30th May 2011, 11:21 PM
Sega Master System
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Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars - This is the second Alex Kidd game, and it's much less acclaimed than the first one. I can see why, honestly -- it's alright, but not great. THis is a pretty easy and short game. It's not exactly the best game, but it was fun anyway, in an easy and simplistic way. In this platformer, you walk to the right until you reach the end. Avoid the enemies and obstacles along the way, and don't run out of health/time. See, this game's unique feature is that you have a combo health/time bar, and when it runs out -- either from taking too long (this will not usually happen) or because you got hit/fell in pits too much, as you get docked time for each time these happen (and they will) -- you lose and get game over. The game is generous, though, and you have infinite continues from the beginning of the level you're on.
You have the standard jump and attack buttons, but you can only sometimes attack -- you can only attack when you have picked up a "S" powerup, which give you 15 shots per powerup. Also most enemies infinitely spawn, so getting past them without getting hit can be tricky. Fortunately you can take a good number of hits before running out of time.
As a result of those things, for a lot of this game you're just moving right, trying to avoid the enemies and make jumps. It's pretty basic stuff, this game is not deep. There are powerups -- the aforementioned one that gives you ammo, one that increases your time a bit, and one that increases your jumping -- but they don't add much. It's mostly just the simple but entertaining gameplay that holds this game at all. The problem there though is that once you beat it -- and it won't take too long -- there's not much left to do.
The graphics are good, though. This is a good looking mid-life SMS game, with nice, bright graphics and a good variety of settings. The enemies have nice variety as well. The music's simple but good enough.
Oh, there's one more problem -- the levels. While you play through 14 stages in the game, the second seven are simply the first seven again, but a bit harder -- the game makes you play two loops until you reach the end. There's very little payoff too, just a single screen of the balls doing whatever and then your average 8-bit "the end" screen at the end of the game. It actually shows that screen of the balls you collected at the end of stage 7 as well; the only difference I could see at the end is that "The End" screen afterwards. Maybe that's a spoiler, but when the ending is so lame I think it's a spoiler worth mentioning. So yeah, not that much level variety either.
Oh, and there are no bosses in this game. The final screen of each level is an obstacle you have to avoid before you can reach the end, and if you get hit on the final screen you'll respawn at the start instead of just taking damage as you do in the rest of each level, but these aren't really bosses and for the most part aren't very hard. Only a few challenged me at all, such as the stage 2/9 final screen and a few others on the second loop. Many you can just zip right past. And none involve fighting any real bosses, you just get past whatever it is and you're at the end.
Still though, the levels are fun enough to play through and look at. The game is lacking in many ways, but it is fun to play despite them and overall I'd say the game is okay, probably, while it lasts. It's seriously lacking in terms of depth, and has some questionable design issues, but at least while it lasts it entertained me in its simplistic way.
So, overall? Overall, Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is okay. It's far too short, is easy thanks to the easy to moderate difficulty and infinite continues, and has some other design flaws as well, but it is kind of fun to run through the levels, dodging enemies as you go and jumping over the obstacles. The level designs are decently done, and it has a good variety of obstacles and challenges to get past. Overall, I'd probably give it a C; maybe I could convinced to go a little higher, but the flaws are just too big to go much above that. It's probably a C-grade game. And for people who don't like the platforming in the game as much as I did, I'd find it easy to understand giving it a lower grade than that.
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Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars - This is the second Alex Kidd game, and it's much less acclaimed than the first one. I can see why, honestly -- it's alright, but not great. THis is a pretty easy and short game. It's not exactly the best game, but it was fun anyway, in an easy and simplistic way. In this platformer, you walk to the right until you reach the end. Avoid the enemies and obstacles along the way, and don't run out of health/time. See, this game's unique feature is that you have a combo health/time bar, and when it runs out -- either from taking too long (this will not usually happen) or because you got hit/fell in pits too much, as you get docked time for each time these happen (and they will) -- you lose and get game over. The game is generous, though, and you have infinite continues from the beginning of the level you're on.
You have the standard jump and attack buttons, but you can only sometimes attack -- you can only attack when you have picked up a "S" powerup, which give you 15 shots per powerup. Also most enemies infinitely spawn, so getting past them without getting hit can be tricky. Fortunately you can take a good number of hits before running out of time.
As a result of those things, for a lot of this game you're just moving right, trying to avoid the enemies and make jumps. It's pretty basic stuff, this game is not deep. There are powerups -- the aforementioned one that gives you ammo, one that increases your time a bit, and one that increases your jumping -- but they don't add much. It's mostly just the simple but entertaining gameplay that holds this game at all. The problem there though is that once you beat it -- and it won't take too long -- there's not much left to do.
The graphics are good, though. This is a good looking mid-life SMS game, with nice, bright graphics and a good variety of settings. The enemies have nice variety as well. The music's simple but good enough.
Oh, there's one more problem -- the levels. While you play through 14 stages in the game, the second seven are simply the first seven again, but a bit harder -- the game makes you play two loops until you reach the end. There's very little payoff too, just a single screen of the balls doing whatever and then your average 8-bit "the end" screen at the end of the game. It actually shows that screen of the balls you collected at the end of stage 7 as well; the only difference I could see at the end is that "The End" screen afterwards. Maybe that's a spoiler, but when the ending is so lame I think it's a spoiler worth mentioning. So yeah, not that much level variety either.
Oh, and there are no bosses in this game. The final screen of each level is an obstacle you have to avoid before you can reach the end, and if you get hit on the final screen you'll respawn at the start instead of just taking damage as you do in the rest of each level, but these aren't really bosses and for the most part aren't very hard. Only a few challenged me at all, such as the stage 2/9 final screen and a few others on the second loop. Many you can just zip right past. And none involve fighting any real bosses, you just get past whatever it is and you're at the end.
Still though, the levels are fun enough to play through and look at. The game is lacking in many ways, but it is fun to play despite them and overall I'd say the game is okay, probably, while it lasts. It's seriously lacking in terms of depth, and has some questionable design issues, but at least while it lasts it entertained me in its simplistic way.
So, overall? Overall, Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is okay. It's far too short, is easy thanks to the easy to moderate difficulty and infinite continues, and has some other design flaws as well, but it is kind of fun to run through the levels, dodging enemies as you go and jumping over the obstacles. The level designs are decently done, and it has a good variety of obstacles and challenges to get past. Overall, I'd probably give it a C; maybe I could convinced to go a little higher, but the flaws are just too big to go much above that. It's probably a C-grade game. And for people who don't like the platforming in the game as much as I did, I'd find it easy to understand giving it a lower grade than that.
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