First 30:
32. Splatoon 2 Switch
33. Shantae & The Pirates Curse 3DS eShop
34. Devil May Cry PSN
35. Team Kirby Clash Deluxe 3DS eShop
36. Blaster Master Wii U VC
37. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes GC
38. Wario Blast! featuring Bomberman Game Boy
39. Astro Boy: Omega Factor GBA
40. Daiku No Gen-San: Ghost Building Company Game Boy
41. Kirby: Planet Robobot 3DS
42. Noobow Game Boy
43. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 Game Boy
44. Mario Golf N64
45. Akumajo Special: Boku Dracula-Kun Game Boy
46. Rockman World 5 Game Boy
47. Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! GBC
48. Sonic Mania Switch eShop
49. Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima SFC
50. Super Mario Odyssey Switch
51. Gauntlet IV Mega Drive
52. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World Master System *NEW*
53. Psycho Fox Master System *NEW*
54. The Ninja Master System *NEW*
55. R-Type Master System *NEW*
Replays!:
1. Bare Knuckle III Mega Drive
2. Die Hard Arcade Saturn
3. The World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Mega Drive
4. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble 3DS VC
5. Trip World 3DS VC
Here's reviews 5-8 of 27! Lets keep this train rolling!
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
The Alex Kidd series is somewhat of a mixed bag – Miracle World is great, but after that things took a downward turn on average. Lost Stars is a below average platformer, High-tech world is a bizarre reskin of a terrible adventure game, and Enchanted Castle tried to recapture the magic of Miracle World but failed in every way. I don’t know if BMX Trial is any good, but it relied on a controller gimmick and never left Japan, so it’s largely irrelevant anyway. To be honest, it’s no real surprise that Alex Kidd never made it as a Sega mascot.
But there is one other decent Alex Kidd game in the series, and it’s one that liberally rips off another, better, Sega series – Alex Kidd in Shinobi World. A chibi reimagining/parody of the original Shinobi, it’s largely a fun romp, and I actually prefer it to it’s Shinobi source material, even if I still think Miracle World is the superior game.
Alex’s girlfriend has been kidnapped by an evil ninja and so Alex, aided by the ghost of another ninja, goes on a quest to slice up even more ninjas and save her. The games levels are based heavily on the original Arcade Shinobi game and it’s Master System conversion, but the gameplay is slightly different. Rather than his primary attack being the shuriken projectiles, Alex mainly attacks using his sword. Shurikens can be obtained to be used, but they are limited in number.
Alex also doesn’t use screen clearing ninja magic like Joe Musashi does, but he does have a few magic tricks up his sleeve – by grabbing onto a pole and holding the attack button he can spin fast enough to turn into a raging fireball and launch himself in any direction perpendicular to the pole. Alex also has a few other tricks that weren’t in the original Shinobi, as he can make use of wall jumps to ascend barriers.
The game is very short, with only 4 stages to explore, each broken up into 3 short sections – two action stages and a boss fight. The bossfights are all parodies of the equivalent Shinobi boss, with a Mario ripoff replacing the first boss and throwing fireballs and shrinking when low on health, a cutesy helicopter replacing the second boss, and a lobster instead of the third.
Shinobi Kidd isn’t too hard to beat thanks to it’s short length and generally reasonable difficulty, but it’s no pushover either. A few areas of the game can be quite challenging, and Alex can only take a few hits before dying. Some enemies, like the annoying birds, can be hard to kill or dodge and you will die a few times whilst playing through the game.
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World shows an avenue the series could have taken with some success in my eyes – it could have been a parody series of other Sega IPs. Alex Kidd in Streets of Rage World, Alex Kidd in Golden Axe World, Alex Kidd in E-Swat World – it could have been a fun and interesting way to use the character which would introduce other Sega IPs to a broader audience. Sure, Alex would have lost some of his identity, but frankly the games he actually starred in did the same, and this would have been the far better way to lose it. As it is, Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a fun send-off to a mostly mediocre series that could have and should have been great. It captures the fun of the Shinobi series whilst cutting off the frustrating edges of the original game, and it’s a short but enjoyable time to play through it. Give it a go and try not to dwell on what could have been.
