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The Adventure Island (NES) series has a twisted case of mistaken lover identity.

The star of Adventure island is Master Higgins (known in Japan as Takahashi Meijin) and he has a regular islander girlfriend called Tina. Remember that name.

1.
When the first game was localized, the instruction manual changed the name of Higgins' girlfriend to Princess Leilani. This chubby raggedy character is dating a princess, who also looks as raggedy as him. Okay. She isn't really a princess though, and there's a problem with that name too: the game's own ending called her Tina!

2.
So for the sequel, the instruction manual tried to do damage control, and instead made it worse. The story states that Leilane is safe, but now it's her sister that has been kidnapped. Guess the sister's name? Tina!
The game's ending, again, says you rescued Tina which kind of matches the story in the manual, but it also shows Higgins and Tina hugging and kissing. So if Tina is allegedly the sister, why are they both making out?

3.
For the third game, whoever is witting the instruction manuals at Hudson must be climbing the walls going insane about the deep rift he has created in the lore. So instead of just coming clean, he now fucking changes the name of the girl to Jeannie Jungle! Here's a hint: it's still fucking Tina!!

4.
Now we come to Super Adventure Island. The manual says Higgins is still with Jeannie (who's really Tina). Okay, at least he was consistent there.

5.
The big F-U comes in Super Adventure Island 2. The manual says Higgins dumped Jeannie for Tina, even though the actual game (again) only shows Tina.


So according the manuals, he first hooked up with Leilani, then hooked up with her sister Tina, then dumped her for Jeannie, then dumped her for Tina. Even though they are all really Tina. Jesus Christ.

She has always been Tina, the games have always called her Tina, but the crackhead(s) that wrote the manual created a hodge·podge of philanderist relationships that caused a rift in the time-space continuum and no one noticed it until now. You know, Tina, we really are in the dark timeline.
 
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LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
Wow, that's all sorts of messed up. At least the worst Mario did was accidentally use Princess Toadstool's Japanese name once or twice until they decided "screw it, let's just call her that anyway."
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
You mean to tell me that the series that's a spinoff of Wonder Boy has a convoluted naming scheme?!
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Ha. Never realized that. Pretty hilarious - I never paid attention to the manual (actually, I've probably never read the manuals) and just assumed they were all Tina, as intended.
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
Honestly this is one of those cases where renaming the dude from Takahashi Meijin to Master Higgins hurts the game's lore a bunch.
22920.jpg


This is the face of a man who can definitely hit the button 16 times per second iykwim
 
Honestly this is one of those cases where renaming the dude from Takahashi Meijin to Master Higgins hurts the game's lore a bunch.
22920.jpg


This is the face of a man who can definitely hit the button 16 times per second iykwim
They got the mouth right, alright.
 
Going to use this thread to say Adventure Island IV is fun if you haven't played it before. It seems like a Metroidvania, but I would hesitate to really call it one since each new ability you get is only used in the level you obtain it and then used to open the way to the next level. It is never used again after that. So it's more like getting elaborate key cards. Still, it's much more interesting than Adventure Island 2/3.

Super Adventure Island 2 is similarly odd. Seems like a Zelda 2/Metroidvania type game, but it's actually fairly restrictive and gated as to what you can do and when.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
This is the face of a man who can definitely hit the button 16 times per second iykwim

.... I feel like a terrible person for it but now I can’t stop wondering if the RL Takahashi Meijin ever used this as a pick-up line.
 
That was Takahashi Meijin all along?

Son of a.

Childhood rumors swore it was Higgins from Magnum P.I. thrown through a time warp into the past and he 'went native' and all he had to prove of time travelling was the contemporary hat. UGH. The amount of bullshitting a bunch of kids had to go through to whitewash a Japanese shmup master...
 
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