Punch-monkey love: Super Tennis & Alex Kidd in Miracle World | Segaiden

Before we start, I realize that I mixed up some details when I mentioned a non-existent submarine. No need for corrections—it's already been addressed for the book.

For our two final American Master System releases of 1986, we have a game that looks remarkably derivative of an early Nintendo NES title (and rightly so) and a game that often gets compared to a major NES hit (but really is something much stranger and more ambitious).

Yes, there's no denying that Super Tennis—no, not the Super NES one—looks almost exactly like Black Box Tennis for NES, all the way down the character sprites. But, you know, steal from the best, right?

That philosophy seemingly looms over Alex Kidd in Miracle World as well: A game that Sega clearly designed as the answer to Super Mario Bros., what with it being a character platformer where you break blocks and all. Except the similarities really end there, and Miracle World ultimately embraces an entirely different design philosophy. If it weren't for the hostile control physics (and the reversed input button layout, ugh), it might be revered more widely for its ambitions today—at least, revered by people who didn't grow up with a copy of the game preloaded onto their Master System II console, where it at least had un-reversed controls. Anyway, weird game, and extremely difficult bordering on unfair, but not the clone that outsider observers treat it as.

Production notes:

Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collectio...! Look forward to SG-1000 Works: Segaiden Vol. I, due summer 2023.

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Most Master System footage captured from U.S. carts running through an adapter on Sega Mark III hardware with FM Sound Unit and RGB bypass modification by iFixRetro. Most arcade and Master System Light Phaser footage captured from MiSTer, with thanks to MiSTerAddOns. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.