gone, and you'll have to collect more. What's worse, you'll have to restart from the beginning of the island. That's bad considering how many stages these islands contain. The game is playable, but it can take a lot of time to get back to where you were when you last died. This makes it very hard to make progress with the game. I feel like it can be beat but not without investing a lot of time into it that I usually don't have.

I've only gotten to area 4 which is the Ice Island. I always seem to Game Over on that boss fight which leads me into another problem that slows down progress. If you die on the boss, they'll move to another part of the island meaning you'll have to play another stage in order to fight them again. Why? Adventure Island 2 has some bad game design still whenever it comes to the difficulty. It does have some pretty cool concepts and ideas, but those things are overshadowed by some pretty bad difficulty. This sequel still isn't that great whenever it comes to the gameplay.

Story 9/10: The plot for this game is pretty interesting. In the last game, Master Higgins rescued a Princess named Tina. In that game, you had a storyline that was just a rip-off of Wonder Boy, but by now, Tina is now his girlfriend. Everything is fine until she gets kidnapped again and took off to an area that includes 8 different islands ruled by an evil Witch Doctor's followers. Master Higgins basically has to fight his way through these 8 areas in order to get back his new girlfriend. So, the storyline picks up where the first game left off which is cool, and I liked how they made Tina his girlfriend for this game and were starting to develop a relationship between the two. In some ways, it isn't that much different, but I did like the connection to the previous game and the development of a new love interest for Master Higgins.

Content 8/10: Like I've mentioned before, Adventure Island 2 contains 8 different areas each with their own theme. This game is similar in length to a game like Super Mario Bros. 2. The 8 islands contain a good many levels, but the levels aren't very long. They don't have any checkpoints like in the first game, and they really don't need any. These stages can be beaten pretty quickly if you are skilled enough and can memorize their layout. For those who have beaten this game and have played through it before, there is a decent amount of content. It's not a long game, but it will keep experienced players busy for at least a little over an hour.

Difficulty 10/10: The second game of the Adventure Island series is still pretty hard! The continue system sucks! I hate how the game starts you over again with none of your items. Not only that, but why do you have to replay from the beginning of the island? I felt like by 1991, whoever developed this game (possibly Hudson Soft?) could have built in a better continue option that started you back from the beginning of the stage you last died on with all your items in-tacked. Whenever the game was ported to the Gameboy about a year later, this was improved, but for this game the difficulty really becomes a problem. The dinosaur buddies do help by giving Higgins an extra hit, but the controls still aren't that good. I just wish Hudson would have given players a better way to keep at it without having to do so much backtracking if they screwed up.

Overall 8/10: Adventure Island 2 is a lot better game overall when compared to the first game. The gameplay still is a problem, but it isn't as bad this time around. I liked how Hudson Soft developed a relationship between Master Higgins and Tina. The soundtrack was also pretty impressive and so were the graphics. The layout of the 8 islands and the overworld maps was a nice addition as well. All these little touches made the second game a game that was still hard but more playable. I guess, this would be the game for beginners to start with instead of the first one. I look forward to playing Adventure Island 3 sometime in the near future as well as some of the games in the Gameboy series as well.