Merge Games have announced a new classic game revival is in the works, with Alex Kidd In Miracle World DX an expanded remake of the Sega Master System platformer.
The side scrolling game finds Alex punching his way from left to right picking up coins that can be used to buy power ups including a motorbike and a helicopter and at the end of each stage he also plays jan-ken-pon, which is rock paper scissors to us in the west.
The plot is pure 90’s: Young martial arts fanatic Alex learns that Janken the Great has kidnapped the son of and defeated King Thunder of Radaxian city. He also learns – gasp! – that he is also the son of King Thunder so he sets out to rescue his new brother, Prince Egle.
The new version has reworked graphics but you can swap to a retro mode, and there’s also a new boss rush mode. It is being published by Merge Games, the team who gave us the superb Streets of Rage 4.
Kotaro Hayashida, creator of the game of the original Master System title, has revealed that the title originally started life as a Dragon Ball game.
“Sega were planning on making a Dragon Ball game… I guess this happened long enough ago that it’s okay for me to talk about this! The project began as a Dragon Ball title, not as a direct competitor to Super Mario Bros,” he explained to John Szczepaniak in the book Untold History of Japanese Game Developers.
“But when we were told we could not use the Dragon Ball licence any more, we were forced to come up with our own ideas instead,” he continued. “For example, when it was Dragon Ball, Goku fought with his Power Pole, but we changed that to a punch attack. It was only after we came up with the plan to restart the project as Alex Kidd in Miracle World that we starting thinking about Mario, and looking for ways in which to differentiate the title from it.”
Platforms were not announced but we would expect the title to land on all current gen platforms.
Source: YouTube
