Dragon's Curse

Dragon's Curse
Also known as: Adventure Island (JP) Developer: Hudson Soft Publishers: NEC (US), Hudson Soft (JP) Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Released in JP: April 19, 1991 Released in US: 1991 This game has regional differences.

Dragon's Curse is a Hudson-licensed port of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (also known as Monster World II). For some impenetrable reason, it was dubbed Adventure Island in Japan, which was also the name Hudson used for their earlier Wonder Boy port, which spawned a series of games otherwise unrelated to the Wonder Boy/Monster World series.

Don't worry about it.

Debug Passwords

A couple of hardcoded passwords exist in the game which were likely used for debugging. Due to the rearrangement of password values between versions (both games skip I, O and Q, but they differ on the inclusion of F and S), the codes are rendered as nonsense in the American version, though they still function as expected. The Japanese game also spaces out its passwords.

Adventure Island	Dragon's Curse
M0DE F0R 0000 000	N0DEG0S0000000
Form: Hu-Man (Lizard-Man available) Swords: Legendary Sword (equipped), Ivory Sword, Mithril Sword, Shogun Blade, Crystal Sword, Thunder Saber, Lucky Sword, Muramasa Blade Shields: Ivory Shield, Shogun Shield, Crystal Shield (equipped), Knight Shield Armor: Ivory Armor, Crystal Armor (equipped), Goblin Mail, Prince Armor Items: 112 gold, 2 charm stones Spells: 5 fire balls, 1 boomerang, 3 thunders Switching to Lizard-Man form will cause the player to be stuck that way, because Hu-Man form is not a normal transformation.
PLAY THE 0NGA KUN	RMAYTJE0PHALUP
Form: Piranha-Man (all forms available) Swords: Legendary Sword (equipped), Ivory Sword, Mithril Sword, Shogun Blade, Thunder Saber, Magical Saber, Lucky Sword Shields: Ivory Shield, Shogun Shield, Dancing Shield, Aqua Shield (equipped) Armor: Ivory Armor, Shogun Lamellar, Crystal Armor (equipped), Samurai Armor Items: 52 gold, 99 charm stones, 1 key Spells: 5 fire balls, 5 arrows, 3 thunders For whatever reason, this code also disables the sound effect produced when doors are opened.

(Source: GameFAQs)

Regional Differences

As noted in the intro, the histories of the Wonder Boy, Monster World and Adventure Island series are an intertwining mess. The original Adventure Island was a port of Wonder Boy, but the later games were almost all Hudson originals based on the style of the first. Conversely, the Wonder Boy series incorporated a variety of RPG elements and morphed into the Monster World series. Despite the major changes, Hudson continued to license the games for release on its own platforms and when this game's turn came, it was released in Japan as simply Adventure Island.

Besides this difference, the title screens are almost entirely unrelated. The title for Dragon's Curse is much more similar visually to that of the Master System Dragon's Trap.

Adventure Island	Dragon's Curse