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After the release of a few titles such as Altered Beast, Sega decided to bring the Kidd back for another try. Did it work? Was it able to reproduce the fantastic charm of the original or did it flop like the abbominable Alex Kidd in High-Tech World? Read the full review for more details.
9/10?!! Ok, the game's OK, but how can you justify that score??
All it involves is walking, dying, walking, dying, play janken, dying, walking, dying,jumping,dying....
piece of shit
miracle world is the best there is
I think a 9/10 is a little bit optimistic for this game :)
however I've been playing it a little recently and I think it's not quite as bad as some of the user ratings make it out to be either, Alex Kidd games were very inconsistant quality wise from the start, but if I were to split Alex Kidd games into good and bad categories I think this would still get into the good one with Miracle World and Shinobi World.
I think that the main problem with this game is that it carries over some of the lessor aspects of Miracle World (unaccessible controls that take a while to get used to, no energy bar) whilst adding a whole load of new problems too many Janken matches (having to play janken just to get items is a bit much) terrible flying kick move (It was better just to punch people in mid-air before)
But, losing a Janken match no longer loses you a life, only money, and the money in the game is very easy to come by so unless you're ultra unlucky you should be able to get items half the time, also items seem more widespread and can be accumulated easily which makes the worse controls and jumping kick less of an issue as you can collect money on the 1st stage and buy the shooting power-up pretty fast meaning that you no longer have to worry about punching or kicking the enemies as you can just run around shooting everyone (until you lose it)
hit detection I think is terrible
bump for the original cover artwork:
http://media.guardiana.net/full_covers/0/1/76.jpg
when I first played this I was just coming off the master system, so enchanted castle was still pretty cool to me, nice review.
I made a wallpaper of this guy recently, such good memories of the big eared guy..
http://hgutl.com/wp-content/uploads/...0-1024x640.jpg
This is certainly one of the worse Genesis launch titles. It's by far worse than Miracle World, even the 1989 arcade games are better...
On the same token, I don't like Miracle World either. It had some innovative ideas for such an old game, but the slippery controls and physics, one hit deaths, lack of a decent weapon early on and the frustrating Janken games make it a lousy game... Wonder Boy / Monster World was so much better.
Probably why he never really made it as Sega's poster boy. Sega waited till 91' for Sonic to take that place of course..
Alex Kidd is a horrible character too. Few redeeming qualities, bad artistic design, lame setting and dull supporting characters. On top of that, only two games in his series had similar design, those being Miracle World and Enchanted Castle. Every other game, Lost Stars, High Tech World, BMX Trial and Shinobi World, were completely different. It's not very encouraging when a series can't keep a consistent play style because the previous one was deemed "not good enough".
About the character design though, let's use Enchanted Castle as an example. Look at the US and JP cover arts:
http://hardcoregaming101.net/alexkid...tedcastle2.jpg http://hardcoregaming101.net/alexkidd/alexkidd4ja.jpg
As you can see, both are completely devoid of any appealing artistic quality, in rather different ways. The US cover is bad, like most are, but the JP cover is hideous as well! Only the early JP SMS titles had half way decent cover art, but packaging can't save a lame product.
If Sega hung onto Alex Kidd, they probably would have never garnered any credibility or respect in the US markets. Sonic was just what Sega needed, the release of Sonic 1 completely turned things around. Finally Sega had a decent mascot. Gone was the dorky Alex Kidd and in was the slick and cool Sonic.
fair point, but all the way back in it's day i enjoyed the game. I also wouldn't rate a game by its box art, look at Golden Axe..
For a bargain game at the Genesis launch, I managed to enjoy Enchanted Castle.
I really couldn't disagree more about the controls. I got back into it after a long absence with the 360 SVC collection and I was honestly floored at how I had complete control over Alex; the jumping and inertia mechanics are right on the money. His jumps aren't the least bit floaty and respond to exactly how long you keep the button pressed. It was like riding a bicycle, I couldn't believe how quickly those muscle reflex memories came right back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guntz
I didn't really have anything for or against the Jaken matches in it. The patterns are always the same, every game, so once you beat/read it one time you have no reason to ever lose it again. Which, on the same token can be considered a bad thing, since there's really no point in them existing then since you'll never lose.
Lots of great Miracle World memories with me, such a huge gigantic leap forward after playing early NES platformers. Tons of colorful and varied enemies and environments, storyline with dialogue scenes; seems like it had a ton of stuff way before it was available anywhere else.
love this game, it's very nostalgic for me (as I'm sure it is for many of you) but it is pretty flawed. especially the hit detection.