As young Alex, your job is to go through an obstacle course and get to the main exit without other competitors trying to push you off your bike. You start out in Blackwood Forest, but depending on which scene you're in, you can travel to Cactus Desert, South Seas, Pyramid River, or Alex's home, Radaxian.
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A confusing spin-off of Alex Kidd that's basically a shoddy Bump 'n' Jump clone.
I mean… it’s BMX. Do you like BM- hey, WAIT A MINUTE… what is HE doing here?! I thought I was done with this kid for a LONG time, so why are you back here to make me suffer more?!....... Oh wait… right, I forgot about that last game… alright, fine, I will finally talk about it. So, seeing as Sega was so adamant to push Alex Kidd as their original mascot, not only did they make plenty of games for him in the four years he was a thing, but he also managed to get a spin-off game… only in Japan though. Not exactly sure why they felt Alex Kidd needed a spin-off, especially just one year after the original game was released, but again, given how much this series was beaten to death back in the day, it only makes sense that they thought a spin-off would be enough to possibly stand on the same grounds as Mario, even though that never ended up happening. But that didn’t stop them from trying, as can be seen with Alex Kidd BMX Trial.
So, I myself haven’t played any other BMX game before this one, nor any game that has any kind of BMX element within it (or at least, I don’t think that I have), so I don’t know exactly what makes a proper BMX game, or how well a BMX game should play. Therefore, I can’t say how this game properly works as a BMX game, as it doesn’t seem to really care about being that good of an Alex Kidd game either way. With that being said… I didn’t really enjoy the time I spent with this game at all. To be fair, it is primarily my fault as to why I didn’t enjoy the game, which I will get into later, but either way, I probably wasn’t gonna enjoy my time with the game regardless.
The story is… well, I don’t know actually, because there is a story, at least, illuded to by the ending text, but they don’t give you anymore info then that, the graphics are about the same as every other Alex Kidd game for the Master System, so there is nothing to discuss in terms of that, the music is pretty good, and it was nice to listen to while dealing with the annoying gameplay, but there aren’t too many tracks to listen to, the control is… well, I’ll talk all about that in a second, and the gameplay is simple and challenging, but I guess I could see how it would be fun with the proper setup, although since I don’t have access to the proper setup for the game, I can’t say for sure.
The game is pretty much an average BMX game, except with Alex Kidd in it, where you drive through several stages in various locations, avoid many different obstacles and other racers throughout, perform wheelies and jumps to get ahead of the competition, reach the end without taking too much damage, and… that is really about that. Yeah, that is one of the problems that can be seen with this game, which is that, aside from Alex Kidd being the main character, there really isn’t that much here that makes this an “Alex Kidd” BMX game. Sure, there isn’t too much that you would need to do to make it feel like one, but you could include some additional elements like power-ups, or even appearances from some more notable characters from the other Alex Kidd games, not just at the end of the game. It doesn’t make the game any worse as a result, but at the end of the day, if I wanted to play a BMX game, I don’t really need to play this one, and I would have no reason to.
Aside from that one issue though, the most apparent problem that I have with this game, and the one that kept me from finishing the game, is with the control. For those that don’t know, this game was only compatible with the Paddle Controller, an accessory for the Sega Master System that was only released in Japan, so, as you would imagine, playing the game without this controller feels pretty fucking bad. I tried playing it on the same emulator I used for the other Alex Kidd games, and I was barely able to control Alex properly, with him primarily veering over to the right, and the directional buttons really didn’t help that much, with me not being able to properly veer to the left when I needed to. This wasn’t that much of a problem for the first stage, but afterwards, it basically became impossible for me to work with, given how many obstacles I would hit, and immediately get a Game Over. I have heard that there may be a way to fix this issue, with there being ways to implement the Paddle Controller into the emulator, but given what I had already experienced with the game, as well as what I did see on YouTube from a longplay, I don’t think I’m going to be getting anything more from this game then what I have already gotten.
