Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

Super Mario Brothers. Known by almost everyone. If you ask a kid who grew up in the 1980's who Super Mario was, They'd tell you: "The guy with the mustache who smashes bricks with his head and eats mushrooms. His game came with my NES." Ask people who raised kids in the 80s. Most could tell you who Super Mario is as well.

Ask these people who Sonic the Hedgehog is and many of them would say, the blue creature that runs really fast and has a penchant for gold jewelery that came with my Sega Genesis.

Heck, ask a lot of people what Altered Beast is and they'll tell you to, "POWER UP" and "WISE FROM YOU GWAVE".

Ask people who Keith Courage is. . . . . . crickets, yawns, blank stares, and I dunnos would be all you get.

For those of you that don't know, Keith Courage in the Alpha Zones was the pack in for NEC's illfated Turbo Grafx 16 system. While I am a huge fan of this system, I will come out and tell you I am not a fan of this game. This game was the Alpha and Omega rolled into one for the system. This game immediately killed any possible legitimacy NEC had in the 16-bit console wars. There were plenty of great games they could have picked to pack in with this system. But they picked Keith Courage. . . and stuck with it until NEC eventually cut their losses and ended production of the system. Why was it a bad game? Why was NEC's decision to pack it in with their system an awful idea?

Gameplay:

In my mind, Keith Courage was picked to be the pack in game for the Turbo Grafx 16 due to it's genre. It's an action platformer than anyone can pick up and play. It's simple controls resemble that of any action platform game. You move left and right with the directional pad. You swing your sword with button II and jump with button I.

The gameplay is split into 2 sections. Overworld and Underworld. The game has seven "zones". Rock, Reverse, Fire, Toxic, Glacier, and Robo. These zones consist of one over area and one under area. The overworld area is slow paced and offers little in terms of gameplay or challenge. Here you have to farm gold by slaying respawning enemies. This is pointless, inane and just plain boring. But you have to farm, to save up so you can buy items from the "Wise Wizard" such as bolt bombs that Keith can fire by holding up on the d-pad and pressing button II. You can upgrade your sword at the Weapon Master's store. You can also receive healing from Nurse Nancy. These upgrades are only to be used in the underworld. People in the overworld also offer you useless advice. They tell you what and where the next area is and things of that nature.

The underworld is a bit different. Here is where all the action takes place. Keith transforms with his Nova suit. The controls loosen, the music picks up, and enemies actually start trying to kill you. During your first play, this will seem pretty fun. You descend down the cave and fight a boss monster. Pretty straightforward action gaming.

The problem here however is how Keith maneuvers in both parts of the game.

In the overworld, Keith is much too slow and boring. In the underworld, he's faster, but very loose feeling and difficult to maneuver in tight situations. Many times, you'll find yourself running into enemies while trying to attack them and falling into the instant death spikes.

While I'm on the topic of spikes, could these be any more annoying? You're objective is to reach the bottom of the caves to fight the boss. So there are no pits to fall in. Instead they throw spike pits around and you'll blindly fall into these and have to start the stage all over again. Enemies also knock you back in a strange and unpredictable manner. . . which means you will be knocked into these pits as well.

The good news is that there infinite continues. Not that they're needed because the game really isn't all that challenging except for the aforementioned spike pits.

STORY:

The Japanese version of this game is based on an very popular Anime series entitled Mashin Hero Wataru. The story for this series was taken out for the american release of the game and replaced with a . . . much more "creative" one.

Essentially, the earth is struck by a massive meteor and this causes the earth to be invaded by aliens. They burrowed deep beneath the surface. This clan of burrowing aliens in known as Beastly Alien Dudes or B.A.D. . . . . . uh. . . .huh?

Keith Courage is a member of Nations of International Citizens for Earth AKA N.I.C.E.

Wow. This couldn't possibly get any cheesier.

