Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
Reviewed by Michael LoCascio
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones originally came packaged with
every Turbografx-16 system. It wasn't a terrible choice for
a pack-in game: as a demonstration of the Turbo's
capabilities, Keith Courage was quite impressive.
Unfortunately, it sorely lacked any kind of depth or replay
value. Keith Courage in Alpha Zones could essentially be
viewed as more of a promo than anything else.
In this simple, side-scrolling action game, you play Keith
Courage, and it is your job to protect the Earth from the
'Beastly Alien Dudes' (B. A. D!). The game is made up of
seven stages, each of which is divided up into an overworld
and an underworld. I'm sure that when many gamers brought
home their brand new TG-16 and started playing the level one
overworld, they immediately thought that they had been
scammed out of their money. The overworlds look a lot like
the very first level of the original Super Mario Bros. The
backgrounds are a bit more detailed in Keith Courage, but
the tiny enemy creatures are really nothing more than
glorified Little Goombas. The worst part is the
lackadaisical pace of these lackluster levels: Keith walks
along extremely slowly, and it can be a bit tough to get him
to make jumps on to platforms (especially if those platforms
just happen to be moving).
Although the overworld stages are extremely short, they can
oftentimes feel as if they take forever to complete. Once
you finally do finish up a dull overworld stage, things
become a lot more intense. When Keith advances to the
underworld levels, he dons his powerful nova suit (which
makes him look more like a robot than a human being). The
pace of the underworld stages is most impressive: Keith can
move at a very rapid speed with his nova suit on, which is a
good thing, because the robotic villains who dominate the
underworld will continually bombard him until he reaches the
end of the level. The underworld is a place where light
sabers, bombs, and explosions reign supreme - quite a
contrast to the timid overworld sequences.
When you examine the graphics and sound in Keith Courage in
Alpha Zones, you can basically throw out the overworld
scenes and primarily concentrate on the underworld. This is
where the Turbo is really allowed to show its stuff. The
audio during the underworld scenes is very intense and
dynamic, while the enemy characters are incredibly
well-drawn. The tremendous bosses are colorful, quick, and
intimidating - they most certainly did blow away anything
that the 8-bit NES had to offer.
Even the underworld scenes are very simple and repetitive,
however. Keith Courage in Alpha Zones becomes boring rather
quickly, mainly because you do the exact same things in
every single level. In the overworld, you jump from platform
to platform, kill a few enemies in order to attain a little
cash, buy a new sword at the shop that you inevitably come
across, and move on. During the underworld levels, you kill
everything that dares to come near you and make one blind
jump after another (most of which land you in a pit of
spikes). Since the game is so easy, most players won't have
much use for it within just a few days of making the purchase.
If you've never played Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, it
might be neat to find a copy and get a glimpse of the
underworld stages. Compare those levels to anything that you
ever owned for the NES, and you'll quickly be reminded of
why everyone was so excited about 16-bit gaming at the time.
Don't expect anything more than an impressive demonstration
of bright colors and loud explosions, however. When it came
to depth and overall fun, Super Mario was still the king.
Overall: 5 out of 10
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