SMS review #2: Alex Kidd in Miracle World!

Greetings!Welcome to the ball-bouncingly exciting second installment of my Sega Master System collection reviews: Alex Kidd In Miracle World!

I neglected to mention in my last post that Master System consoles were also interesting because some versions included a pre-loaded game. In the most common Master System model, the game 'snail race' could be activated by starting the machine with no cartridge, and pressing a combination of buttons. This was a very basic game in which you just had to get a snail from one side of a maze to the other in a time limit. Other models of the original Master System included Missile Command, Hang On or Safari Hunt.

On the Master System II some of the later models had Sonic the Hedgehog built in. Mine however is an earlier model, as it has Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in. Released on cartridge in 1987 and built-in in 1990, Miracle World is the first in the Alex Kidd series, and of those I've played, probably the best.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a colourful and cartoony platformer with certain somewhat whacky and bizarre elements thrown in. I can't say I particularly liked Miracle World at first. It might have been the slightly 'floaty' physics or the tiny range of your attack, but it took quite a while of getting frustrated before I really got to grips with the game's control system. Once you get the hang of it, it actually works fairly well although your character, the titular Alex, does suffer from 'one-hit-death' syndrome which can be quite annoying. For instance, using your aforementioned tiny  punch attack it can be fairly hard to hit some enemies, but seemingly very easy for them to hit you. This is all the more annoying because you are only given three lives, and no continues. Hardcore. However there is a cheat mode which makes things considerably easier. Pressing up and button 2 eight times at the game over screen allows you to continue from the beginning of the level with three lives again, as long as you have collected enough money. This makes picking up as much money as possible imperative to get anywhere in the game, otherwise you just get stuck going over the same few first levels.

Knob head more like.

Speaking of which, at the end of each stage you have to face a henchman who challenges you to a game of Janken (that's rock, paper, scissors to me and you) and you must defeat him best two out of three. If you fail, you lose a life. Lose all three lives, go back to the start menu. Ugh. It took me a few play-throughs up to the first henchman to realise that they always choose the same thing (I'm an idiot, y'see). So I had spent an hour or so playing over the first stage for no good reason. Harrumph. I'll admit, I had to look up the Janken choices to avoid the same thing happening again. As much fun as Alex Kidd is once you're into it, not progressing is not fun, nobody wants to play the same few levels for hours on end.

Once I got past this wall of dying, I actually started having real fun in the game. There's still plenty of frustrating deaths, and even without the Janken matches getting in the way I still got a bunch of Game Overs. Frustration aside, Miracle World becomes quite addictive once you've played for a while. It's quite hard, and especially with the aforementioned control problems there are a few platforming segments that are really quite tricky, but nothing that seems impossible. It's also quite gratifying in the way you get a sense of progression. You move through an overworld map through island, jungle, cave and castle, and the levels and enemies (mostly) reflect this in a very colourful and inviting way. Sure, there's a few out of place enemies, like the little lettuce-looking monsters in the caves, or the fires inexplicably covering half of the castle, but they help give the game a bit more of its bizarro character. Just by the graphics of Miracle World you'd think it would be a kids game, but the difficulty says otherwise. Maybe I'm just really bad at it though.

The variation of transport also help keep Miracle World from becoming stale. Alex can not only run, jump and swim like any other platforming hero, but also ride a motorbike, sail a canoe or fly a helicopter. You can buy these in certain shops throughout the game but they aren't essential, adding a bit of replayability. One area traversed in a helicopter is far different to the same level by foot.

I'm aware that these tales of helicopters and lettuce men and rock, paper scissors matches seem pretty nonsensical, but it all makes sense when you hear the story. You have to save your brother from this castle because he's been kidnapped (or, KIDD-napped HAUAHUAAHAHAUAHA!) by the evil Janken, who wants to force everyone to play rock, paper, scissors or something. Somehow beating up loads of fish, birds and frogs is going to help you get him back. Oh, and you have to eat a burger at the end of each level. Story telling genius. I really don't know what the story is, and I don't really care. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is an immensely frustrating but beautifully colorful jump n' punch (I'm totally coining that phrase, btw.)  If you can exercise extreme patience, its an odd but interesting experience. If you can't, you're missing out, but there are plenty of better 8-bit platformers out there. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is good, but it ain't no Mario.

Cheers for Reading,
Dusty Old Games.

Hello again! & Sega Master System Collection review #1: Action Fighter!

Hello all!

Its been a while. Like really, a bloody long time, but I made a new years promise to myself that I would get back to writing reviews. I know it's the end of January, but hey. LET US REVIEW!

I'm setting myself a task here, to review every Sega Master System game I own (don't worry, it's nothing like complete, we're talking ~50 games) in order to get myself back into regular writing and also to force myself to play one of my favorite consoles that I really don't make enough time for. 

Uni work must come first unfortunately, but I'm sure I can cut out some procrastination and squeeze in some awesome video game reviews instead!

Here's to getting this bloggy thing back on the road! Cheers!



A brief introduction to the SMS:

The Sega Master System, as I'm sure most of you are aware, was Sega's first cartridge based home video game console to have a worldwide release, and was one of the few major competitors to Nintendo's NES system in the 8-bit era. There had been the previous Sega SG-1000 released only in Japan and Australia/New Zealand, and it's successors the SG-1000 II and SG-3000, which were just improvements on the original model. The SG-3000 had a built in keyboard and worked more like a computer than a stand alone games console.

In 1985 came the Sega Mark III, a true home console with backwards compatibility with most of  the SG series, which served as the basis for the Master System.

