Treasure Island Dizzy – Codemasters - 1989 - First time playing?: Yes!

Dizzy is an egg. This egg went on a cruise around the world with Long John Silver, but after setting up a cricket game on the deck using Long John’s peglegs and accidentally throwing them all overboard, he was made to walk the plank and ended up on a desert island. This egg really is not very smart. Yes, Dizzy, playing with prosthetic limbs that a disabled person needs in order to be able to walk is a dick move. You kinda had this coming.

Now, this isn't my first time playing a Dizzy game. Several years ago I played and completed Fantasy World Dizzy on Amiga and remember quite enjoying it, some frustration aside. Treasure Island Dizzy however? I hadn't played this one until now and… wow, this game is irritating. I’m glad I know the series gets better first-hand. Although this is the second game in the Dizzy series, it’s the first game in the series to be released on Amiga, so we’re starting here.

The Dizzy games can be classified as platformers, but they're actually quite a bit more unconventional than that label conveys. They're open, explorative and non linear games set in a single large interconnected world akin to a metroidvania, but unlike those games, Dizzy’s moveset is limited to moving left and right and jumping (with the additional caveat that he does mid-air somersaults when he jumps, and if he lands upside down he will then roll forward a bit further than where he landed in order to get back up on his feet) and he never gains any additional abilities that allow him to explore the game world further. Instead, progression in Dizzy is achieved via inventory management and puzzle solving akin to an adventure game. Dizzy can hold up to three items at once and you'll need to figure out the specific usage for each item. For instance, the first puzzle involves picking up an empty treasure chest and placing it next to a high ledge in order to use the chest as a stepladder. Other items provide passive effects as long as they're in your inventory, such as the snorkel allowing you to explore underwater without drowning. Owing to the Amiga’s one-button joystick standard, there's a single button used for both dropping and using an item, so if you attempt to use an item when there's nothing to use it on, Dizzy will drop it instead.

The main objective here is to escape the deserted island. There's only one other character on this island, that being a salesman on the far right end of the map. He will sell you a boat to escape the island with if you bring him a treasure, of which there are four on the island. Naturally, you can't get away with just collecting one treasure, so then the shopkeeper sells the motor, the petrol and even the bloody ignition key all separately, requiring all four treasures to be found and then traded. Then, even once you've built the ship and escaped the island, the bastard salesman is waiting for you on the other shore, not letting you go any further until you pay him tax for using the boat, requiring you to also pay him all 30 gold coins that are hidden across the island. Dizzy isn't even allowed to keep any of the treasure he finds in this game called Treasure Island Dizzy. Sucks, huh?

Now, although this salesman may be the most hateable character I've seen in a video game since Moneybags from the Spyro series, this setup isn't awful. As I said, the Dizzy games are very non-linear, and this objective of finding the treasures in any order you want suits the exploration focused gameplay. There is a genuinely satisfying sense of discovery from figuring out where to use every item and venturing into those hidden caverns that hold the treasures you're searching for. Dizzy is still finding its footing with this game, but the foundation is there for a unique take on the platforming genre. It's just, uh… everything else that lets the game down.

There's a lot of problems with the inventory system in Treasure Island Dizzy, some of which were ironed out in Fantasy World Dizzy. First off, your inventory is managed entirely with a single button. Not even the joystick is used. How are you supposed to select which of your three items you want to use then? Simple answer: you don't. Any time you pick up an item it is always placed at the bottom of your inventory list up on the HUD. If you pick up another item, then the items already in your inventory are all moved up an inventory slot in order to make room for the new item at the bottom of your inventory. If you have a full inventory and then pick up another item, the item at the top of your inventory list will be automatically dropped in order to make room for it. You can also only use the item at the top of your inventory list, so if the item you need is at the bottom of your inventory, you're going to have to drop and pick back up your other inventory items in order to reshuffle your inventory and push the item you need to the top of the list. Of course, if you use the item in the wrong spot, then you'll drop the item you were trying to use instead as the ‘drop’ and ‘use’ functions are mapped to the same button, so now you need to pick it back up again and likely reorder your inventory yet again.

Furthermore, the three item limit is a huge pain, as a result of the game frequently requiring you to have other items in your inventory in order to not die. About a third into the game you get access to the snorkel, and from that point on you need to keep that snorkel in your inventory for the majority of the game, as much of the remaining gameplay consists primarily of carrying items on opposite sides of the map back and forth across the ocean, and Dizzy will die instantly in water without the snorkel. Also, don’t drop the snorkel underwater. If the item you need to use is below the snorkel in your inventory, you’re going to have to go back to dry land to reorder your inventory again. So now you only have two inventory slots to work with which results in even more backtracking. There's also a fire-proof suit that also takes up an inventory slot, and you're required to use it in an area that you can only escape by swimming with the snorkel, so in that instance you instead only have one free inventory slot to work with.

