While Adventure Island 2 was a marked step up from the slippery, rushed feeling debut, itself more or less a nominal adaptation of the earlier Wonder Boy title, Adventure Island 3 adopts the general framework of its direct predecessor and cranks the difficulty a fair bit. Given the challenging nature of the series as a whole, 3 will result in many a gray hair and smashed controller, albeit not in an unfair manner. Feeling more like a glove slap to the face by a worthy opponent as opposed to the sucker punch delivered by some of the NES' more brutal representations, Adventure Island 3 retains the high standard for one last true island-hopping excursion before the series lost the plot entirely.
The primary hook from Adventure Island 2 remains, with each island consisting of a bevy of stages, all of which you will NOT visit on a single playthrough. The path Higgins takes is not always the most linear, but what is consistent is that you will visit around half a dozen stages before finally intercepting the island boss, whose location is static (unlike Adventure Island 2). Stages exhibit variety based on a number of "themes" like oak forests, dank caves and the particularly creative and harrowing waterfall platforming sections.
Players will be forced to keep moving thanks to the return of the creative "timer" that requires Higgins continue eating fruit, lest he collapse from starvation. The existence of this hardly registers with the player at all until the final island, during which many of the levels must be Zerg-rushed in order to squeeze past the finish line before the timer expires. The problem is that this is hard to gauge until you've failed one or twice, meaning that extra lives will exhausted quickly without previous experience. Adventure Island 3 becomes one hell of a challenge once you reach the ice island, since the snowy stages are by far the most challenging.
Dinosaur companions and the ability to carry over items helps temper some of this challenge, resulting in a final experience that retains the near-legendary status that Adventure Island 2 has. I would say that this game feels slightly redundant, mainly due to the fact that most of the sprites are copied from 2, along with the music and more. The music itself is of high quality, but there aren't enough tracks. The best song by far is the forest theme, which is bouncy and infectious. The ending also jumps the shark to a degree, but you'll be so blinded by adrenaline once you make it that far that it likely won't register until after the fact. Speaking of facts, what is indisputable is the quality of Adventure Island 3. A NES platforming gem.