Putrid. This game doesn't get ANYTHING right. It's so bad I struggled mightily with how to begin this review, because I could start anywhere. I think I'll start with the physics, one of the MOST important things in any 2D Platformer. They're too slippery! You don't really have any good "stopping power" (think turning back in Super Mario Bros 1 or 3 to slow your momentum) and you slide pretty wildly when landing unless you take them very slowly. It isn't tooooooo bad early because at least a decent amount of the platforms are large, but as soon as the game starts throwing single block platforms at you it gets actively miserable to try and land on the damn things without just sliding off. Alex Kidd is also pretty slide-y on the ground, which leads to the annoyance of sliding into enemies while trying to punch them with your punch attack. You COULD use the jump attack but the hitbox on it feels very inconsistent and you can't do it in all situations. Fortunately most enemies are actually pathetically easy to deal with, so you just spam the punch button, instead most of your deaths will come from how poor it controls.

Speaking of controls, why is the jump mapped the way it is? I wondered if I was missing something, but when you jump you go right into the jump kick attack as you rise, UNLESS you hold down the jump button as you rise. If you do THAT, then you will only kick when you let go. It felt incredibly weird holding down the jump button to make jumps like that, doubly so because for some reason blocks on the ground can only be broken with a jump kick. Enjoy jumping in place like an idiot trying to get them to actually break. And yes, this is required at certain points. I think you can use the pogo to break them, but it was mostly frustrating. Anyway, why not make it so you just tap the jump button in the air to attack? Or that tapping A is jump but holding A is attack or something? It feels very unnatural.

Then you get into stuff like the second to last level, which is a mini-shmup style level with a pedicopter you need to CONSTANTLY tap A to fly around with and will begin to dip on the screen if you stop tapping for even a moment. Firing off an attack is NOT on A and you WILL be forced down quite a bit on the screen if you use it, which sucks even more because the downward momentum from falling makes it harder to fly back up. I beat the level pretty quickly and my thumb was soooore. But, look, there's platforms you can sit down and take a moment to rest your thumb! Oh as if the game would be so kind, this is Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle motherfucker, the platforms instantly drop off and you'll be stuck with downwards momentum if you weren't prepared! You get luck-based Rock-Paper-Scissor bosses, a final stage that feels like it drags on forever and burns its mediocre music into your skull for eternity, it also ends with a luck-based RPS fight! But then you get an actual fight that is completely pathetic, literally just crouch, walk up to them and mash the attack button, you'll hit them casually and dodge every attack.

Did I mention this game looks absolutely rancid? Alex Kidd himself is NOT nice to look at, various textures are grainy even for 8 bit, there's eye searing colors at various points and the final level is endless sandy brown blocks with endless light grey blocks that blend into a nightmare. Stage transitions are entirely in eye searing blue like a VCR tape, which also happens when you die. There's no visual cohesion or identity to the enemies or stages, feeling like highly disconnected levels and the two "city" levels are half palette swaps of each other when the game only has 11 stages. The entire thing is butt ugly aside from the woodcutting enemy with a Jason mask that gave me a chuckle.

At least Sonic Blast let you play as Sonic.