SEGA Master System

Altered Beast

Para enfrentar Neff, seu inimigo, lutando ainda contra os escravos dele, um centurião romano vai tomando pílulas de transformação, qu estão no interior dos lobos brancos de três cabeças. A missão é trazer de volta Athena, filha de Zeus, o principal geus grego.

Altered Beast stands out from other action games on the Master System because of the larger characters and interesting morphing concept. Unfortunately, it doesn't play very well. If you really want a copy of this Arcade hit, the Sega Genesis version is obviously a better choice. Other than the usual graphics and sound improvements, you also get a level with a werebear, plus a two-player option.

There was a time when a game like Altered Beast could be loved and admired, but those days went out around the time people stopped using the RF Switch. This is an extremely easy action game with very little depth and no replay value. Too much of it is just the same thing over and over with almost no reward. If you're going to experience Altered Beast make sure and do it on the Genesis, but really, at this point, there's almost no reason to want to play this Sega oldie.

Die Master System-Umsetzung sieht für die Verhältnisse des 8 Bit-Geräts ordentlich aus, spielt sich aber sehr träge. Der langsame Spielfluss und das viele Geflacker lassen nicht allzu viel Freude aufkommen. Außerdem sind noch einige Beschneidungen festzustellen. So muss man hierbei nicht nur auf den 2-Player Modus verzichten, sondern auch noch auf einen ganzen Level. Darüber hinaus erfolgt die vollständige Verwandlung unseres Protagonisten zur Bestie nicht über drei sondern zwei Power up-Kugeln. Wie dem auch sei, spielen tut sich das Spiel recht gut, wenn man bereit ist, sich auf das langsame Tempo einzulassen. Mit dem einen Gnaden-Continue kann man es problemlos weit schaffen. In der Wertung gibt es trotzdem einen Punkt weniger.

Finally, the worst shortcoming of all is the lack of damage control. If you get hit once from an enemy on the left, pray to your god of choice (Zeus?) that there isn’t an enemy on the right or you’ll be juggled to death. Unfortunately, Altered Beast is another game that severely limits the time that you should be invincible after taking damage. So, back and forth you’ll be bounced, the familiar scene made almost comical by the slowness of it all, with the equally sluggish and repetitive music playing as a requiem in the background. The tunes seem to pity their own existence, their own participation in this ramshackle product. Don’t you participate too; this is horrible stuff.

In conclusion there is really only one thing to say. Don't play this game. If you really want to play Altered Beast you have two options that are much better. One, should you get lucky, pop in a quarter or few and play the original if you see it around. Two, buy it for the Genesis/Mega Drive for a couple of dollars. That version is much closer and by far much better. The fact that Sega decided to release the same game at the same time for both systems is totally ridiculous. They had a converter to play SMS games on the 16-bit unit and a better version of this title for it. I have no clue how many sorry children had this forced upon them by parents who refused to upgrade, but hopefully the numbers were small. Based on the current rate of depression and anxiety in this country, it's still up for debate.