I feel like I didn't play nearly enough of this to form a fair opinion, yet at the same time I feel like I've played way more than I would ever want to. Such is the paradox of the Alpha Zones.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones is an example of what happens when you take an anime/manga with an established world (in this case the admittedly obscure Majin Eiyuuden Wataru) and try to recontextualize its characters, setting and lore through a very basic video game effigy. You get awful, bizarre products like Dragon Power or Street Combat. It also leads to aberrations like "Kid Ying" and "Doctor Yang". I'm not necessarily some Japanophile purist who insists everyone use "Aerith" and should always switch to the Japanese voice track when applicable, but all the same these games were made objectively worse by trying to separate themselves from their source material for the questionable benefit of a late-80s/early-90s western audience that had yet to encounter anime in any mainstream venue. It doesn't help that Keith Courage isn't a particularly good game either.
Whatever, I've covered dodgy animelicense games for this feature before. I think I can handle an Alpha Zone or two.
What Are Alpha Zones? Like, the Gym? Sports Bars?
Welcome to Alex Kidd in Alpha Zones!There's the big-haired moppet now, showing off his sword and hopping skills. I should've tried pressing more buttons, but I think this is all you get for the time being.I did see a few rocks in this level. Apropos name.Good advice. Failure to look at the weapons as he hands them to you can lead to health conditions such as "stab hand" and "sword gut".Finally, something a little reasonable.Dammit, Obamacare hasn't reached the Alpha Zones either. All right, we're shutting this all down.You manipulative swine. Oh hey, Bulma called, she wants her everything back.But there are lots of huts. Which one has Nova Force? What is Nova Force? Why do I want it? Do I have to pay through the nose before you'll tell me?Here's the first obstacle of the game that isn't the translation, but it doesn't seem particularly vexing.Right. Beginner's luck and all that.Well that was quick. (Actually, this game has infinite continues as far as I can tell. Dying just resets your progress for that level and takes half your money away, Diablo style. Annoying, but surprisingly reasonable for a 16-bit game.)When you live in a world where free healthcare is replaced with sarcasm and spikes, becoming an arms merchant is probably the wisest course of action. There's a definite "survival of the fittest" vibe around here.And then Keith flew on a sweet, sweet rainbow bridge back down to Free Country, USA.Nah, I'm just getting into my Nova Suit. I imagine that's what pink-hair was talking about. Wait, was her hair pink or green? I don't even care enough to remember.So yeah, this just became a Gundam game. I can still only walk around, jump and swing a sword, but now I'm a robotmans!All right, this is the coolest guy I've ever seen. Aviator goggles and a giant revolver for a head. Headshot City indeed!Suddenly, this place takes a turn for the ominous. What the hell are those things? Innsmouth residents?The boss is this guy and his identical twin brother. They fly around a lot but are about as tough as the regular enemies. I have no idea what their connection is to the eerily glowing red corpse monsters in the background. I feel like the game is challenging me to try and make sense of them, and possibly go insane in the attempt.No time to worry about that, then. We'll take the Bifrost to Valhalla and go hang out with cybervikings in my mech suit. (How did I go from Lovecraftian horrors to cybervikings? What a weird path for a person and/or games company to take.)World 2 and I'm already getting bilked again with this insane inflation rate. I can just farm enemies for hearts you know, I don't have to put up with this price-gouging.Reverse Zone? You mean I'm going to find a hot nurse that charges reasonable rates? *high fives no-one in particular*No, they mean an upside-down level. It's quite an abrupt change too, I almost forgot to cap it. The darker reverse clouds are a nice touch.I can actually afford it? Hell yeah, then. Give me Braveheart's sword.So I'm back to being in a suit again. The weapons you buy, turns out, can only be used while you're in your mech suit, which is perhaps fair enough since regular Keith doesn't fight anything bigger than a dormouse. At this point, though, I'm getting a little tired of being knocked onto spikes by Flying Medusa Head's equally obnoxious skeletal cousins so this will be it for the Alpha Zones.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones isn't actually all that bad. It has a very humane game over penalty, a curious system where you can grind during the easier Keith-on-foot stages to buy weapons and power-ups for the mech suit stages and the controls are reasonably responsive. These mech stages have been a little arbitrary so far, since the goal is to head downwards and that requires a lot of "leap of faith" dives into the darkness onto fun things like insta-death spikes and Cthulhu only knows what else. I don't doubt the game will ratchet up on the bullshit-o-meter as it finds innovative ways to make the game even more artificially difficult.
So overall Keith Courage is not terrible, but not exactly a convincing reason to buy a brand new console either. Here's the Kappa to this little adventure: if I want to Beta game, I going to have to be Delta better hand than this. Phi on you, I say! (I Nu, I Nu, these puns are Psi-worthy.)
