Super Adventure Box Aka Why I’m Not Leaving Gw2
A first impressions article on the April special surprise from Guild Wars two.
Guild Wars 2 had made mention of an April Fools Day gag called the Super Adventure Box, and unexpectedly while I was out in the field questing it launched a day early. Our first clue of this was when we saw a big treasure chest just lying in the field, which upon opening we were attacked by killer 8-bit sprite frogs. I lit up the guild chat with cries of “What the heck is this” and “This is frickin’ awesome!” and soon after, The Super Adventure Box achievements popped up on the corner of our screens.
I was already in a good mood at this point, but it did not match the mind blowing awesome that was the actual Super Adventure Box.
When you and your friends enter the instance you are greeted by blocky 8-bit graphics in a 3-d world, with a cloudy walkway leading to the gatekeeper who bars entry until you feed him a coin from the nearby coin machine. The whole thing felt like a minecraft level that was designed to be used in the Guild Wars engine. Shortly after that, we started level 1, and get our story.
The characters are on a picnic with a princess who is kidnapped by an evil dark knight. The whole thing feels like some weird mashup of Zelda and Ghosts and Goblins, with text boxes appearing that are written and ‘voiced’ in gibberish. After that a shopkeeper shows up and gives us our mighty pointy sticks to aid our fight against evil.
What proceeded to follow was a series of jumping puzzles through a world of three hearts, five lives, and continue coins to keep playing when you lose.
Good Game NCSoft, you have won.
