Many think that the first rival of the famous plumber Mario is the blue hedgehog Sonic; instead I tell you that the same house created before him another character destined, albeit for a short time, to rival the legendary mustache. Alex Kidd.
Of course I don't pretend that you remember him, this character in fact made his first appearance in 1986 and then disappeared in the fast shadows of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1990, just four years later. This singular character has always been characterized by his red dress and large ears that made him look like a pseudo monkey.
The games in which he appears as the protagonist are six:
<br>• Alex Kidd in Miracle World, 1986, Master System
<br>• Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars, 1986, arcade mode, 1989, Master System
<br>• Alex Kidd BMX Trial, 1987, Master System
<br>• Alex Kidd in High-Tech World, 1989, Master System.
<br>• Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, 1989, Sega Mega Drive / Sega Genesis
<br>• Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, 1990, Master System
The one that most remained in the hearts of video players is certainly the first of the saga Alex Kidd in Miracle World. This game was full of unique and quirky features. Coming from the old lineage of arcades in fact, this game had no saving systems or ways to overcome levels with particular tricks or passwords; as a good self-respecting arcade, if you lost your lives you lost the game, or Game Over. One of the peculiarities of this game was the use of the Chinese morra as a method of confrontation with the bosses (all but one…). To defeat the three minions of the enemy Janen there was no need for quick reflexes in choosing the move, in fact the cheating enemies could change the moves suddenly in some situations and how many to give you lose a life. The good thing is that the bosses used the same moves in each level, so it was possible to figure out how to defeat them; even when they tried to cheat, we discover that we too can change moves at the last second, and therefore badly fool the artificial intelligence.
The final boss instead will give us a last and new type of game: riddles. Five colored boxes with five symbols, our protagonist will have to jump on the right ones, and in case of mistake, they will materialize from the boxes of ghosts that make our Alex lose his life. To solve this riddle it would have served to bring a stele to Alex's father after the release of his twin brother, the reason for the protagonist's adventure. The father, Il Re del Tono will then give us a “translated” stele which must be read in the western way (from left to right and top to bottom) in order to know the right sequence of boxes to jump on.
The complexity of this game I remember that left me hours and hours in front of the TV trying to defeat everything and everyone, without knowing the speech of the stele, and later learning, through an older friend and pro player, the trick to restart the level after having lost lives. In fact, if you had 400 coins, you could push the directional button upwards and at the same time press key 2 as many times as possible; coins. were subtracted and the level restarted.
A noteworthy game, which gave a twist to the arcades of the time by introducing riddles, pitfalls and ever-changing game modes. In his little Alex Kidd helped the evolution of games in this context.
