Fruit cocktail time! With all the pineapples, bananas and melons to collect, this game's a right tropical burst. SHADES is the only ALLPCGAMEr fruity enough to handle it!It's terrible when you can't sit and have a snog with your girlfriend for tear of her being turned into stone. It always happens, just as you get to the exciting bit! Well it does to Wonderboy anyway, and he's well cheesed off.
Of course, rescuing his loved one's not as easy as toddling off to the nearest police station and telling them a demon has swiped her. He's got to go on a dangerous quest to free the fair maiden and battle against hoards of evil beings — collecting lots of fruit along the way.
This super adventure on an island takes our hero over sandy beaches, through spooky caves and rock-hopping over treacherous seas. If this weren't difficult enough, all these locations are full of crusty snails, hissing snakes, rolling boulders and other similarly terrifying
creatures that zap away the energy bar with one touch.
Fruity frolics!
The fruit offerings replenish Wonderboy's energy one bar at a time and other icons give axes and boomerangs to throw. Collect enough weapon power-ups and they turn into a super zapper that disposes of any foes instantly. There are hidden icon secrets in most levels giving access to a cloud level with piles of bonuses. Finding them isn't easy though - they're invisible!
The Wonderboy games have been highly successful on every format imaginable. The arcade game was brilliant — I spent bucketsful' of ten pences trying to complete it one summer holiday! They all stick to the same format with multiple sections to each level and a big end-of-level beast to defeat. These are a piece of cake to destroy initially, but after making it through the first few levels you start begging for mercy!
"Full of wild and wacky levels and high on playability"
Tasty Technicolor!
All these platform games are bursting with gorgeous, Technicolored backdrops and detailed sprites — Super Adventure island is no exception. The main Wonderboy graphic's rather odd though — he's got a weird brown line down the one side of his mouth and looks like he's body-popping when he throws something!
There's a wide variety of difficulty levels — it's a cinch up to the end of Level Three, then you face a particularly beastly dragon! It zooms around the level with you on its back while you attempt to dodge lava flows — crazy!
One of the crowd
Platform games like this are cropping up everywhere. Programmers have got to put something new into theirs to make it stand out.
Super Adventure Island has some impressive between-level sequences with Wonderboy wallowed by whales and getting into scrapes. These really bump up the playability rating — you want to complete a level to see what might be around the corner! All platform game fans should take a look at Super Adventure Island It's full of wild and wacky levels and high on playability. Things get frustrating now and then, but you want to keep coming back for more. Loada fun!
SHADES 89%
Verdict: 87/100
