Altered Beast

The Good
Some of the boss designs. Transformations are cool.

The Bad
General gameplay. Getting animation stunned by enemy attacks.

The Bottom Line
A slog to play. It has not aged well for me.

The Good
I have to say that being one of the first Genesis cartridges is an advantage on it's own. Aside from that, original gameplay, scheme, responsive control, and nice graphics are a catalyst to this one's classic status.I really like the back- and foregrounds.

The Bad
O.K. The glove's comin' off now. I HATE being trapped. Blind dates with lepers have to be more rewarding that getting continually hurt with not even one second of invincibility. You can get drained of an entire LIFE on one simple enemy. The fact that the levels aren't longer kinda sux too. I've found myself skipping the white wolves just to play longer. They only want you to fight the Boss as a beast. I guess I just wish the game was a little deeper.

The Bottom Line
A great game. If you haven't played it, do so. If you have, good job. Peace.

The Good
Altered Beast was one of the first couple of games for the Mega Drive / Genesis. Its a side scrolling platformer and its quite original and fun. The graphics were very detailed and captivating with a mythology theme and a variety of large and detailed sprites. The game features paralax scrolling in several levels which was very new in console games at the time.

The game is overlooked due to its overexposure as the original Sega pack-in game of 1989. Makoto Uchida's masterpiece was done justice with this cartridge.

The Bad
Altered Beast was one of the first Genesis titles and as such it was only a few megabits. This put constraints on the number of frames of animation.

As the original pack-in title there was also a need by Sega to eliminate the gore of the arcade game which is present on the Master System and PC Engine version (released five years later). In the original arcade game when you struck the zombies in the first level they exploded into internal organs and limbs. This gore is featured in both the Master System and PC Engine version.

Naturally, Sega could not include explicit gore in a game that would have the exposure of a pack-in title and instead of exploding into guts and limbs the Zombies simply break apart into flames.

Another graphical feature that was changed from the arcade was the sprites for the two-headed wolves. In the arcade they were brown and the special white ones were the ones you had to kill to get power ups. In the Genesis version the two headed wolves are pink and the power-up wolves are blue. They have also inexplicably shrunk. This causes the two-headed wolves, who are ubiquitious throughout the game, to be confused with pigs by most players.

Many of the colors of the sprites were inexplicably altered but usually this did not detract from the game.

As an arcade game it was long enough, but as a home console translation it was far too short. It needed to be at least twice as long and a little more development of the story would have been good also.

The Bottom Line
Altered Beast is a fun game that is an excellent translation of the Arcade version. Its still superior the PC Engine version graphically and in terms of control, though the PC Engine version retains some of the sprites and animations of the Arcade version that the Genesis lacks.

The Good
Sega had a great collection of great coin-op arcade games, just waiting to be ported over to the Sega Master System.

Altered Beast is certainly one of the great, classic Sega arcade games. The idea of bringing that "arcade experience" into your living room, was one of the reasons that people bought a Sega system to begin with.

While porting arcade games over to the home console, worked well for Sega in terms of the 16-bit Sega Genesis, some of their initial efforts with the 8-bit Master System were a bit of a disaster.

Sadly, the Master System port of Altered Beast is one of these 8-bit disasters.

The Bad
Granted, the Master System could not match the original arcade graphics or music.

To be fair, neither could the 16-bit Sega Genesis and it was probably not until the 32-bit era of gaming, that it really became possible to perfectly port popular arcade games onto a home console system.

Yet, while Altered Beast for the Sega Genesis showed off what the 16-bit hardware was capable of doing, even if it was not a perfect port of the arcade, the Sega Master System port failed to demonstrate the 8-bit hardware, especially in relationship to their main competitor; Nintendo.

Simply put, when you played Altered Beast for the first time on the Sega Genesis, you did feel like you were being welcomed into the "Next Level" (which was one of Sega's more creative advertising slogans).

In contrast, when you when played the Master System port of the game, the hardware advances were not as obvious enough to impact the outcome of the "Sega vs. Nintendo" video game war.

The Sega Master system version of Altered Beast also suffered from obvious and chronic slowdown. I am not sure if this was a case of bad design or simply the hardware limitations of the system.

Regardless of what it was, Altered Beast did not help sell the Master System, as port for the Genesis really helped sell the system as a viable alternative to Nintendo.

The Bottom Line
Altered Beast is a great Sega arcade game, which did not translate well onto Sega's 8-bit home console system.

The Good
In Altered Beast, you play a human, who is resurrected by Zeus to rescue his kidnapped daughter Athena. To do this, you need to go through five stages, defeating zombies, both air- and ground-based, with your punches and kicks. On your travels, you can obtain power-ups that are left behind by pumas. Get three of these power-ups, and you transform into a wild beast that has strength needed to defeat the boss at the end of each stage.

The beast that you turn to depends on what stage you're on. For instance, the first stage has you turning into a werewolf. Subsequent stages include a were-dragon, were-bear, and were-tiger. Out of all these, I enjoy playing as were-dragon, since you are not confined to the ground the way the other beasts are. But although most of the beasts can jump high in the air, this isn't the same.

