Hudson's Adventure Island is a strange game to me. It features a guy who lives on an island, which appears to actually be several near-identical islands, he wears a loincloth and a baseball cap, his name is 'Master Higgins', and his legs wobble and gyrate around like he's scrabbling to find footing on a slippery floor (which slidy-physics to match). He has to rescue a girl from an evil witch doctor, which is just enough plot to get the game moving.
And I'm awful at it.
When Adventure Island was (relatively) new, I played it a lot. I rented it, went to friends' houses who rented or owned it, and we played and played it, never getting much past the caves in the third level. After what seemed like an entire summer of playing this game (but was probably only a few weeks) I managed to get to stage 4, kill off the witch doctor, and rescue the damsel! Or so I thought. I didn't have a manual at the time, and what I thought was the end of the game was actually the end of the first round of areas. It turns out that there are actually eight rounds. With four areas each.
I was never able to master them all.
The whole thing plays like a quarter-munching arcade game, which shouldn't be too surprising, since it's based on Wonder Boy, which is a quarter-munching arcade game, just adapted to consoles. The developers do give you the option of continuing, if you find the correct item and know the correct incantation to use it, which is pretty nice of them since shoving quarters into my NES makes it act weird.
Don't be fooled by videos you see of people playing though this game without much difficulty. The game is hard, and you will fail. A lot.
But at least you have some catchy music to offset the huge amount of frustration you're going to accrue by playing this game.
I've still never managed to finish area 2.