Masterfully crafted by Sega

The Master System was released in the UK and Europe in 1987 with the above design. One quirk of the original Master System model is the ability for it to read both cartridge and card based games. Sega had first introduced the card game media type with the SG-1000 and a 'card catcher' peripheral, the Master System's built in card reader was almost identical. Unfortunately, I will be reviewing the games on my Master System II, which lacks the card reading ability.

Surely that's a card-inal sin, right? right!?

Fortunately, however, a) I don't own any card based games at the moment; and b) the later Sega Mega Drive has backwards compatibility with the Master System via a Base Convertor peripheral which does have a card slot, and I happen to have one. Noice.

Anyway, enough about the history of the console. It was Sega's answer to Nintendo's NES and it was a bit nifty. I never had any experience with one as a child, but in the last few years I've become attached to it. Sure, I play my NES more but there's something special about this, too. It might be the squishy d-pad, or the annoyance of having to get up and press pause on the machine rather than on the controller (why?), but there's something about this console that plays a jammin' riff on my heartstrings, and hopefully I'll get that across in these upcoming reviews. It seems to make sense to start at the beginning of the alphabet, but whether I actually do this series in alphabetical order remains to be seen.

Without further ado, here's #1!

Mid 2000's McDonald's LCD toys!

Alright, alright, I know it doesn't sound that interesting, but bear with me.

In the mid 2000's McDonalds released some Game and Watch style games using characters from well known video game series like Sonic the Hedgehog, Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot.
These were given away with Happy Meals. At the time I was around 12 or 13, and probably a bit big for Happy Meals, but I remember specifically forgoing larger, tastier meals just to get my hands on some crappy LCD games!

In the past few years I've re-collected 8 of these for next to no money, and a few of them are genuinely fun. So here's a few short reviews of them!

Sonic Series
Sonic Racer

This ones pretty bashed up, but still works.
Its your basic LCD racer, move from side to side, dodging other traffic.
Not much fun. Meh.

3/10


Knuckles Baseball

This one is actually pretty good. You move Knuckles up and down to catch the balls being hit at you. Some balls will curve, some will stay straight, others will be faster and the pace of the game speeds up as you carry on. For a free LCD game, this does the job.

6/10

Tails Football

This is pretty much the same as the Baseball one but vertical. I think I prefer this one because the graphics are slightly easier to discern what they're supposed to be, also I'm English, therefore Football>Baseball in most instances. This is also pretty good fun.

7/10


Sonic... Sonic?

This is an odd one. There is a screenshot of Green Hills zone on the background, and you have to guide Sonic over blocks of grass and collect rings using the jump button. It's like a super lo-fi version of the actual Sonic games, unfortunately it doesn't work very well and you can't really tell what's going on. The outer case for the game is quite nicely molded though, so at least there's that going for it.

4/10

Shadow Basketball 

This one I almost really like. You have to throw the ball past some defending robot things into the net. You get 2 points per hoop and each level ends at 20 points. There are 5 levels which have increasing amounts of robots who are actively defending more often. It's quite cool to have levels in these kinds of games that do something other than just speed up.

However, I don't think it's possible to 'die' in this game. Every time you play you will end up winning, because no matter how many times the defenders catch your ball you can keep playing, and you don't even lose points or anything. This makes the game pretty pointless and kind of ruins it for me. I know it was meant for kids but there is literally no challenge.

5/10

Crash Bandicoot Series 

I've only got the one of these: 

Crash Racer

 Pretty much the same as the Sonic Racer one, it's a bit naff. On top of that, rather than a normal LCD screen, it's got one of those ones with a big white bit at the back that you have to hold up to the light to see through. True, it allows the screen to be in colour, but who wants to hold this up and show the world that you're playing crap Happy Meal toys from nearly a decade ago?

Well, okay, me... but still.

2/10 - worst of the bunch


Spyro Series

Spyro Shooter

Shoot those birds/dragons Spyro! Collect them gems Spyro! That's all there is to it, and yet it's kinda fun.
After collecting a certain number of gems the speed increases. The gems are dropping from the sky while the birds/dragons are approaching from the side so there's a bit of multi-tasking going on on Spyro's part.
I quite like this one, for a happy meal toy anyway.

7/10

Spyro Solomon's Key?

I thought I would leave the best til last, this one is actually really good. Like if it was released as an LCD game back when LCD games weren't so cheap they could be given away with fast food, some people probably would have bought it and enjoyed it.
There are 3 corridors, each with a Rhynoc (or possibly a Gnorc, it's quite hard to tell with such tiny graphics) that moves around.

These enemies kill you if you touch them, unless you have charge mode on. When you have collected enough gems in a stage a little icon of Spyro's head charging appears in the top right hand corner, meaning you can move through enemies for a short period.

You can move between corridors in gap spaces and you have to collect gems in order to reveal a key and a door. There are 5 levels of increasing difficulty, unfortunately this just means speeding up the movement of the enemies and the rate that the gems disappear, rather than adding anything new to the already fully featured game (considering how small and cheap it is). It is also pretty easy, although more of a challenge than most of the others that I reviewed here. I suppose it was made for kids, it should be easy really.

Anyway, I've genuinely had quite a lot of fun with this one. I kept it next to my loo for a while because it takes about 3-5 minutes to complete, which is about right for toilet time (unless it's the morning after a beer and curry night).

10/10 As far as free Happy Meal toys go, this is the best one I've ever got.


 Cheers for reading,
Dusty Old Games.