Out of all the versions of Altered Beast that I have played so far, the Genesis version of the game looks and feels like the coin-op version. Similar sounds are played between the two. My favorite sound would be when your character says “Power Up”. It makes him sound like Thor. The graphics come just as close. The environments that are portrayed in the last three levels are well done. The controls act like they should.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the music doesn't even come as close to that of the coin-op version. The music in the Genesis version sounds as if the person who composed it only used one finger. The coin-op version has much better music, which blends in with the next piece very well. A thing missing is the Continue option, which lets you continue the game after you lose all your lives.

The Bottom Line
The Genesis version of Altered Beast has graphics that come close to the coin-op version as possible. The Genesis version is the best of the other versions that I have played so far. The only complaint about the game is the music, which sounds crap when it is compared to the coin-op version. If you have a Genesis, or a Genesis emulator, then Altered Beast is worth a look.

The Good
Mostly the idea of, in each stage, becoming a new werebeast, each with its own special attacks. I also liked the involvement of Greek mythology like Zeus, Athena and the underworld(i.e Hades). So I understand, Team Shinobi's original backstory was, a race of werebeasts had risen above the the other races, becoming god-like, so Zeus, deciding they had become too powerful, turned them all to stone. When his daughter Athena was kidnapped by "Neff"(the bald-headed antagonist appears to have been originally unnamed), Zeus decided to revive one of the wearbeasts for a rescue mission i.e his lightning bolt breaking you out of the stone block at the start. Other versions of the game had you as a dead Roman centurion bought back to life(by a Greek god!).

The game is good to watch, the large combatants and the facial view of your transformation into a werebeast in each stage. "Neff" is a pretty cool villain, transforming into monster-bosses("Welcome to your doom!"). Good background music too, haunting, with a rocking beat. Another thing I link is the feeling of power when you go from being a strong yet vulnerable man, fighting only with his fists and feet, to a werebeast, almost invincible with fire and electricity attacks....until the boss arrives and puts you back on the defensive.

The Bad
It plays only averagely. Of course it's perfectly common for an arcade game to look great, but not be particularly easy to get the hang of, lest you get too much for your money. So, fighting as an unarmed muscleman, it's pretty easy to get knocked down. Fighting the bosses as a werebeast is pretty tough too, there are strategies for winning, but they still take a bit of luck and effort. However, there is no backtrack-penalty for losing a life or getting a game over i.e at the arcade you can win if you're willing to spend the money.

The Bottom Line
The original arcade version is the best I've played and it's worth the money and/or time that it takes to complete it, even a few times. It can be a great feeling, becoming a werebeast ;)

The Good
The storyline is cool. The character powerups are cool. The endless movement from left to right and a never ending supply of bad guys is cool.

The Bad
Too predictable. The power orbs always come out at the same time. The enemy pattern is always the same.

The Bottom Line
Good PC game for the Sega collector. Skip it if you have it on the Genesis.

The Good
I must say that the PC version of Altered Beast is by far the most fun of all the versions of Altered Beast I ever played, the arcade version included. The original arcade game was terrible. Aside from great graphics, it had absolutely none of the elements that make a good game: terrible controls (playing this game with a joystick is next to terrible) and stupid, non-varying gameplay.

However, I must give credit where credit is due: the PC version is that much more fun than the arcade version. Despite the hardware inferiourity, the CGA graphics (not to mention VGA if you had it) were really terrific and the game was fast and fun. Not having to pay for the game has its merits, and the frustration of wasting money on dumb, unforgiving gameplay is gone here, which makes the PC version of Altered Beast what it is: a simple, fun-to-play platform game.

The Bad
Admittedly the ridiculous plot from the arcade remains; however, the horrendous gameplay does not.

The Bottom Line
Just goes to show that superiour hardware does not necessarily translate to a better game. For another example, see Laser Squad.

The Good
I really like this game, very much, It kept me interested right from when you hear Zeus say "Rise From Your Grave" to the final fight against Neff. Very action packed, and I really liked it how you can transform into a type of animal, for instance the Werewolf, which was one of my favorites, I liked that. Plus when you get the orbs, you get tougher and tougher. I really think that was cool

The Bad
It was too short, I wish they would of had a little more to the storyline, I mean 5 levels? That is a short game. I could go for a lot more levels, maybe more animals to transform into, and the bosses were really easy to defeat

The Bottom Line
Altred Beast is a game were you are risin from the Grave by Zeus to save his daughter Athena from the evil god Neff, you go through 5 levels and defeat bosses at each level who try to stop you from getting to Neff, You have to collect 3 orbs to get transformed into a animal.

The Good
When I first played this game I was only 9 years old ,and for me, it is one of the greatest 2d action platform games ever, The Voices like : "POWER UP" was very nice for the time.

The Bad
I can't say anything bad to this game, cause I really like it

The Bottom Line
Play it... =)