You know what, I am getting pretty fucking sick of this dumbass kid and his dumbass games. For every single installment so far (aside from that one BMX game I haven't played that no one cares about), they have either been terrible to painfully mediocre, making me question why I would even continue playing these games in the first place. Not that there is anything bad with being painfully mediocre, but it just seems like none of these games are getting any better, and are progressively getting weirder, and not in a good way. But hey, I won’t give up hope, as we still have several games left in this series, and this next one in particular was made for the Sega Genesis rather then the Master System, so that means it has to have some level of quality, right? Well, I shall see with Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.

So, after playing through the game, I can say with confidence that this installment in the painfully mediocre Alex Kidd franchise is… also painfully mediocre, but despite that, I would also say that it is the best game in the series so far, even if it isn’t all that good. I will give the game credit for actually sticking to a gameplay style, unlike the last two who changed it up pretty jarringly, and it does add some new features that weren’t in the previous game (at least from what I remember), but aside from that, it is about what you would come to expect from this series at this point, and not in a good way.

The story is almost the same as most games of the time, if you replace the “girl” with “father” instead, the graphics are an improvement over all of the other games in the series, but that is to be expected when moving up to the Genesis, the music is… definitely music, the control is good enough, even if the startup movement speed is a little wonky, and the gameplay sticks to what was established in the first Alex Kidd game, for better or worse.

Like the original game, it is a 2D platformer, where you move through various levels, defeating enemies, gathering money and helpful items along the way, using vehicles in several instances to proceed forward, and taking on “bosses” along the way. All of it is executed very similarly to that of the original game, and as such, not too many elements are introduced to change up this formula, aside from maybe some new items that give you new different abilities, but that isn’t really much to talk about. Really, it all boils down to whether or not this game improves upon what the first game established, and from what I have experienced, I can say with confidence that it definitely does that… again, for better or worse.

First off, upon starting the game, you have plenty of options to change difficulty, test out some of the game’s gimmicks and so on, which is always appreciated for an older game like this. Secondly, the levels themselves, and what you do in them, are pretty much unchanged, but it does feel better to play more so then the original game, even if the level design and enemies themselves still feel pretty uninspired. You still get to enter plenty of shops and get plenty of items with the money that you acquire, which can help out a lot, but in order to get them you have to play… more rock-paper-scissors. Yes, this also makes a return from the original game, and believe it or not, it is somehow worse here. These matches are everywhere, in terms of when you enter shops (which are optional, but still), and at the end of a good chunk of levels, which wouldn’t bother me so much if they didn’t replace possibilities of actual boss fights. There is only one true boss fight in the game, that being the final one, and all he does is just throw flying fists at you, which are insanely easy to dodge, so there is no real presence of challenge when it comes to them. Again, I’m not saying rock-paper-scissors is bad, or that playing it in this game is bad, but when they take up most of the formidable foes, it gets annoying.

With that being said, there were some parts of the game that were improved on. There are no weird-ass puzzles that you have to solve in order to progress, no pointless stages that last about a couple seconds just to give you a piece of info that you don’t care about, and where the original game had a ton of those annoying dungeon levels that were filled with traps to fuck you over, this game only has one of those, that being the final level, which I can excuse considering how appropriate it is. It makes things feel more consistent in terms of content, while also not just completely abandoning elements that were present in the original (even if I would have preferred if they were removed).

That being said, this all still comes off as being incredibly bland. It may just be based on my tastes, and I am aware there wasn’t too many other options in 1989, but after going through four games in this series, almost all of them drastically different from one another, I still can’t find any reason to like Alex Kidd as a series, or even as a mascot. The games aren’t all that bad (aside from, you know, High Tech World), but they leave so little of an impact and add nothing unique to the genre aside from the rock-paper-scissors matches, that you wonder how Sega went for so long trying to use him as their icon, or even why they gave him so many games. Oh well, at least so far, I haven’t hated my time with them, with this game definitely being the best of the bunch, but still… it just isn’t grabbing me like I bet they were intending.

Overall, while being an improvement over the original game, as well as being the best in the series so far, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle still comes off as being yet another mediocre title in this mediocre series, which does seem like its trying to improve on itself to make for a more entertaining and quality experience, but it still manages to fall flat on its face. But hey, at least we have 1 and a half games left, as well as a remake way later down the line, so they must have gotten it right at some point…. please, for the love of god, get it right.

