YMMV / Alex Kidd

• Americans Hate Tingle: While Enchanted Castle did reasonably (although not outstandingly) well in Japan, it bombed in the west and was completely overshadowed by Altered Beast (1988) and Moonwalker, which helped set Sega on the path to focusing on an older audience. A few years later they would go about creating a certain blue hedgehog to appeal to the younger Western crowd instead, largely ending Alex Kidd's run there.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Janken the Great, the Big Bad of the first game, attacks by standing perfectly still and spitting easily avoidable fireballs at you. If you stand right next to Janken, then it's actually impossible for him to hit you at all.
  • Ashra, the final boss of Enchanted Castle is even easier than Janken was. Not only does he use the same "stand still and launch easily avoidable projectiles" attack pattern, but Alex can even block his projectiles by punching them.
• Awesome Music:
  • The main level music of Miracle World is memorable for anyone who ever owned a Master System. There is also a full-rock version of this song by Sega's in-house band, SEGAROCKS.
  • Although the music in Enchanted Castle is generally agreed to be severely lacking next to that of Miracle World, the music for the final stage has quite a few fans.
  • Shinobi World features not only some awesome remixes of the music from the original Shinobi, but some very cool original music as well.
  • For its Nintendo Switch AGES release, M2 created a whole new soundtrack for Miracle World in the style of the Master System's Japan-only FM sound module, and it provides a wonderful alternative to the system's usually very beepy form of chiptunes. Give it a listen.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The ending to Enchanted Castle reveals that King Thor was never actually abducted; he just went on a holiday to Planet Paperrock and liked it so much that he decided to stay. Aside from the obvious Parental Abandonment issues, this essentially implies that the entire reason why Janken the Great was able to take over Planet Aries and cause so much suffering to its residents in the first game was because Thor considered having a good time on holiday to be more important than actually protecting his family and his people.
• First Installment Wins:
  • Some fans argue that Shinobi World is the actual best game in the series, but Miracle World is still by far the most well-known, and still generally regarded as being better than nearly all the following games.
  • If one does not include Dolled-Up Installments (of which Shinobi World is one) then it is the best in the series.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Alex Kidd is well-liked by retrogamers in Brazil, where the Master System in general saw a lot more popularity and longevity. The Miracle World DX remake was even released in that country first.
  • New Zealand's retro gaming scene adores Alex Kidd, thanks to the widespread success of the Master System II in the country, which included Miracle World built into the console. Miracle World's Virtual Console rerelease was also consistently in the top best selling games on New Zealand's Wii Shop Channel.
• Good Bad Bugs: Enchanted Castle has a glitch whereby players can skip bosses by pressing start as the dialogue box disappears. However, be warned that trying this on the final boss will get you trapped, forcing you to start the game over!
• Harsher in Hindsight: Shinobi World had a boss that resembled Mario in development at a time where Alex Kidd and Mario were contesting mascots. Shinobi World ended up being Alex's last game before Sega moved on to having Sonic as their mascot.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the main criticisms of Enchanted Castle, which has barely half the stages that Miracle World had. Moreover, the stages in the former aren't really any longer than those of the latter.
• Porting Disaster: The Master System version of The Lost Stars suffers from garishly overcolored graphics, and a soundtrack that's flat-out butchered on the Master System's sound chip.^note (unless you have a Master System with the optional FM chip, in which case the game plays a remixed soundtrack which is actually pretty good)
• Quirky Work: Most of the games are pretty weird in one way or another, but The Lost Stars contains so much bizarre imagery — including backgrounds that are sheets draped over a wall, and enemies that attack by spitting the letters that spell out their cries at you — that it almost comes across like a Yellow Submarine licensed game that had Alex shoved in at the last minute.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Having to play Jan-Ken-Pon every single time you want to buy an item in Enchanted Castle, instead of just being able to walk into a shop and hand over the requisite amount of money — which you still have to do in Enchanted Castle, and will lose if you don't win the single round of Jan-Ken-Pon that follows.
• Sequel Displacement: For many years, Enchanted Castle was the most accessible game of the series, because it was included in the myriad of Sega Genesis Compilation Rereleases, whereas Sega seldom reissued Sega Master System games besides Phantasy Star I. This has been averted in more recent years, as Miracle World has gotten several rereleases and even a full-on remake.
• Seasonal Rot: High-Tech World is generally considered the worst game in the series due to monotonous gameplay, confusing puzzles and general lack of the energy of Miracle World.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Shinobi World is pretty universally agreed to be a better game than Enchanted Castle or High-Tech World, and some even consider it to be the best game in the entire series.
• That One Boss: The second battle with Scissors Head in Miracle World is probably the hardest boss battle in the game, as you not only have to deal with his detached head flying around at high speeds, his body shoots projectiles at you while that's happening, something that neither Stone Head nor Paper Head does in their rematches.
• That One Puzzle: High-Tech World has an infamous example. At one point, you need to get a travel pass so you can leave a town. How do you get it? You need to pray at a nearby shrine 100 times. Not helping is how the game assumes the player is familiar with the old Japanese belief that you need to visit a shrine 100 times to get a wish granted thus provides no hint on how what to do.

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