GEN - Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

Haiku-Review:

paper, rock, scissors
is the route to victory.
what a bizarre game!

Additional Comments:

Being that this is the first Alex Kidd game I've ever played, I really didn't know what to expect, other than the music, which I already had a fair knowledge of, and knowing that Alex Kidd himself appeared to be some sort of monkey-kid hybrid, having previously come across the Alex Kidd sprite in an SMW hack.  Well, turns out, this is one of those games where you basically have to throw everything you know about platformers out the window and start from scratch, because this game just makes less and less sense at every turn - the paper-rock-scissor boss battles and shop/gambling houses leading the way.  But if only they touted some of the story at the beginning of the game instead of saving it all to the end, then perhaps we would know that Alex Kidd ventured to Planet Paperock, therefore making this silly finger game appear at every turn not seem all that ridiculous after all.

Other than that, the game has some nice, early style 16-bit graphics thrown in there and it is fitted with a rather upbeat and joyous soundtrack, ie: Desert Theme

Nano-rant (Macro-rant?):

Ok, I'm going to be surpassing the "nano" measure by quite a bit, but two things I just have to mention:
1. The aforementioned bouts of Janken replacing boss battles just feels so cheap.  You work your way through a level only to come to a guardian which you can pass by throwing a single winning hand of paper-rock-scissors.  What's the point of even having a boss?  Well, I suppose you get rewarded with an actual battle with the end boss, but ooh, not so fast - first you must beat me in two rounds of Janken.  Are you shittin' me?  Gah!
2. Oh wait, we're not done yet, you know that final boss you just defeated?  Come to find out he was just your long lost father's servant.  He was just a little lonely and wanted to play a game.  And to top it off, your father's rather happy living on Paperock.  Then what the hell did I even go through this adventure for!?  I should have just called him on the phone, or has Paperock replaced all phones with pathetic games of Janken?

Congrats, Alex, you have received a macro-rant.....  But don't let that fool you, despite my gripes, this was still a pretty clever and fun little platformer.  Definitely not the greatest, but nonetheless enjoyable due to it's quirky features.

Rating: 3 pedicopters out of 5