Everyone associates Sega video games with Sonic the Hedgehog. After all, this is Sega’s most popular intellectual property, and games featuring this character have sold tens of millions of units worldwide.
However, even before Sonic, Sega knew that they needed a character and a game to compete with Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Their first attempt resulted in the character Alex Kidd.
Alex Kidd is an interesting character. Designed as a short and square bodied boy, complete with monkey ears and a Beatles-like mop hairstyle, Alex was the polar opposite of the game mascots that we know today.
In Sega’s universe, he was an orphan prince from a fictional world. His original backstory had him fighting off against a tyrant who had grasped control of the land.
Gameplay with Alex Kidd in Miracle World
You might have been surprised to learn that Alex Kidd was Sega’s mascot before Sonic the Hedgehog, and you might also be surprised to learn that his original gameplay characteristics were advanced when compared to standards of the time.
The Sega Master System controller featured only a DPAD + 2 Button layout. This meant that Alex Kidd’s main actions were limited to direction, jump, and a punch attack. Possibly in an effort to outdo the simplicity of Super Mario on the NES, the developers also incorporated a number of special features in the original Alex Kidd Sega video game.
At the beginning of the game Alex was limited to his signature punch move, but unlike Super Mario, Alex Kidd featured an inventory system. As players progressed through 1986’s Alex Kidd in Miracle World, they were able to collect power-ups that could be consumed at almost any time during gameplay. Power-ups included a temporary flying mode, invulnerability, a magic ring that enabled Alex to shoot a fire projectile, and there was even a power-up that enabled Alex to launch an attack of ten ‘mini-Alex’ creatures on his enemies. These were particularly useful for boss battles.
The inventory also allowed Alex to collect currency, which could be spent on these power-ups, or on another innovative in-game feature: vehicles. That’s right, this 8-bit Sega video game from 1986 had three controllable vehicles for Alex to use as players progressed through the levels. There was a mini attack helicopter, a motorcycle, and a speedboat complete with a projectile cannon. This kind of gameplay was light years ahead of what most developers were doing at the time. It’s a perfect example of the effort that Sega had put into developing Alex Kidd, to try and take the top spot in the early console wars.
The combination of quirky character design, dynamic gameplay with unique power-ups, and player controlled vehicles made Alex Kidd one of the most technologically advanced games of its time. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to save Alex from his eventual fate.
By the 1990s Sega had decided that Alex wasn’t accessible enough for a worldwide audience, and management decided that they needed something new to tackle Nintendo’s domination. This eventually led to Sonic the Hedgehog, the most successful franchise in the history of Sega video games.
Sonic featured in some phenomenal games and is arguably the best character that Sega every created. Even so, there’s a soft spot in the heart of every old school gamer, and that spot belongs to Alex Kidd on the original Sega Master System.
No comments:
Post a Comment