A playthrough of Bandai's 1990 license-based action-adventure game for the NES, The Adventures of Gilligan's Island.

The Adventures of Gilligan's Island is one of those all-but-forgotten NES games that was based on a show that was being run in syndication in the late 1980s, but unlike a lot of the license-based dreck released for the system, this one is actually worth playing.

Each of the game's four stages is posed as an episode of the show, and they each have their own specific objectives you have to fulfill to move on. As the Skipper, accompanied by your ever-faithful companion Gilligan, you'll have to search each area for the professor, the Howells, and Mary Ann. They'll give you a task - usually to collect an item or to talk to someone - and once you've gone back and forth enough between them, you'll be given a weapon so that you can go fight the boss of the episode.

The levels are fairly large and open-ended, but the game kindly provides you a map that marks people's locations as you find them, so getting lost is rarely a concern. The enemies don't provide much of a threat, either, so the entire experience tends to have a pretty laid back, chill vibe that suits the island setting well.

From what I've read around the internet, Gilligan's Island doesn't seem to have many fans, but I do think a lot of people are quick to dismiss it before they've taken the time to figure it out.

The entire game is something of an escort mission, and you can only make progress if Gilligan is with you. He's usually pretty good at keeping up as long as you wait for him before moving to another screen, and you keep in mind that you need to lead him into a cave before you yourself enter. His AI does occasionally bug out, but whenever he's uncooperative, you can simply use a rope from your inventory to make him instantly reappear at your side.

People also seem to have an issue with the fighting and the game's collision detection, but I think they're just fine. You aren't meant to be fighting most of the time, after all. You can punch birds and people, sure, but you aren't supposed to be attacking the random animals, and since you're invincible when you jump, there's no need to. The bosses can be a bit tricky until you figure out their weak points, but after that they go down pretty easily.

My favorite part of the game is its sense of humor. The dialog gets a bit repetitive at times, but some of these lines are pretty LOL-worthy, like this bit from the beginning of the first episode:

Skipper: "It looks like a storm is coming tonight. We're going to have to build..."

Gilligan: "A large umbrella."

Skipper: "Shut up, Gilligan!"

Many of the characters have their fun moments, but Mr. Howell has to be my favorite. He's so endearingly snarky and misogynistic in his quaint 1960s way that I couldn't help but laugh at the things he says about his wife.

Ginger is missing in action, though. I'd assume that Human or Bandai weren't able to secure the rights to use her likeness, but it feels a bit strange that they don't mention her existence once over the course of the game.

The Adventures of Gilligan's Island is a neat little game that's simple, easy to play, and does a nice job at capturing the spirit of the show. If you want something relaxing and a bit offbeat to play, it might be worth a look. I really enjoyed it.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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