Psycho Fox
Psycho Fox is a rather bizarre platforming game for the Master System in which you play as Psycho Fox, who contrary to his name, seems to be entirely within sound mind. With his trusty associates, Psycho Fox sets out to destroy the villainous Madfox Daimyojin, an evil villain who has corrupted the land and, true to his name, probably isn’t all there.
Psycho Fox namesake probably derives from his ‘powers’ which can be used from the pause menu, accessed using collectable items. One will kill all enemies on screen, whilst another will make Fox invincible for a short time. Theoretically the most important item though, is the item which lets you swap out Fox for one of his 3 companions – Hippo is slower and can’t jump as high as Fox, but can smash walls with his strength that the others can not. Monkey is slow too, but can jump incredibly high in the air, whilst Tiger is twice as fast as Fox and can tear along the ground at high speed. I say this item is theoretically the most important though, because outside of a few times where Hippo came in handy for brief amounts of times, I found Fox to be the superior character in all cases.
To explain why is to touch upon the games biggest source of challenge, most divisive asset, and in my opinion, biggest flaw – the physics engine. Actually, the biggest flaw might be the stage design. Or maybe the general working of the game mechanics. Well, we’ll get to all of them eventually. For now, the physics! Psycho Fox is an incredibly momentum driven game. From a standing start, any of the characters can barely jump a few pixels in front of themselves, but as they pick up momentum, the length they can jump grows exponentially – at full pelt they can launch themselves way over a screens length. What they can’t do though, is change direction – either whilst running, as they’ll first slow down and skid to a halt, or more importantly, whilst jumping – this is one of those games where you must commit to your jump – in the air you can pull backwards to slow your jump a little, but you can’t turn around. This is where the problem lies for both Tiger and Monkey – Monkey jumps too far with speed to be able to see where you will land – an issue for all characters, but compounded by Monkey. Tiger just runs too fast and you’ll tear right into every enemy in the way whilst being unable to stop, and any jumps to evade will launch you blindly into awaiting hazards.
Launching blindly into awaiting hazards is practically the name of the game in Psycho Fox though. You need the speed to be able to get anywhere, but the jumps you’re asked to make are all to frequently blind jumps and it’s not uncommon to jump straight into an awaiting enemy or pit. To make it worse, may of the games mechanics, whilst perfectly acceptable alone, seem designed to work against this physics and stage design.
For example, Psycho Fox can defend himself in 3 ways – he can jump on enemies, punch them, or pick up a bird from an egg which he can throw at them. However, the punch doesn’t work whilst running, meaning you’ll run into enemies if you try to attack them when gathering speed, plus many enemies are airborne at a height high enough to evade your fist, but low enough to hit your head, making it hard to kill them before they kill you. Enemies take several jumps to kill too, but normally come in batches of 2 or 3, so the second one will kill you as you’re dealing with the first. And the bird is not only a power up, but is thrown in an arc, meaning it’ll often fly over the heads of nearby enemies instead of hitting them. This is bad too, as Psycho Fox dies in one hit unless he’s holding the bird – but whilst it’s thrown away from him, he can be once again instantly killed until it returns to him.
Psycho Fox is a game which is unfortunately less than the some of its parts. Each mechanic is perfectly functional alone, but they’re all opposed to each other in a way that makes everything way too awkward and way to luck and memorisation based to be fun. The opportunity to play bonus stages for extra lives and the games unlimited continues mean you can muscle through whatever, but honestly it’s hard to say the game is worth it. Whilst there’s occasional fun to be hard here, I’d skip it and play something better.
The Ninja
The Ninja is a game with an interesting history. Originally an Arcade game known as Ninja Princess in Japan, or Sega Ninja in America, the game features your protagonist running through 12 top down levels, Commando-style, shooting enemies and dodging obstacles to find your way to the final encounter. Apparently though, when porting it to Master System Sega decided that a generic dude was a better protagonist than a bad-ass ninja princess chick, so they swapped the character out and thus we get the blandly named “The Ninja”.
The Ninja features a solid control scheme for the genre in the era, with button 1 shooting shurikens in the direction you’re facing, whilst button 2 throws them straight up at all times – useful as the majority of the stages scroll upwards and enemies will generally attack you from there. Enemies can drop power-ups when defeated – the blue scroll powers your shurikens up to do more damage and carry on after killing an enemy, whilst the red scroll boosts your speed. Both are lost upon death. Pressing both attack buttons together briefly makes your ninja disappear, which can be used to dodge enemy attacks. A combination of running away and dodging at opportune moments can make some otherwise challenging levels a breeze too, as the limited number of enemies on screen mean you can prevent many enemies even getting the chance to spawn in and attack.
