The TG-16 pack in game, doesn't really showcase the system
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones was the game that came packed in with the Turbo Grafx-16 when it launched in 1989 in North America. It is a 2D platformer action game, that has you playing in two different types of worlds, one as a kid on a goofy looking overworld, and the other in a kick ass robot mech type suit in the dark underworld.
In the overworld where you play as this young kid, the gameplay is fairly slow and the weapon of choice being some type of small dagger where you hit enemies in front of you. The overworld consists of platforming with shops to go into kind of like in Zelda II, where you can heal yourself or purchase weapons and upgrades. Of course, these things will cost you gold, in which killing enemies in the overworld will give you, almost like an RPG farming type element of some sort. The gameplay isn't all that engaging and becomes really stale and slow paced not really giving an a great fun experience, but decent for what it is. Then, once you reach the end you will then transform into a mech type suit. You'll now be in an underworld, which is much darker, and has more heavy bassed filled music to really give you a push. Right away you will notice the gameplay speed up quite a bit, and is a lot more fun than the slow kind of bad gameplay of the overworld. There are also different types of enemies as well, which much harder gameplay, then once you get to the end you'll came face to face with a boss, then once you have beaten him you will begin the next level in the overworld as the kid again. You will repeat this through 8 levels, and becomes very repedetive and boring and quickly wanting to not really even continue playing anymore.
The music in Keith Courage is alright, not the best and sounds kind of cheesy, but still listenable. The underworld music is pretty pumping and will get you into the game at first, but pretty much playing the same levels 8 times over gets boring. As far as how the game looks, it is curtainly better than 8 bit, but not quite 16 bit as the system compells it is, looking more in between 8bit and 16 bit.
I wouldn't really recommend this game to anyone, or really go out of your way to play or purchase it. If you can find it for under $5 somewhere, its really up to you. But this game is far from being good, but isn't terrible, its really just a really mediocre game, and was a poor choice for a pack in game that didn't show what the TG-16 could like other launch titles could, such as Alien Crush or Blazing Lazers which I highly recommend you play those titles.