Backtracking also sucks because it tends to involve a lot of waiting around. For instance, the only escape route out of the cavern under the grave on the right side of the map. There is a passageway where an anglerfish is slowly patrolling the length of the screen back and forward. When the anglerfish goes all the way to the left, there's a few brief seconds when the anglerfish is off-screen, and that's when Dizzy can exit through the left exit of the passageway, as the anglerfish just doesn't exist for those few seconds it's off screen for. This means that every time you go through this passage you'll have to sit there and wait for the anglerfish to patrol the whole screen before it's safe to go.

Treasure Island Dizzy is often called a hard game, and I'm inclined to agree and disagree. You have a single life to beat the entire game with and Dizzy dies in a single hit. There's no save system either, so one slipup will result in you losing all progress and having to start the entire game all over again. This is especially nasty because several instant kill traps are off-screen or invisible until you stumble into their trigger spot. You may be walking along a completely ordinary and harmless looking bridge, only to have Dizzy suddenly get locked in place as an off-screen cage falls over him and causes an instant game over. No, you can't move out of the way of the cage; the second you step underneath it, you're already doomed as the game takes control away from you while the cage falls down. Other things just look harmless even though they're not. Those torches in the background? Yeah, they actually kill you instantly.

The thing is, the platforming is simple even with the rolling gimmick taken into consideration and the hazards are sparse, slow moving and predictable. It's actually pretty dull. A genuinely difficult game can be many things; exciting, thrilling, or on the other hand, frustrating and stressful. ‘Boring’ is not usually a word I'd use for a hard game but here we are. Most of Treasure Island Dizzy’s deaths are primarily the result of beginner’s traps; off-screen hazards and trial and error puzzles that kill you if you do a step wrong. As long as you remember the locations of these traps and don't zone out from boredom as a result of the excessive backtracking you have to do throughout the game, every hazard is very easily avoided. However, since death is sudden, you only have one life and all it takes to lose all progress in an instant is falling asleep at the wheel and forgetting that there's an off screen cage that will drop down on you and result in an immediate game over if you step on a specific unmarked section of a platform, I still found myself zoning out and bumbling into instant death traps I knew better than to fall for.

One such example of a trap I kept falling for was this harmless looking school of tiny fish. Yes, these are still enough to kill Dizzy. Much like the anglerfish mentioned earlier, these fish slowly patrol left and right across the screen. The problem is, they are positioned right above a rocky incline you're required to jump up in order to climb it, and the fish are off-screen when you make that jump. The end result? There's a good chance you'll jump up that incline, only to instantly be killed by the fish that were waiting right above you the whole time. The trick here is that when the fish are off-screen, they stay in the exact same position you last saw them in until they're back on screen again, after which they continue their patrol. So, any time you are on the screen with the fish, you need to make sure they swim to a position out of the way of harm before leaving that screen, to ensure they don't instantly end your run later.

For a game where you are punished by losing absolutely all of your progress if you slip up once, the game also requires a fair amount of violations of common sense. Leaps of faith for instance are often required to get key items. Furthermore, in spite of the game training you to assume absolutely everything that moves wants to kill you, there's actually a few enemies that you need to jump into in order to beat the game. These purple flies drop coins when you jump into them, and in spite of one of the anglerfish killing you, there's another identical anglerfish that will instead swallow you whole, allowing you to retrieve a coin inside its stomach and then just leave back out through the mouth. So, Treasure Island Dizzy expects you to try jumping into every enemy in the game, in spite of the fact that nearly all of them result in an immediate game over.

The game is just… annoying. The enemies are annoying because they're slow and it's boring waiting for them to move out of harm's way. The jumping mechanics are annoying since Dizzy rolling forward after landing a jump doesn't really add anything other than requiring you to land further back on the platform in order to avoid rolling off it. The inventory system is annoying because it requires reshuffling the order of items throughout the entire game while also restricting where you can reshuffle those items since you'll drown underwater if you drop the snorkel. The backtracking is annoying as the amount of back and forth you need to do in order to get items from one side of the island to another ends up tripling how long the game takes to beat with dull filler that consists of nothing but traversing the same screens you've already seen a million times. The one-hit kills and only having a single life are annoying because those game overs result in even more boring backtracking across the island now that you've lost all your progress. Heck, even the story is annoying due to Dizzy being frankly unsympathetic and the salesman being so utterly hateable.

Sometimes it's the outsider perspective that makes your feelings on a game more clear. As my girlfriend saw me slumped in my computer chair, numbed by boredom and sounding on the verge of falling asleep, she asked me a piercing question. “Is ‘Egg’ not enjoyable? It looks like ‘Egg’ might not be enjoyable.” Honestly, my vampiric queen? Yes. The doll does not enjoy ‘Egg’. That's the review. Play Fantasy World Dizzy instead. It's not a perfect game and has some similar shortcomings to Treasure Island Dizzy here and there, but it's a much better execution of the platformer/adventure game hybrid formula.

- Page written by MSX_POCKY, 9th December 2025