Adventure Island

Wonder Boy similarities

Although the games are indeed identical, Adventure Island is not exactly a "blatant rip-off" of Wonder Boy. The original arcade Wonder Boy game was developed by a company called Escape, who later became known as Westone. Hudson optioned the rights from Escape for a NES port of the game, but SEGA still owned the Wonder Boy title, forcing Hudson to come up with a new title for the NES version, hence Adventure Island. In that version, Wonder Boy was replaced by Master Higgins, who was patterned after then-Hudson Soft executive and public figure Toshiyuki Takahashi (also known as Takahashi Meijin).