Format: HuCard
Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Advance Communication
Publisher: NEC

Keith Courage makes full use of the PC Engine's impressive color palette, with tile art that is so richly drawn that it pops! There isn't any parallax scrolling, but some of the atmosphere is neat, particularly the areas in which the boss fights take place. The only real negative in the visuals department is that all of the areas look more or less the same.

Looking at Keith Courage composer Michiharu Hasuya's career, he was primarily a sound driver or sfx programmer. And it's no wonder, since his work on this title-- one of his only forays into actual composition-- is a mess; while the boss and shop songs are cool, both the overworld and underworld songs are rooted in traditional Japanese music, which doesn't translate well at all to the PC Engine's sound chip, and is really grating. Sound effects too are generic and underwhelming.

Keith Courage has some interesting jump mechanics, where a forward jump can be terminated by pressing in the opposite direction, allowing for a perfect downward landing. It's a shame other platformers don't utilize this system. Unfortunately, the challenge in this title comes from routine blind jumps and falls, along with enemies deliberately placed to knock the player into one-hit-kill pits.

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones is the TurboGrafx-16's "Altered Beast": a mediocre pack-in title that, had it not come with the system, would be a rental title as it's definitely not worth the full game retail price. The game's overall aesthetic isn't bad, but it really needs some new music, and some completely re-worked underworld levels. Removing the anime references from the American localization further dillute what was perhaps a mildly more interesting title in Japan.