When I first played Adventure Island on the NES, I found it to be a simple, yet highly enjoyable game, and so, naturally, I decided to look into the rest of the series. Little did I know that this simple inquiry would lead me down a lengthy journey to try to untangle the gordian knot that is the Wonder Boy and Adventure Island series. The family tree that spawned from Westone’s 1986 arcade game is utterly ridiculous. So come along with me as I recount my recent descent into madness, though I warn you that you may not be the same when you have finished.
Where the Story Begins
In 1986, the company Westone (then known as Escape) created an arcade game called Wonder Boy, it was a fairly basic 2D sidescroller that took heavy influence from the original Super Mario Bros but set itself apart with a heavier focus on momentum-based platforming and the need to collect fruit to fill a hunger meter. The game was published by Sega and, as part of the publishing deal, Sega would retain all rights to the characters and IP for Wonder Boy. This is fairly standard as far as arcade releases from the mid-80s go, but where this case differed is that Westone still retained the rights to the game itself, but not the Wonder Boy IP.
It was soon realized that the company could make even more money by porting the game to different platforms under other publishers so long as they called it something else and replaced the main character. In effect, the gigantic mess that the Wonder Boy and Adventure Island series would become is largely the result of a video game company trying to get as much money out of a product as possible.
Wonder Boy’s Ports
Our journey of messy ports begins with the original Wonder Boy, which was ported to the Sega SG-1000, Sega Master System, and Sega Game Gear all under different names. The SG-1000 version was called Wonder Boy and the Sega Master System version was called Wonder Boy in the US and Super Wonder Boy in Japan. This is because the Japanese Master System (also called the Mark III) was backward compatible with games for the SG-1000 and so Sega probably wanted to differentiate between the two versions of the same game that were both playable on the same system.
Then the North American Game Gear version ended up being called The Revenge of Drancon for some reason which only further confuses the issue. As stated before Westone and so they ended up selling the game minus the Wonder Boy to Hudson Soft who then ported it to the Nintendo Entertainment System and renamed it Adventure Island. The two games are nearly identical but the titular Wonder Boy has been replaced with Hudson spokesperson Takahashi Meijin (in the US version renamed to Master Higgins).
Westone Sells Off Wonder Boy
The next entry in the Wonder Boy series was Wonder Boy in Monster Land, or Super Wonder Boy: Monster World in Japan and it drastically altered the gameplay of its predecessor, turning it into more of a side-scrolling action RPG. It was at this point that Westone decided that they really liked money because they would sell the rights to Wonder Boy in Monster Land to 3 different companies who would proceed to make 4 different versions of the game under different names.
The first was Hudson who renamed it Bukkuriman World, referencing some chocolate wafer snacks, and released it as a launch title for the PC Engine (Japanese TurboGrafix-16). This approach to marketing chocolate to children proved extremely popular, to the point where kids were buying the candy just to get the stickers, and eventually resulted in several anime adaptations. Hudson essentially rom-hacked Wonder Boy in Monster Land, replacing its characters with those from Bukkuriman. To make matters even more convoluted Hudson would later create a sequel/ spin-off called Bikkuriman World: Gekito Sei Senshi for the Famicom. In the early 2000s Hudson Soft made another version of Wonder Boy in Monster World for mobile phones in Japan and this time they decided to call it Super Adventure Island, which had nothing to do with the Adventure Island series.
Saiyuki World
Another version of Wonder Boy in Monster Land was created by Jaleco for the Famicom, for this version, the game was altered to tie into the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West and called Saiyuki World. Saiyuki World would then have its own sequel called Saiyuki World 2: Tenjokai No Maijin which was unrelated to the Wonder Boy series. It was eventually brought over to the NES in North America where it was reskinned to remove all references to Journey to the West and instead utilize a Native American theme and called Womp ‘Em. To recap the game we know as Womp ‘Em for the NES is a reskin of a sequel of a reskin of a sequel. Confused yet?
Monica no Castelo Dragao
There is one last version of Wonder Boy In Monster Land we need to talk about and that is the Brazilian Master System version. In Brazil, Sega’s products are sold by a company called Techtoy and they decided to try their hand at reskinning Wonder Boy in Monster Land to make it more marketable. To that end, the characters in Monster Land were changed to those from a popular Brazilian Comic Monica and Friends with the game now called Monica no Castelo Dragao.
