Definitely preferable to the first game, and in turn to the first Wonder Boy, but this really feels like a game that should have come out about three years earlier. 1991 was pretty late into the NES' lifespan, Mario 3 had been out for years, and even Wonder Boy, which the Adventure Island games had originally spun off from, had already cranked out the fantastic Dragon's Trap a couple years prior. This game doesn't really do anything wrong, but I just can't see any reasons why you'd choose to play this over any of its contemporaries, even on the same system.
Also it's really funny to me how one of this game's advertising hooks was that it has horizontal and vertical scrolling. In 1991, they tried to use that as a selling point. Not to mention they advertise a stage select, which as far as I can tell is a straight-up lie. There's a world map, but I never found a way to navigate it beyond just pressing 'A' to advance to the next level.
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