You have to wonder just what NEC was thinking when they chose Keith Courage in Alpha Zones as their pack-in title. To be fair, Sega actually did worse with their pick of Altered Beast. Unlike NEC the rest of their launch library was good enough to properly support their new console. The Turbografx-16 had no such benefit. Keith Courage is one of those titles that you always hear about because it is attributed with the demise of the entire system. Today I thought it might be fun to take a look. Why exactly is this game is so hated? After giving the it another look I must say that Keith Courage is as bad as everyone says it is. At the same time I doubt it’s the main reason the Turbografx failed when garbage like Altered Beast was critically acclaimed.
Keith Courage’s story is kind of all over the place. You play as the titular hero who must stop aliens from an organization called B.A.D. (Beastly Alien Dudes) from taking over the Earth. Beyond this fact, and a short scroll of text at the end of the game there’s virtually no plot, but it’s no matter. Keith Courage was designed as a typical side scrolling platformer game. You walk from one end of a level to the next as you jump on to platforms and over terrain. Each level is populated by enemies, but you’re armed with a short sword to fight against them. Your life bar is located at the top of the screen and takes the form of a heart meter. Defeated enemies drop hearts as well as money. The latter can be used to purchase items at any of the numerous in-game stores.
The gimmick here is that levels are divided into two separate sections. In the first areas you play as plain old Keith with his short sword. The second throws you into a mech robot and transports you to the underworld. Here the enemies are faster and stronger, but luckily so are you. This is a good idea on paper, but the execution is a little disappointing to be honest. I was hoping that the upgrade in capabilities would make the game easier to really hit it home as a power-up, but the more difficult enemies completely undoes any advantage you would otherwise have. At the end of the underworld sections awaits a boss, and these encounters are disappointing as well. They’re not impressive by any means, and these battles aren’t particularly interesting to be honest.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zone’s main issue, in my opinion, is the pace of gameplay. Keith moves like he’s walking through molasses. He jumps with about as much enthusiasm. Platform games have always been more enjoyable when you can run and zip through stages (looking at you Mario and Sonic) but here you just sort of inch forward. It’s ridiculous. The underworld sections of the game fare quite a bit better because the mech robot moves around at a decent pace. This section should have been the whole game. The developers could have thrown the Keith Courage sections in the trash and this would be a stronger package for it. It shows that the developers knew how to make a decent game but chose not to.
One of the major problems with this game is that it’s too easy. Enemies rarely offer up a challenge, and their attack patterns are extremely simplistic and predictable. Those who are having a tough time with the game can save up coins which are carried by specific foes and use them to buy better weaponry, but for the most part this is unnecessary. The game doesn’t feature any creative platforming either, and most of these areas repeat the same pattern with one pit and two moving steps. Unfortunately it becomes obvious right away that the developers behind Keith Courage had little to no interest in making a quality design instead opting to slap random and repeating elements together in a package that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to be honest.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones has decent graphics. The character and enemy sprites are large and animate nicely. In addition the game is very colorful with bright models and backgrounds, and the framerate always remains constant. Unfortunately the game is a mess thematically. The developers were going for a general Asian theme with old style buildings, but the rest of the game doesn’t match this. The enemies in particular are entirely too random and entirely too zany. You’ve got squirrels running around with shirts that drag on the ground, magicians with green mustaches, and handguns with legs. These designs make absolutely no sense and do not combine to make anything resembling a general theme. The developers could have done a little better than simply calling them ‘aliens.’ Keith Courage is just plain weird even in the graphics department.
The soundtrack is really bad as well. Despite having a pretty decent and high energy title theme the rest of the music just doesn’t fit. Every stage has the same track and it’s a plodding slow paced piece that is extremely out of place. The hardware itself has always produced higher pitched notes than usual, and it does no favor to the compositions here. The underworld theme is a little more enjoyable, but it lacks any sense of unique flair, and it’s easily forgettable within just minutes. The sound effects are also quite screechy and are not particularly enjoyable. By the end of the game I started to dread hearing the jump and sword chimes to be honest. It’s obvious that the composer was never particularly inspired here, but that seems to be the general theme here.
Platformers are still one of my all time favorite genres, but Keith Courage in Alpha Zones is just plain painful. This game suffers from one of the least inspired designs of all time. The developers must have put in some serious effort to make this one as boring as possible. As I see it, you would have to set out to make this one boring on purpose to get this result. The final kick in the pants is that Keith Courage’s boxart is so dreadful and awful. It doesn’t even look good as a part of a collection. Avoid it.
