Sega just couldn’t get a break in the 8-bit era. Their Master System console absolutely struggled in just about every market except Europe and South America and this is because it lacked a hit as widespread and accessible as Super Mario Bros. Sega was primarily an arcade developer, and mascot based platformers weren’t a focus in this market. They eventually struck gold with Sonic the Hedgehog, but before that the best they could come up with was a quirky monkey eared youth with distinct sideburns named Alex Kidd. While this new franchise saw several installments throughout the years he was never a household name. It all started with Alex Kidd in Miracle World; a title for which I have no nostalgia and played for the first time decades after it was originally released. You’ll often hear this title being brought up in discussions of the best Master System titles but even when compared to other releases of this time it’s a little weak. To add insult to injury the game has aged rather poorly. The whole thing is pretty bad to be honest.
As can be surmised from the name alone you play as a youth named Alex Kidd. This guy grew up in Miracle World alone atop Mount Eternal where he trained himself in the art of shellcore; this allows him to break rocks and other objects with his fist. One day Alex catches wind that the nearby city of Radaxian has fallen under the tyrannical rule of Janken the Great. Being the upstanding type of guy that he is Alex sets out to overthrow this new king and restore peace. Along the way you discover that our protagonist is actually the long lost prince of this kingdom, and his elder brother has been taken prisoner. For a platformer of this era there’s a surprising amount of dialogue, but it’s poorly written and boring. The game itself is a side scroller where you guide Alex from the start of each stage to the end where a rice ball awaits him. He relies on his fists to destroy specific blocks, and it’s also the default attack against foes. In an odd twist jumping on enemy’s heads is ineffective and harms our hero. It’s unconventional but I guess it works.
The first issue rears its head almost immediately. Alex dies from a single hit, and there’s no common power-up that alleviates this issue. Thankfully you restart near where you died, but it’s still a little annoying in my opinion. The enemy army generally consists of animals like scorpions, frogs, bats and other animals. There are two separate types of boss encounters awaiting you at the end specific stages. The first is a standard style of encounter wherein you simply punch your foe a specific number of times to win. These are a little too easy in my opinion because these bosses are knocked back with each hit, and can only damage you mid-charge. The second of these encounters consists of a simple game of jan-ken-pon (rock, paper and scissors to us English speakers). You simply use the directional pad to make your choice and have only until the music ends to do so. The best of two matches is the winner (losing costs you a life) and the random nature of this is annoying. It messes with the pacing, and feels altogether too random. As you play you will discover patterns to alleviate the frustration, but it still feels highly out of place.
In the same vein as coins in the Super Mario Bros. series Alex Kidd collects varying sizes of money bags scattered throughout each stage. These are often in plain sight, but can sometimes only be revealed by punching blocks. Instead of only serving the purpose of granting extra lives Alex spends this money in the various shops located around Miracle World. These are used to purchase power-ups which include vehicles and more. The former of these include a motorbike (which is an obvious but failed attempt to make the mascot ‘cool’), a speedboat that travels across water, and a pedal operated helicopter granting our cutesy hero the ability of flight. One touch from an enemy and you lose these, but they’re really cool in my opinion. In some stages you’re granted these off the bat, and rather than simply dying when you lose them you instead drop down to another more difficult section of the stage in question. The other power-ups are interesting to say the least. One throws a shield over Alex, another creates miniature clones of the hero which damage foes, and another is your typical invincibility item. These are pretty cool actually.
Unfortunately the level designs are really weak. There’s very little variety (even despite underwater stages and the aforementioned vehicles) and by around the third stage it becomes pretty obvious that the developers ran out of creativity. There’s a noticeable lack of variety, and it’s easy to see now why Alex Kidd never took off as the face of Sega. Unfortunately the controls leave a lot to be desired. For some reason the developers went against the norm by using button 1 to jump and button 2 to punch. It makes little sense especially in the wake of Super Mario Bros. In addition the physics are problematic. The momentum just doesn’t feel right, and the jump button is often unresponsive when you’re running. I found myself frequently falling off of cliffs or running into enemies when I know good and well that I pushed the button in time. Because of these issues it feels like Alex Kidd was half baked and rushed to the market.
At least the graphics are colorful and pleasant. The world is extremely colorful and although the art style is a little on the plain side the developers at least managed to take advantage of the hardware with vibrant colorization. Unfortunately the backgrounds generally lack detail and primarily consist of a single color. There is also a noticeable lack of stage themes, and by the end the whole thing kind of blended together in a way that I wasn’t even able to remember specific stages. The developers did try to impart some charm on to this title in the form of an animated sequence wherein Alex is eating rice balls while on the world map screen. This managed a smile out of me, but it’s the only graphical effect I found particularly memorable. The pastel style feels a little ‘off’ in a way I can’t explain. Alex Kidd in Miracle World kind of looks like the myriad of freeware platformers you could download on your PC in the mid 90s. The soundtrack is also a little on the boring side. I played this game right before starting this review, and I actually had to fire it up again just so that I could recall the soundtrack. That should tell you all that you need to know. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is hardly impressive aesthetically.
Alex Kidd was born to compete with Mario, and there’s a good reason why we’re all still playing for latter instead of the former. Even by 8-bit standards this is a low tier platformer title. Even Psycho Fox (which was also released on the Master System) is a superior title. I’m a little confused as to why anyone even remembers this title, let alone still references it when discussing the best titles on the system. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a very mediocre title, and no one should feel bad for having never played it.