Game #215

A fangame that was doomed from the start thanks to ridiculous level bloat, feature bloat, contributor bloat, story bloat, character bloat, and bloat bloat. It was really interesting watching how the development of this thing progressed through the years until the Titanic ambition of this game finally sunk, belly under. That being said, what IS released is pretty fucking fun albeit janky as all fuck, but that shit doesn't matter man you can go fight off King Watinga from Mario Paint who has for some reason just turned into a complete SHMUP boss in Tetris World as MMX Vile, dodging his bullet hell with the Mario 3 cloud and damaging him by tossing cockroaches up his ass.

Will this game ever be completed? No one knows, but it's looking more plausible than ever now that the game has resumed development all the way up to version 0.8. I will admit upfront there are some truly bad things about this game, such as the massive keyhunt levels which are like some sad, twisted attempt at Metroidvania Mario levels. But the concept and scale of this game is impressive, and the fact that it's been developed, presumably for free, for 14 years and counting, is even more impressive. I think that with some polish this could be a truly classic fangame that stands through the ages as a completed package of Herculean ambition as a platformer/shooter/whatever else crossover. I wish the game were a little more focused (the shooting elements are particularly egregious and over-focused on) but "everything and the kitchen sink" was the intended design philosophy for this game. The levels which more or less stick to the actual Mario gameplay but with varied insane crossover aesthetics--imagine a Waluigi cover shooter in a post-apocalyptic city come true--can be a sublime experience. I hope this game is completed someday and has some additional polish and fixing of balance issues. As is it's quite flawed but I respect what the developers were going for immensely.

After having a successful trilogy of games for the NES, Capcom decided that it was finally time for Mega Man to go to the handheld scene, with the game that would do so being outsourced to a new company to be completed. This company you never heard of, known as Minakuchi Engineering, were previously known for making several games for the MSX2 that I have never heard of, as well as two arcade titles known as Power Spikes and Turbo Force. Also, apparently the head of the project was a huge Mega Man fan, so that should help make things more bearable, right? Anyway, after a short time, the game was then released as Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge.

As the first handheld Mega Man game, I would say it did its job pretty well, and it is still a good game to play to this day. Obviously, you probably wouldn't play this over any of the console games, and it does have some problems in terms of flow and repetition, but I still had a good time with it.

The story is exactly what you would expect, except this time with a brand new robot who was designed specifically to kill Mega Man, so that is pretty cool, the graphics are Game Boy graphics, but the sprites do look pretty similar to the NES spirtes to where it looks good, the music is very similar to that of tracks from the other Mega Man games, which is fine for me, as they don't sound too off or bad, the control is alright, even if Mega Man moves a little slow for me, and the gameplay is still fun and memorable, even in handheld form.

The game plays pretty much exactly like an NES Mega Man game, except placed on a much smaller screen, of course. You move throughout stages, defeating enemies and getting past obstacles, defeating Robot Masters and gaining their powers, and using those powers to your advantage. The game doesn't really add anything too new to spice up the formula in this entry, and considering how this game doesn't have Rush, the slide, or E Tanks, it could be seen as a downgrade compared to previous titles, and I can understand why. For me personally, I didn't mind the limited nature of the game, and I did have fun with it like I would with any other entry, but it would've been cool to see a little more be done for the first handheld entry.

Which leads into my first gripe with the game: throughout the whole thing, it reuses robot masters, stages, enemies, powers and what have you from both Mega Man 1 and 2. Sure, the stage layouts are different this time around, and the way the game presents these elements to you is a little different, but I can imagine people getting turned off seeing all this stuff again after playing through previous entries. And this will be a recurring theme for most of the Game Boy entries in this series, so if you don't get used to it now, you may as well skip to Mega Man V.

Another complaint I would have about this game is that I feel a good amount of the enemy placement and difficulty in this game is pretty cheap. I didn't feel this as much with the NES games, because I know them like the back of my hand, but with this game, coupled with the fact that it is on a much smaller screen, you can really tell. There were plenty of moments during the game where I felt it was impossible for me to not take damage when taking out an enemy, as well as several instances where you have to choose a hole to fall into, and if you fall into a wrong one, WHOOPS, bed of spikes, and you're dead. Yeah, that's your fault apparently. That last example doesn't happen too often, but trust me, it can get bothersome.

Overall, despite its reusing of previous characters, stages, and what have you, as well as the cheapness of the design, I would still say it is a pretty alright entry in the series, as well as a good start to the handheld series of Mega Man games. Let's just hope that they don't fuck it up with the next entry... right?

Game #133