Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Gain Ground are now available for the Nintendo Switch for $7.99 each. Put Alex Kidd’s rock-crushing fists to the test in this SEGA AGES release containing several quality-of-life improvements including a Rewind option to make the game more accessible. Meanwhile, Gain Ground gets an arcade-faithful version featuring an All-Member Mode that unlocks all 20 characters, along with a three-player local multiplayer option.
SEGA Games History: Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Gain Ground Trivia
- Since Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Phantasy Star share some of the same development staff, many references from the former appear in the latter. For example, the Psycho Wand in Alex Kidd is wielded by Lutz in Phantasy Star.
- The characters Egle and his fiancé (Princess) Lora share the same names as the main characters in Pit Pot, an action game for the Sega Master System.
- Gain Ground was known for its impressive level of detail for the time. While most arcade and SEGA Genesis titles ran at 320×224 resolution, Gain Ground was presented at 496×384 resolution thanks to its powerful System 24 board.
- In the original Japanese version of Gain Ground, Stage 4-8 featured a popular glitch (fixed in the American release) where the level wouldn’t end unless you proceeded with only a few of the rescued characters, forcing you to beat the game this way. Since the plot involved a tyrannical computer AI, many felt this was coincidentally canonical, so the glitch is enabled by default in the game’s settings.
As Alex Kidd, you must go on a quest to return peace to the land of Radaction by defeating the evil Janken the Great, who sends his henchmen and monsters to thwart your progress. You must defeat them by participating in a game of “rock, paper, scissors” against his minions. With 16 different levels to conquer as you steadily make your way to Janken the Great, this platforming classic is sure to test your skills and your wits!
In Gain Ground, when a battle simulation goes wrong, all the contestants inside the system have been taken hostage by androids that have been reprogrammed into hi-tech killing machines. As an army of elite soldiers, you will travel through different simulated war zones to reach the corrupt central computer and finally put an end to the hostile system once and for all.