Alex Kidd in Miracle World was a staple on the Master System. If you had a PAL console like I did there was a good chance it was the first game you played. It had everything you want in an 8-bit platformer; solid controls, great level design, colourful sprites, giant fists, and rock paper scissors battles. After the first game, the Alex Kidd series strayed from this winning formula. Lost Stars and High Tech World showed little resemblance to the first game and are perfect examples of developers tacking popular names onto mediocre games. Enter Alex Kidd in Shinobi World. A game that proves that you CAN successfully put a franchise name on an unrelated game, as long as it is somewhat related to the original and is, well, good. It also teaches us that even if we think a series is beyond repair, it can still be saved.

The opening cut scene is possibly one of the greatest on the Master System. It begins with Alex and his girlfriend standing in a field of flowers, holding hands, staring blankly into each others eyes. Suddenly the sky turns dark and lightning fills the air. A mysterious figure descends from the heavens and swipes Alex's love from his hands. This leads to the greatest sprite ever created:



At this point a white ninja appears and explains to Alex that the Hanzo the evil ninja has kidnapped his gal and plans to seize the ultimate power. What ever that is. The white ninja then throws a blue ball at Alex which transforms him into the worlds most sickeningly cute ninja as seen in the game start screen.

And so the challenge has been laid down. Alex must slash his way through four worlds, each consisting of three stages, two are standard platform levels and the last a boss fight. It is a formula that works very well with each level's length and difficulty. Alex begins with just his trusty sword which will be used for the majority of the game. There is a power pick up for the sword which increases its damage area, making it even more fun to use, and spears which can be thrown from a distance, perfect from boss battles. These pick ups are found in red boxes through the level which more commonly contain hearts which increase Alex's health. Alex also has a few special abilities, he can perform wall jumps which allow him to scale narrow heights to reach secret areas, and he can use poles to transform into a spinning fireball which devastates everything in his path. The most powerful pick up in the game allows Alex to take the form of a tornado, letting him fly and destroy anything he touches.

There are an impressive selection of enemies to contend with including guys dressed as Spiderman, pirates with boomerangs, guys dressed as green rabbits, guys from Sweden with guns,midget helicopters, and lobsters. Yes, perhaps the Master System's greatest ever boss battle is the world three lobster boss:



Games need more lobster battles.

The boss battles in this game are relatively easy, aside from the final one. It is actually a good thing because they complement the difficulty of the platform levels very well. This is not exactly the easiest game, but it provides a good challenge for any skill level and still remain beatable. You feel a sense of accomplishment when getting through the first couple of worlds on your first play though but are faced with a sharply increasing difficulty level towards the last world.

Shinobi World has some of the best graphics on the system. They stay true to what Miracle World produced years before but improve it enough to give it it's own style. Everything seems more colourful, backgrounds are far more detailed, every sprite is infinitely cuter, but most importantly they retained the white outlined ghost death animation, a classic in all gaming. This is the type of retro game which will never age graphically. They just start looking better compared to their brothers and sisters whose wrinkles become more and more obvious.




The music, like Miracle World's, is top rate. The main theme is taken from "Shinobi", the game Shinobi World was initially a parody of. The remix in Shinobi World is far superior to the slow, more tired original.

The single most important thing this game can teach us is that above all the gameplay, physics, and graphics a game can throw at you, all the game really needs to do is feel satisfying. In Shinobi World, raising the sword above you and bringing it down on an enemy sprite's head, then watching them disappear in a puff of smoke is infinitely satisfying. This isn't something that can be easily programed into a game, and is more likely often a product of luck. It's a combination of timing, animation, sound, and effect used in a way that appeals to every person in some strange way. Whipping bitches in Castlevania, mowing down guys with a machine gun in Contra, even going around a loop at speed in Sonic, all of these things are simple but you get a level of satisfaction out of them that is never reproduced by other games. Swiping at people in Shinobi World is a hard thing to describe in words and can only really be appreciated when you play it for yourself.

Plus there is a lobster battle. What more do you need?