Originating as a series of newspaper comic strips in 1959 before spinning off into a comic book in the 1970s; Monica and Friends is about a group of children having adventures growing up in a fictional Brazilian suburban neighborhood. Those who have played Wonder Boy in Monster Land might then wonder what any of this has to do with the fantastical setting of the game. The answer is that there is no connection, though this was apparently successful enough that Techtoy would continue this for future localizations of the Wonder Boy series so this won’t be the last we see of Monica.
Splitting Wonder Boy III
The next two entries in the Wonder Boy series were called Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap respectively. Yes, two games called Wonder Boy III, though the Japanese titles are somewhat less confusingly called Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair and Monster World 2: The Dragon’s Trap. This splits the series in two based on gameplay. Monster Lair is more of a straightforward action platformer, more similar to the original game than to the action RPG Monster Land. The Dragon’s Trap is much more of a direct sequel to Wonder Boy in Monster Land and maintains its core gameplay. This, however, is only made more confusing with the next game which was released in the US as Wonder Boy in Monster World and in Japan as Wonder Boy V: Monster World III which seems to imply that both Monster Lair and The Dragon’s Trap are its predecessors.
A Mess of Ports
Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair would receive a port to the TurboGrafix-16, simply called Monster Lair. Meanwhile Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap would also receive a TG-16 port courtesy of Hudson; in the US it was called Dragon’s Curse and in Japan it was called Adventure Island. Yes, this is yet another game made by Hudson called Adventure Island and it has nothing to do with the other series. Once again when Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap was brought over to Brazil it received the Doki Doki Panic treatment and was renamed Turma no Monica em O Resgate.
The 5th entry in the series Wonder Boy in Monster World (Wonder Boy V: Monster World III in Japan) would receive two reskins; the first was predictably by Hudson for the TurboGrafix-16 where the Wonder Boy cast was replaced with original characters and the game was renamed The Dynastic Hero. Meanwhile, in Brazil, Wonder Boy in Monster World would be changed into the final game in the Monica trilogy; Monica na Terra Dos Monstros.
The next game in the series was only released for the Mega Drive in Japan and was called Monster World IV. The Wonder Boy name was dropped because this game’s protagonist was female. This led to a great deal of confusion for many living outside of Japan as it seemed that the series had suddenly jumped from Monster World to Monster World 4. Unlike almost every other game in the series, Monster World IV would never receive any altered ports or reskins. Finally, in 2018, after more than two decades of dormancy, the Wonder Boy series came back with a new entry/ spiritual successor in the form of Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.
Islands of Adventure
Next, we have the Adventure Island series which as stated previously started as a reskin of the original Wonder Boy and would end up creating its own confusing lineage. The first two sequels on the NES were called Adventure Island II and 3 however when they were ported to the Game Boy they were renamed Adventure Island and Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise respectively. This means that we now have 3 different games made by the same company called Adventure Island and 2 games named Adventure Island 2. The series would also receive an anime adaptation called Bug-tte Honey which then received its own video game adaptation called Takahashi Meijin no Bug-tte Honey. Meaning that we now have a game, adapted from an anime, adapted from a video game, which is a reskin of another game.
One more sequel would be released for the Famicom late in its life called Adventure Island IV which drastically altered the gameplay of the series to that of a non-linear action RPG. The series would make its debut on 16-bit platforms with New Adventure Island and Super Adventure Island for the TurboGrafix-16 and Super Nintendo respectively, these games weren’t so much sequels as they were remakes/reimaginings of the original Adventure Island. Later Super Adventure Island II would be released which despite its name was less a sequel to Super Adventure Island and more a follow-up to Adventure Island IV. For years this would be the last anyone would hear of the series, until 2009 when it was rebooted with Adventure Island: The Beginning for Wii.
We finally reach the end of this twisted tale. I can only hope that at least some of you made it through with your sanity intact. It should be noted that reskinning a game to appeal to the tastes of different countries or platforms was a fairly common practice in the 8 and 16-bit eras (Kemco was especially notorious for this) but never before or since has it resulted in such a tangled web of releases. I hope you were all able to learn something from this, god knows I didn’t. Now if you will excuse me I am in desperate need of a stiff drink.
