Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

The Good
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones is based on an anime of the same name. In the year 2004, a group of aliens called B.A.D. (Beastly Alien Dudes) decide to take control of the underground, creating seven levels of elemental zones, called the Alpha Zones. Keith Courage, a member for N.I.C.E. (Nations for International Citizens of Earth), has been asked to travel to each Underworld in an attempt to defeat B.A.D., and to help him out, he is supplied with the Nova Suit that his father gave to him, and this allows him to enter the Alpha Zone and defeat the leaders.

As well as the suit, you are offered to buy weapons, bolt bombs, and extra health (if you really need it), but like some things in life, they are not free. You collect gold by defeating various enemies in the Overworld. The good thing about collecting gold is that you can get an infinite number of gold by defeating the same enemies, as they do not disappear - once you have defeated them, you can go to another area and come back, only to find that the enemies will reappear.

And once you buy bolt bombs, you can only use them in the Underworlds. While you are there, you can increase the number of shots that are delivered by the Bolt Bombs by looking for a blue sphere with a number in it. These are dropped by your Underworld enemies, and the number of shots that you will receive will depend on the number inside the sphere. You can get up to five shots in one bolt bombs, and getting the maximum shots is a great way to defeat bosses that you encounter at the end of the Underworlds. The bolt bombs themselves are more effective than the swords.

The Bad
Keith Courage is quite a bad game. You see, when you start the game, you will immediately notice the V.A.M. (Very Annoying Music) being played in the odd-numbered zones, in both the Overworld and Underworld. Only the music is better in the even-numbered zones, in both worlds.

The graphics in both worlds are not really good. Apart from a few structures that make the Overworlds stand out, both worlds have very bland backgrounds with a few clouds. The only good thing that I can say for the Underworld's graphics is that they include mountains, but even this doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to the backgrounds that are used in many games such as the Legendary Axe series. I have to admit that the shops that you enter in each Overworld are well done.

As well as the graphics, you defeat the same enemies again and again in both worlds. It would be nice to have a little B.O.V. (Bit of Variation), and the bosses that you have to defeat look like ones that you have defeated before. And if and when you encounter the same enemy or boss, they do not attempt to kill you a different way than they did before.

The weapons that you can gets are basically swords, but again these are nothing special. In fact, they do not even look like swords at all. Instead, they look like horizontal laser beams which grow longer, except the longer that they go, the higher their strength.

The Bottom Line
If you are desperate to play an action/platform game, leave this title alone. Apart from the gameplay, everything, including the graphics and music, is bad, and just because it was one of the first TG-16 games to come out doesn't mean that you have to play it.

Rating: *