Wonder Boy series vs Adventure Island series, which is better?

[sidnotcrazy]

This is my first thread, even though I have been a member for awhile. I just got finished playing the original Wonder Boy for the Sega Master sytem, and I liked it a lot better than Adventure Island for the nes. Since they were created by the same company, but sold and changed to Hudson, and Sega I got to thinking. Since everyone is a classic gamer in this forum. Which ones do you guy/gals prefer? I am not talking about the Monster games, just the original Wonder Boy series vs Adventure Island.

Changed post to thread to reflect what I meant.

[MetalFRO]

Apples & Oranges, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, after the first in the series, they took very different paths. Wonder Boy took a pseudo-RPG mode, while Adventure Island just continued to refine & improve upon the original formula. I have always preferred the Adventure Island games due to the "pick up and play" nature of them, because I always felt as an action-RPG the 2nd and 3rd Wonder Boy games were a bit clunky, but I guess to each their own.

[megasdkirby]

Wonderboy for me.

The jump for the original to part 2 was kinda scary, but it turned out pretty good.

But Wonderboy III: Dragon's Trap sold me 100%. One of the best SMS games, or any video game, I've ever played.

[TRM]

Wonderboy. I remember the first (and only?) time I saw/played Wonderboy III, when a computer geek friend of mine emulated it on his Dreamcast (I think) and I got to play it...very cool game. The Adventure Island series for NES is decent enough, though wasn't nearly as impressive to me as WBIII was.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I'm not a big fan of either game but would probably go with Wonderboy just because it mixed the formula up a bit more than Adv Island did.

[Rev. Link]

This is my first post, even though I have been a member for awhile.

Umm.... how's that? Your history shows you have posts dating back to 2006, and this thread was created today (7/12).

Anyway, as to your question, I don't think it's fair at all to compare these series. Of course, Adventure Island was based off of the first Wonderboy, but after that Wonderboy was completely changed. So you're asking us to compare a whole series full of Adventure Island games to just one Wonderboy game. Not really very fair to Wonderboy.

That said, I'd have to pick Adventure Island for the simple fact that it controls better. I just can't stand that SMS d-pad. However, I'm pretty sure I'd pick the action-rpg style Wonderboy games over Adventure Island anyday. The Genesis game was one of my favorite games for that system.

[grolt]

I can't speak for the Adventure Island sequels, but head to head Wonder Boy is a vastly superior game to Adventure Island. The music is far more memorable, the graphics are bigger, more detailed, more colorful and smoother and the bosses and extras get the edge in the Master System version too. Every Wonder Boy game was pretty much top of its genre, always innovating and surprising with graphics, scope, music and gameplay. Alex Kidd may have been SEGA's "mascot", but the Wonder Boy series was always the one to beat in 8-bit. Adventure Island is basically just a scaled down port, I really can't see how anyone could argue it is better than the SEGA original. That said, it is better than the SG-1000 port and the subsequent hack, Adventure Kid, found on the Master System 4 Pak All Action in Australia.

As an aside, why do people always refer to the first game as "Wonderboy"? All documentation of the game (the on screen title, the box, the cartridge, promotional posters, et al.) all list it clearly as "Wonder Boy", both for the Master System and the arcade. I never see anyone say "Alexkidd" or "Supermario", so what gives?

[Berserker]

Umm.... how's that? Your history shows you have posts dating back to 2006, and this thread was created today (7/12).

Perhaps he meant first thread? Because otherwise yeah, that doesn't make any sense.


Anyways, as MetalFRO said, I believe this is a case of 'apples vs oranges'. But as far as I can tell, the OP is basically asking an unanswerable question, because the criteria of the thread title conflicts with the criteria of the post - you can't ask people to compare the Wonder Boy series to the Adventure Island series, but then specify to leave out the "Monster games", because that's where the Wonder Boy series went after the first game.

Without those games, you're basically asking us to compare one game to a series of games. So is the entire Adventure Island series better than the first Wonder Boy game? Yeah, probably. But comparing actual series-to-series is essentially just a question of genre preference, because the Wonder Boy games evolved into something completely different, so the series aren't really mutually-exclusive - you can easily appreciate both for their separate merits, and I do.

[Gapporin]

But Wonderboy III: Dragon's Trap sold me 100%. One of the best SMS games, or any video game, I've ever played.

This man speaks the truth.

[sidnotcrazy]

Perhaps he meant first thread? Because otherwise yeah, that doesn't make any sense.


Sorry guys, I meant first thread. But since I have been a member for a little while, who knows.

Man, sounds like a great discussion. I've got to pick up Wonder Boy III now.