The ninja features some variety in the level designs, includeing a stage on floating logs where you have restricted movement, a stage where horses run across the screen and need to be dodged with careful timing, and a diagonally scrolling stage with boulders bouncing down. Be prepared to see all of these stages multiple times if you don’t know where to find the games 5 hidden green scrolls though – as these are required to access the games final level, and the games loops back to the beginning if you missed them. They’re a pain to find, so I recommend just using a guide.
The Ninja is a fun enough game, but it’s biggest flaw is that it’s incredibly short. It’s possible that reading this review thus far has taken you almost as long as the entirety of the game takes to beat – it’s less than 15 minutes long if you don’t game over. However, my own trip through it was lengthened by a ‘bonus’ I discovered which is apparently a glitch – upon beating stage 10 without throwing any shurikens, I received a 99,999,999 point bonus. At that point I had obtained about 150,000 points throughout the whole game. It took the game around 45 minutes to add the points to my tally at the end of the level – bear in mind the whole rest of the game took me about 15 minutes in all. I’ve attached a short snippet of footage (about 20 seconds) from my phone to give an idea how long it took and the sound I got to enjoy whilst it tallied. Click this spoiler below to take a look.
R-Type
R-Type is a game I own on 2 different platforms – I own it here, on the Master System, and I also have the Turbografx version too. Obviously, the Turbografx version is graphically superior, closer to the arcade version and better sounding, but for my money, this is the version to play. Not only do I find the game a bit easier here on the Master System (something I think is sorely needed) thanks to smaller hitboxes and a faster feeling movement speed by default, but I also find this port to be a stunningly impressive adaptation to lesser hardware.
R-Type is a shmup focused on memorisation – you’ll need to practice to get further, and knowing where to position yourself for the next wave of attacks is crucial. However, compared to the likes of Gradius, which I feel operates similarly, dying in R-Type feels less like an instant game over – there’s a small but significant chance to get the force power up you need quickly and be back to a status where you can once again hold your own, unlike Gradius where your super slow ship armed with a pea shooter stands absolutely no chance.
R-Type has limited power-ups to boost your ship with, but what it has are useful. Besides the standard speed upgrades and a set of 3 weapons – a bouncing diagonal laser, a shot which runs along the floor and ceiling, and a wide front shot – the key power up to obtain is the force, which won’t help you destroy any death stars necessarily, but will be very useful in both defending yourself from attack and in attack from different angles.
Careful use of the force is crucial, and it has lots of utility to make use of. By flying into it you can attach it to the front or back of your ship where it will act as a shield from enemy shots. Whilst mounted on the back of your ship it also provides rear fire, which is otherwise unavailable. Pressing the 2 button will launch the force outwards, damaging enemies and allowing it to fly freely in front of you. Shooting it in this position will launch shots upwards and downwards of the force, allowing you to shoot at odd angles and around corners. Pressing the A button calls the force back to you to use as a shield once more. Using the force carefully can make some tougher parts of the gamer a pushover – the first boss can go down very quickely if you fire the force into his weak point and then simply focus on dodging whilst it finishes the job.
The stages in R-Type vary in quality – some are awesome, such as the amazing battleship stage where you fly around a huge ship dismantling it piece by piece, taking out mounted turrets, engines and armor as you go. On the other hand, some are entirely bland, with very little features to note. Some, like stage 4, are very frustrating – this one cost me lots of continues due to the number of enemies flying suddenly across the screen. More than a few game overs were caused by that stage, and there were 8 to playthrough.
R-Type is a fun game, and an impressive showpiece for the system. There are issues with flickering which can be a problem when bullets become hard to see, but it’s not too bad overall, and certainly not a gamebreaker. R-type is also a product of it’s time though. Whilst I prefer it to Gradius due to it being easier to recover upon dying, I still find this breed of early shmup to be unfair at times, and I prefer later entries in the genre. For the Master System though, this is a solid shmup experience, and well worth a play.
