Super Adventure Island (高橋名人の大冒険島, Takahashi Meijin no Daibōken Jima, "Master Takahashi's Great Adventure Island") is a side-scrolling platform game by Hudson Soft released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992 and later re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console download service in 2011. It was the first Adventure Island game released for the SNES and came out between the releases of the NES games Adventure Island II and Adventure Island 3. It was later followed by Super Adventure Island II. The game's soundtrack was composed by Yuzo Koshiro.
An unrelated game also titled Super Adventure Island (新高橋名人の冒険島, Shin Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima) was released for mobile phones between 2004 in Japan and 2005 in North America. It is a remake of Wonder Boy: Monster Land, which was previously ported to the PC Engine by Hudson as Bikkuriman World.
Other than the improved visuals and audio as a result of the switch of hardware to the SNES, the rules of the game are not much different from the original Adventure Island. Although released shortly after Adventure Island II for the NES, Master Higgins' dinosaur companions are not present in this installment. However, Higgins now has a choice between two weapons: the standard stone axe from previous games and a boomerang (which was later introduced in Adventure Island 3). Whereas the axe can only be tossed left or right, Higgins can shoot the boomerang in four directions (up and down, as well as left and right). When Higgins first picks a weapon, he can only toss one shot at a time. By picking up the same weapon in a row, Higgins can toss up to three shots consecutively. When Higgins picks a fourth weapon of the same kind, his shots will turn into fireballs, which are more powerful and capable of destroying stones. At this point, when the player switches from axes to boomerangs or vice versa, the fireball effect will remain in place until the player loses a life. While Higgins has lost the ability to run faster in this game, he has gained the ability to crouch, which can be followed up with a super-jump. During gameplay, Master Higgins must collect tropical fruit in order to keep his life bar from depleting; he also can acquire a skateboard which will allow him to travel across the stage faster.
