Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle Review

Game: Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Version: SEGA Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection Xbox 360
Year: 1985

The first  game I have chosen to review is Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. I have been a fan of Alex Kidd for many years but had never played this game before. I was more familiar with the Master System game Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars (I might revisit these in the future).

Gameplay starts in "Rookie Town" and instantly shows how bad ass Alex Kidd really is. The first obstacles/enemy you are encountered with are some red cars, but how does Alex Kidd deal with this? He punches them and they disappear into a puff of smoke! The controls aren't as good as Mario or Sonic titles but they are still pretty tight. You can punch or kick to kill enemies/blocks. You can't attack when falling down which does annoy me a little.

Rookie Town! 

The next thing you will notice in Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is the game designers continued fascination with Rock, Paper, Scissors... Entering any of the black doors will give you the opportunity to buy objects if you beat the shop keeper at a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The shop keeper looks like an older, overweight, purple Dhalsim, the other odd thing is that his team mascot seems to be some weird pirate teddy bear with pom poms! The music is the shop is mega, I left it playing while I was hanging up my washing and I was humming along. And so you know, this won't be the last we see of  Rock, Paper, Scissors....

Any relation to Dhalsim???

Some of the items you unlock in the shop are quite cool, my favourite is probably the classic motor bike as seen in other Alex Kidd titles, my least favourite is the Pogo stick, or as I nicknamed it the "Drunken Pogo Stick". As soon as Alex gets on the Pogo stick it is impossible to control with the character swinging all over the screen. Funny but you will lose lives using this power up! Other power ups include the helicopter, invincibly and the ability to see what the enemy is going to pick in Rock, Paper, Scissors. The motor bike lets you speed through some of the earlier levels, but is completely useless on many of the later levels.

When you get to level 5 which is the Pyramid level you will start encountering bosses at the end of most levels. However the is no tricky platforming challenge for you to endure, no it is yet more Rock, Paper, Scissors... My experience was pretty bad for this level. It took me a few attempts to get to the end of the level where you meet Princess of the Oasis, I played her in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and lost... I then died and was send back to the beginning of the level, no checkpoints in sight! Fortunately the enemies always use the same attacks so you can learn the outcome quite quickly. 

Most of the levels are the standard horizontal scrolling format but one of the later levels Rocky Mountain 2 is a vertical scrolling plat former which nicely breaks up gameplay. I say nice break but this level soon became a nightmare, thanks to the level after which is the hellish "In the Sky" level. In the Sky is a level which you must navigate with the helicopter which is a little tricky to control, but the main problem comes when you die... Not only do you return to the beginning of the level, you return to the beginning of the level BEFORE! So you go back to Rocky Mountain 2, which is more than a little annoying, especially after dying 3 or 4 times on In the Sky! But this game is very hard so it isn't for the faint hearted, any enemy is a one hit kill and most of the time you go back to the start of the level, there are occasionally check points but I only encountered 2-3 throughout my whole play-through. 

The last level; Sky Castle also plays differently from all the previous levels and is a single screen platformer, so the player transition from one screen to the next, similar to Castlevania. This level is totally awesome and I think could have been a game in itself! It is easily the longest and most challenging level but also brings more puzzle and speed elements into game play which you don't see in earlier levels. I wish that they would've done a full game based solely on this level as I think they could've come up with some really cool ideas and it almost makes the other levels seem like filler... 

Best level is the game! 

After completing this brilliant level you get to fight the final boss and I use the word fight very loosely. The boss is called "Ashra", and he is kind of like a version of Ganesha but instead of just normal arms, every hand is in the shape of either a Rock, Paper or you guessed it some Scissors! It actually looks quite a cool enemy but once again you have to play him at Rock, Paper, Scissors... This time you have to beat him twice before he is defeated. Once you beat him at Rock, Paper, Scissors you do actually have to punch him to defeat him, this is incredibly easy and you can just crawl under the Rock hands he is throwing an repeatedly punch him until he is defeated. This is one of the most boring and easy boss battles I have experienced from this era of gaming! But the awesome level you play before you get to him more than makes up for it... I won't spoil the ending but it isn't particularly entertaining! 

Yet more Rock, Paper, Scissors....

Overall the game is pretty good and it took me a good few hours to complete. I really enjoyed the last level which made me a little disappointed that the earlier levels weren't as good. I do however look forward to revisiting the other titles in this franchise. 

Gameplay - 7/10 Controls are pretty good but is let down by some power ups. 

Graphics - 8/10 Graphics are great, bright and fun. 

Sound - 7/10 Music would get 10/10 but some of the SFX are a bit average 

Overall - 7/10 A solid platformer which is well worthy of a play.