Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
1990 Sega Sega Master System Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is sadly the last in the Alex Kidd (obviously) saga. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World stays true the Alex Kidd style and is a 2D platformer set in various locations. Whilst doing some research in and around Alex Kidd in Shinobi World for this review, I discovered something that I never noticed as a kid playing this game; Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a parody of the 1987 game Shinobi. There you have it, not interesting, but true! Alex Kidd in Shinobi World begins with Alex Kidd and his girlfriend making out in a field (aaw), the sky grows dark and the dark ninja Hanzo appears after a 10,000 year hiatus and kidnaps Alex’s girlfriend and plans to use her in his evil scheme to take over the world. Oh no! Luckily, the good ninja also appears and shares his abilities with Alex via possession, because Alex doesn’t need no montage and Alex sets out on his quest to rescue his loved one. As I mentioned above, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a 2D platformer as was the norm at this time. There are 4 very different levels or ‘rounds’ in this case, each round broken down into 2 levels and a boss fight. Each level follows the standard get from A to B via overcoming various enemies and puzzles. Each round is significantly different and increases in difficulty accordingly. Round 1 is set in city, very few puzzles, it is more about learning the games processes and navigating simple enemies. The most testing of which are the guys throwing knives in a boomerang fashion and the odd ninja throwing stars to catch you off guard, although these are easily deflected with the sword power-up. Round 2 begins in a harbour and introduces many new ideas, such as swimming and annoying barracuda enemies that take two hits to kill. Level 3 traverses a waterfall, gardens and a cave, using all the skills learnt in the first 2 rounds to complete and different the Robster final boss. A boss that is a lobster, that jumps and spits what looks like chips/fries into the air, nope, I don’t know what they were smoking either, but it’s pretty cool if you ask me! Round 4 is mixture of everything that you’ve encountered so far in the game, complete with a zombie at the end of the first level, which 26 years on, still manages to catch me by surprise. Graphically and sonically, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a vast improvement on Alex Kidd in Miracle World. The sprite for Alex himself is much bigger and clearer with each round much more detailed moving away from the almost fully block colours of Alex Kidd in Miracle World to a detailed pallet using various colours for each pixel to give more detail. A great example of this is during round 3 at the waterfall, each colour moving to give the illusion of running water, something of which wouldn’t be mastered until 16bit a few years later. During my research I found that the music for Alex Kidd in Shinobi World was a remix of the original Shinobi score, which is pretty cool as the music seems to pay homage to the 70s era martial arts movies in all its 8bit glory. Yeah, the tunes are repetitive, yet for some reason, you’ll be humming them for days. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World has great replayability, although, if push comes to shove, I would choose Alex Kidd in Miracle World hands down. I often felt with Alex Kidd in Shinobi World that jumping could at times be challenging, the slide upon landing could be difficult to gauge, which would often leave you taking damage or losing a life entirely. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World contains one of the most annoying end of round bosses – the end of round 2, the Heli encounter can be a pain to do without being hit, especially if you’re going for a perfect run. All in all, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a great little game, it’s relatively easy and short, a little too short in my personal opinion which brings the series to a bit of an anticlimactic end. However, a little more appreciation for the game was had recently, learning about the parody of Shinobi, which brings a nice smile to my face. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a fun game that can easily be used to fill a loose hour here and there. 7/10 Adam
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Alex Kidd in Miracle World
1986 Sega Sega Master System Alex Kidd in Miracle World was the very first game that yours truly ever played. It was built into the Sega Master System II back in 1990. Alex Kidd in Miracle World follows the little 8bit simian protagonist Alex Kidd in a quest to free his brother Prince Egle and free the Kingdom of Radaxian from the evil tyrant Janken the Great. As with a lot of the games from this era, Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a side scrolling platform game based on getting from A to B via overcoming enemies and puzzles to collect rice cakes at the end of the level. Although, for those of us who didn’t emulate the game and played the built in version tried to appeal to the western market by changing the rice cake to a hamburger. This aside, Alex Kidd in Miracle World has held up extremely well, being as fun and fresh as it was 30 years ago. Miracle World doesn’t change templates too many times, generally opting for a land, water and castle template with the addition of a cave, yet, you can’t hold this against an 8-bit game. However, what I can hold against Alex Kidd in Miracle World is the sheer amount of silly deaths caused by my own lapses in concentration or overshooting a jump. As expected with any 8-bit game Alex Kidd in Miracle World is graphically repetitive, using square pixels, as was the norm at this time, but does the best it can with the limited technology of the time. The colour pallet is very vibrant and bright and somewhat still nicely appealing. It was a pleasant change to play something bright and colourful for a change. I think that I’d forgot some of these colours existed with the massive pallet available, plus the shading and rendering of modern games. I think the sounds and FX of Alex Kidd in Miracle World will be ingrained in my memory for all time. The repetitive 8-bit tunes which enter you into an almost trance like state. Although the music does not deviate from the same 3 scores, it does seem to melt away in the background eventually, only noticing it as the level changes or you die. The FX are very of their time, pings of money being collected, the long drawn ‘oooooops’ of a character jumping and the familiar crunch of an enemy exploding and disappearing. What a thoroughly enjoyable experience it was the replay this specific game from my youth as this is where it all started and therefore, this review is biased. It’s funny how little you actually forget at times, during the Janken matches or rock, paper, scissors for us non-Miracle World people, I somehow seemed the remember all the combinations for Stone-Head, Scissors-Head, Paper-Head (see what they did there?) and Janken the Great. Adding time on for screenshots and uploading the progress to Twitter, the clock time for Alex Kidd in Miracle World was 2:07, which may seem short compared to modern games, but Alex Kidd in Miracle World has an almost infectious replayability to it. Of course, Alex Kidd in Miracle World is very of its time, a short game and in all honesty, not as challenging as I remember, but, wow, I had fun tonight, Alex Kidd in Miracle World holds up so well and I could easily play it again tonight, tomorrow and in the future, which I find a lot of modern games lack and even by Alex Kidd in Miracle World’s rivals of the time, I would say it would take Wonderboy III: The Dragon’s Trap or the emergence of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Master System to challenge this almost flawless platformer. 9/10 |
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