Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX looks fantastic and is full of charm, but those positive qualities can’t save the very dated game it’s remaking from feeling its age. It has some fun features, but overall, Miracle World DX is a rough sell for any but the most nostalgic of Sega kids.
Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX
Developer: Jankenteam and Merge Games
Price: $20
Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PS4 code for review
I have a strange affinity for Alex Kidd. It’s a weird franchise from SEGA that has a neat aesthetic and an excellent main character design, but that’s about it. I never found the games to be particularly good, as they’re more frustrating than challenging. That remains true in Miracle World DX, which, while fun to look at and listen to, is kind of a pain to play through. It’s not the fault of Jankenteam or Merge Games– they made a strong remaster– it’s just that the game they’re remaking isn’t great to begin with.
The world of Alex Kidd is one of its strongest assets. It’s full of peculiar monsters, people with big rock-paper-scissors hands for heads, and varied locales. You’re essentially trying to retake your kingdom and save your family from the evil Janken, which is done through punching and playing rock-paper-scissors (also known as, fittingly, janken.) It’s a fun fantasy world that I wish was in a more fun game.
Miracle World DX’s gameplay is very uneven. It’s a fairly basic platformer, but something about the controls feels off. You never seem to land where you plan to when jumping, and movement is both stilted and slippery. One hit is all it takes to kill you, so you’ll likely land on enemies during a jump and die, bringing you back to a checkpoint. You can only hurt enemies by punching them, but there’s a very specific hitbox for punching– on that, with improper timing, will also lead to your death. It feels like you’re always dying in Miracle World DX, and a lot of the time, it doesn’t entirely feel like your fault.
I recommend playing Miracle World DX with infinite lives on, as the difficulty of the game is less of a fun challenge and more of a test of patience. I’m always down for a good challenge when it comes to games, but I found Miracle World DX would too frequently lean into frustrating habits. There’s fun to be had when you’re battling bosses or using a vehicle power-up to blow through a level, but the infrequency of these two situations makes most of the game feel unfortunately dull. I also ran into a fair few bugs throughout the game, which would spawn me off-screen upon dying, meaning I had to go back to the main menu and restart the level upon each death. Hopefully these issues are patched out in the future, as they don’t help Miracle World DX any.
There are some very cool features in this remaster, like playing a reconstructed version of the original Miracle World, or a boss rush mode that is unlocked upon beating the game. My favorite feature has to be swapping between the remastered game and the reconstructed original game by pressing a single button, as it helped me appreciate the remade visuals and music even more.
The best part of Miracle World DX is its lovingly crafted visuals. The pixel art is incredibly expressive, and it gives new life to the game and its fantasy world. Alex himself, as well as Miracle World DX’s many enemies, gets a glow-up that adds a great deal of personality to each and every design. The redone music is also perfectly suited to the world of Miracle World DX, and though there’s one main rhythm throughout the game’s soundtrack, it’s catchy enough that I never got tired of it.
The Final Word
I wish I could recommend Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX, but it’s just not a lot of fun to play. The visuals and music are beautifully redone, and the world is quite unique. It’s just that the game itself is frustrating ,repetitive, and a bit buggy. Kudos to the devs for doing such a strong remaster, I just wish the game being remastered was better.
MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
