Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

TurboGrafx-16 - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Hudson Soft, NEC Publisher Hudson Soft Published 1988-08-30 Platforms TurboGrafx-16 Genres Action, Beat 'em up, Platformer Themes Mecha, Science Fiction Series Mashin Eiyuden Wataru Distribution Commercial

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones is a platform beat 'em up developed and published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16 on 1988-08-30. In Japan, the game is based on the Mashin Eiyuden Wataru series of anime. In the USA, it was the pack-in game for the TurboGrafx-16.

You play as Keith Courage, a member of N.I.C.E. (Nations for International Citizens of Earth) and you must save the world from being overrun by the B.A.D. (Bad Alien Dudes). The game is seven zones with two sections to each. In the first section, you must defeating weaker BADs with your sword to take their money to buy upgrades and ammo for the second section which puts you in your super-deformed mecha alpha suit battling more powerful BADs. Defeating the boss of the second part will take you to the next zone.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2024-01-02.

Wanting to expand my familiarity with the TurboGrafx-16, I did a search for the most popular games and found this one, although, I quickly learned that its popularity was due, not to it being a good game, but because it was the pack-in game, a decision, I'm confident, helped prevent the TurboGrafx-16 from becoming popular in the USA. I initially found it mildly enjoyable, and, after I discovered it gave unlimited continues, I convinced myself that I would keep at it until I beat it. What a fool I was. I did eventually beat the game, but hated most of it.

Review

3	3	4	3	2

Best Version: TurboGrafx-16

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game has a little bit of charm with the character design. The chibi style and dialogue of Nurse Nancy, the Wise Wizard, and the Weapon Master are silly, and several enemies are interesting. I briefly enjoyed slaying a bunch of Maneki-nekos and the revolver men.
• You're given unlimited continues, which is nice, as you're going to need a lot of them!

Bad

• Continuing starts you with very little health, and costs you half your money and bolt bombs.
• Although some of the character design is pretty good, over all, the art is bland and the same graphics are used throughout the entire game. Some of the enemies are just bouncing balls.
• The music and sound isn't anything to get excited over.
• The controls aren't that great. The jump is rather floaty and the knock-back is severe.
• I reached my health cap around zone 3, so, I didn't see any other improvements for the rest of the game.
• As far as I can tell, the sword upgrades only affect the length of your weapon, not the damage. Even near the end of the game, enemies were still taking the same number of hits.
• The bosses all have patterns which can be exploited, but learning them takes several attempts, and, having to restock health and bolt bombs is a chore.
• The final boss can be easily glitched into a stunned status either by landing behind him, or keeping him partially off screen. After dying to him about a dozen times, I didn't feel bad about pelting him with bolt bombs from a distance.
• It's petty, but the US title is childish, even for children. NEC really phoned-in the localization.

Ugly

• The game is not enjoyable and painfully monotonous. The later sword upgrades are very expensive, so you have to grind money in the first half of each zone. The manual even gives you tips on how to grind! Getting enough for the alpha sword will require about twenty minutes of killing the same enemy over and over again. And, since the later bosses are so difficult, you don't stand much of a chance unless you reach them with full health and a lot of bolt bombs, so, each time you die, you'll have to backtrack and grind to refill them which takes another five minutes each attempt.
• The level design of the second half of each zone uses a lot of beginner traps like spikes below a platform you have to jump off of, but you can't see where they are, and enemies that appear just as you're jumping over spikes in order to knock you back into them. The second half of the zone also have winding maps that all look the same, so it's easy to lose your way. Spending a long time grinding for health and ammo only to die a few seconds into an underground section is frustrating enough to want to throw your controller.

Media

Box Art

• 

  PC Engine.

• 

  TurboGrafx-16. I presume this is the 1st edition from the lack of trademarks.

• 

  TurboGrafx-16 - Revision.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - TurboGrafx-16.

Videos

Longplay - PC Engine.

Longplay - TurboGrafx-16.

Play Online

PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The only woman is Nurse Nancy who doesn't do much.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There is only one woman.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Although the NPCs are drawn as Japanese caricatures, none of them are strong.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
Japanese	魔神英雄伝ワタル	Mashin Eiyuden Wataru	Demon Hero Wataru

Links