Keith's father is a scientist. He invents the Nova Suit, gets shot in the spine by a B.A.D. and Keith takes the suit to carry out the alien genocide. Keith's goal is to reach Robo zone, where the headquarters of B.A.D. is located. If you win, you restore peace in the Universe. . . Yep. That's it.

They game also game with a Comic book that lays all this out. It's 7 pages and the size of a jewel case booklet.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are a mixed bag. The characters are fairly detailed. Houses in the overworld look pretty good. The colors are the one really great thing about this game. Going from the NES color palette in a game like Super Mario Brothers to this is shocking. The colors really pop in this game.

On the negative side of graphics: Everything is incredibly repetitive. All over worlds look very similar with minor color shifts. Same goes for the underworld. Backgrounds are bland and stoic. There is no detail in the world itself. It's all very, very, generic. The boss room is the only exception to this rule. The background is bright blue with pulsating green figures in the background.

The sound is also a mixed bag. I rather enjoy the music in the game. It's very childlike in the overworld and very upbeat with a heavy dose of minor keys to make the descent into the depths of the earth a bit more meanacing feeling. It's a pretty nice contrast. There are not many tracks in the game though, so it is a be repetitive.

The sound effects aren't bad. . . but they certainly aren't good either. Very bland explosion sounds while defeating enemies. A "Battle of Olympus" style sword stabbing noise. . . and . . . that's about all. . . oh yeah and the weird jumping and landing noises Keith makes in the overworld. . . I understand a landing noise. . . but jumping? What's the point of this sound?

Replay:

They game takes about 45 minutes to an hour to finish. It should take a lot less time than that. . . but you have to farm for gold by stabbing kittens that fall out of the sky.

Chances are, most who play the game long enough to finish it, won't be back. If they are, it won't be too often. One play through this one, and you've seen everything there is to see. No harder difficulty settings, no extra modes, no two player. . . nothing.

Final Thoughts:

Does this look like a game that will sell a system? Does it sound as if you could build a gaming empire on the shoulders of Keith Courage? No? Well yeah, it didn't work out for NEC. They used this game as their pack in the entire time the system was available! Later on they had different sets such as the Bonk System Set, but Keith Courage was still their standard? Why? My only guess is that they had trouble selling a system with the game packed in, so NEC made a few runs of systems that all included KC and never had reason to make more with a better pack in.

There were plenty of early launch or nearly lauch titles they could have used. Legandary Axe is the first one that pops in my head. It's a platform game. It's GOOD. It's FUN. It looks BETTER than this game with quality visuals and very detailed graphics. There are plenty more great early games that would have made this system sell. Christ, China Warrior was even a better game and LOOKED MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE than KC!

I'm not saying a pack in game is the only reason a system sells. But packing in a game of the caliber of Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Mario Bros, or a game with the Arcade WOW factor of Altered Beast certainly catches the consumer's attention.

NEC made plenty of marketing mistakes. A narrow advertising scope, inability to secure licensing in america (which wasn't their fault), a costly CD add on for which many of the most popular japanese games were on. All these mistakes, but Keith Courage in Alpha Zones was the first punch NEC dealt in the burgeoning videogame wars, too bad the punch missed and was redirected to their own jaw. The game's image was created by a marketing team during a time when people wore stone washed jeans and teased their hair until their heads bled. The game itself is weak, repetitive, and very boring. It isn't the worst game ever. But it sure is sub par.

The TG16 deserved a much better fate in America than it received. Plenty of great games would come out for the system, but no one seemed to know they existed. I can recall hearing about Bonk. . . that's what I knew the TG16 as. Then it went away, and never came back, never to wise frum its gwave again.

Overall, This game leaves me thinking in terms of "What ifs". What if Legandary Axe came with the system? What if they didn't use japanese marketing techniques, what if there wasn't a pack in at all? Would things have changed?

Chances are, looking at it that way, the result would have been similar but it would have taken a longer time to get there. Nintendo was a juggernaut with incredible in house development. The Genesis had arcade quality titles up the wazoo. the Turbo may have secured more quality titles with more publicity, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered.