Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is a platform game for the Sega Genesis. It was first released in Japan as a launch title on the February 10, 1989. The fifth game in the Alex Kidd series, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is the only Alex Kidd game to appear on a 16-bit console.

Alex Kidd discovers that his long-lost father, King Thor, is still alive. He sets off to the planet Paperock to free his father and return him to the planet Aries.

Gameplay
The player guides Alex through 11 stages on the planet Paperock by fighting and avoiding enemies & obstacles.

Enchanted Castle returns to the original formula of Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Where you have to punch enemies and blocks to destroy them, you can collect vehicles to travel across levels, and reintroduces the classic Janken (Rock, Paper, Scissors) battles, used to fight bosses and to now win items from shops.

Regional Variations
In the original Japanese version of the game, when Alex Kidd or his opponent loses a Rock Paper Scissors match, the loser's clothes disappear, leaving him with nothing but a fig leaf over his crotch; if a female loses, she has three one covering her crotch, and two covering her breasts. In the Western versions, the loser is squashed beneath a heavy weight. Several levels were renamed for the Western release as well (For example, the Japanese versions first level is called "Bikini Town").

Because of the more sexual connotations of the Japanese version, it was rumored that Sega Japan was planning to promote Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle towards a more mature audience (Akin to RARE's Nintendo 64/Xbox title, Conker's Bad Fur Day released 12 years later).

=Re-Releases= The game was released on the Wii's Virtual Console on April 9, 2007 in North America and on May 4 of the same year in Europe.

The game is also available as a standalone unit on the Megadrive/Genesis Arcade Legends Volume 2 Plug n' Play Joypad collection, released by Radica