Overall, while it does nothing that would make it a bad game, and I could probably have a slightly better experience with it if I had proper control, not only do I have no desire to try to get more out of this game, but it really isn’t all that much of a special or noteworthy game. It just exists to be “that one time Alex Kidd got a spin-off game”, and it doesn’t warrant any other kind of revisit or further deep dive. I guess if you could figure out how to properly play the game, or you got all the original hardware to run it, then Alex Kidd fans could probably have a better time with the game, but as for the rest of us, we can just leave it as a relic of the past that doesn’t need to resurface. And now, I am finally done with this Alex Midd for a while, for real this time. Finally… I feel at peace…
Game #310
So, I myself haven’t played any other BMX game before this one, nor any game that has any kind of BMX element within it (or at least, I don’t think that I have), so I don’t know exactly what makes a proper BMX game, or how well a BMX game should play. Therefore, I can’t say how this game properly works as a BMX game, as it doesn’t seem to really care about being that good of an Alex Kidd game either way. With that being said… I didn’t really enjoy the time I spent with this game at all. To be fair, it is primarily my fault as to why I didn’t enjoy the game, which I will get into later, but either way, I probably wasn’t gonna enjoy my time with the game regardless.
The story is… well, I don’t know actually, because there is a story, at least, illuded to by the ending text, but they don’t give you anymore info then that, the graphics are about the same as every other Alex Kidd game for the Master System, so there is nothing to discuss in terms of that, the music is pretty good, and it was nice to listen to while dealing with the annoying gameplay, but there aren’t too many tracks to listen to, the control is… well, I’ll talk all about that in a second, and the gameplay is simple and challenging, but I guess I could see how it would be fun with the proper setup, although since I don’t have access to the proper setup for the game, I can’t say for sure.
The game is pretty much an average BMX game, except with Alex Kidd in it, where you drive through several stages in various locations, avoid many different obstacles and other racers throughout, perform wheelies and jumps to get ahead of the competition, reach the end without taking too much damage, and… that is really about that. Yeah, that is one of the problems that can be seen with this game, which is that, aside from Alex Kidd being the main character, there really isn’t that much here that makes this an “Alex Kidd” BMX game. Sure, there isn’t too much that you would need to do to make it feel like one, but you could include some additional elements like power-ups, or even appearances from some more notable characters from the other Alex Kidd games, not just at the end of the game. It doesn’t make the game any worse as a result, but at the end of the day, if I wanted to play a BMX game, I don’t really need to play this one, and I would have no reason to.
Aside from that one issue though, the most apparent problem that I have with this game, and the one that kept me from finishing the game, is with the control. For those that don’t know, this game was only compatible with the Paddle Controller, an accessory for the Sega Master System that was only released in Japan, so, as you would imagine, playing the game without this controller feels pretty fucking bad. I tried playing it on the same emulator I used for the other Alex Kidd games, and I was barely able to control Alex properly, with him primarily veering over to the right, and the directional buttons really didn’t help that much, with me not being able to properly veer to the left when I needed to. This wasn’t that much of a problem for the first stage, but afterwards, it basically became impossible for me to work with, given how many obstacles I would hit, and immediately get a Game Over. I have heard that there may be a way to fix this issue, with there being ways to implement the Paddle Controller into the emulator, but given what I had already experienced with the game, as well as what I did see on YouTube from a longplay, I don’t think I’m going to be getting anything more from this game then what I have already gotten.
Overall, while it does nothing that would make it a bad game, and I could probably have a slightly better experience with it if I had proper control, not only do I have no desire to try to get more out of this game, but it really isn’t all that much of a special or noteworthy game. It just exists to be “that one time Alex Kidd got a spin-off game”, and it doesn’t warrant any other kind of revisit or further deep dive. I guess if you could figure out how to properly play the game, or you got all the original hardware to run it, then Alex Kidd fans could probably have a better time with the game, but as for the rest of us, we can just leave it as a relic of the past that doesn’t need to resurface. And now, I am finally done with this Alex Midd for a while, for real this time. Finally… I feel at peace…
Game #310