Alex Kidd in Shinobi World - Shinobi Kid (original / Working Title)

Shinobi Kid (original / Working Title)

In 2007, images and articles began to surface on the internet, that like Alex Kidd in High-Tech World, Alex Kidd was not originally intended to be the star of the game. Rather, the game was initially devised to be a 'cute' parody of Shinobi, in a similar vein to Kid Dracula was to Castlevania and Parodius was to Gradius.

An article from Issue Four of "S: The Sega Magazine" (March 1990) printed the following article about Shinobi Kid:

Along with the price reduction, Sega announced that there will continue to be new titles released for the Master System, and many were on display. As well as games already featured in S there were new up-and-coming titles such as Ultima IV, Golfamania, Shinobi Kid, Assault City, Slapshot plus Super Monaco GP and Simple Fighter (both announced but not shown) and R.C. Grand Prix from Absolute Entertainment, although none of the previous third party licenses (Activision, Parker Brothers, Epyx) plan to release new titles for the Master System.

Of these, Shinobi Kid was about the best. The tune is from Shinobi, but the Character is a small kid. He has some of the same moves and a new power: instead of walking through the screens, he can grab the occasional lamp pole or bar and start spinning faster and faster around it. Pushing the button releases him and he flies across several screens, knocking out any bad guys along the way. The screen scrolls horizontally and sometimes vertically downward into a maze and then back up to ground level. At the end of each level, after he rescues all the tied-up hostages, he must fight the end-of-level boss. One is called Mari-Oh (as a sideswipe at Ni****do's Mario character). Defeat Mari-Oh and he shrinks down in size and disappears.