Altered Beast
Sega Genesis
Nostalgia Factor:
I've never been a big Altered Beast fan. I remember renting it for the Sega Genesis back in the early 90s. I could only make it to the second level before the eyeball boss would kill me. I could never figure out how to defeat him.
Back in the day, when you rented a game, you usually would devote a big chunk of your weekend to playing it. But that did not happen here. I just wasn't into it. That weekend, I would end up playing other things instead. Later on in life, I'd say around 2001, I would play Altered Beast again - this time on the Sega Smashpack for the Dreamcast. Yet again, I found myself unable to make it past the second boss of the game. What the heck was I doing wrong?
I wound up putting aside Altered Beast for the second time, and it would end up being a really long chunk of time. 24 years, to be exact. I wouldn't give the game another go until here in 2025.
What put the game on my radar was how I've been seeing it discussed in retro gaming circles online. Opinions on it are mixed. But the general consensus it that the game is really short and easy. Wait, what? Short and easy? The game I tried to play twice and couldn't make it past the second level?
I made it my mission in life to come back and beat Altered Beast, and exorcise those demons I've been carrying since the early 1990s. Not that making it past the second level was a very high bar. How did that go? Let's jump in!
Story:
I'm not really sure what's going on in this game. I didn't have the manual for it. And the game itself doesn't explain much. Here is what I do know: you play as a warrior who is resurrected from the grave. You have to save the princess from the evil villain. Real original stuff here. But what makes this game different is that you morph into various beasts as you make your way through the game's stages.
What significance does this have to the princess-rescuing story at hand? I don't really know. Maybe it is explained in the manual, but it never is in the game. I suppose I could cheat and go to Wikipedia, but where is the fun in that? My standard is that a game's story should always be able to be told through the game itself. If you need a manual or you have to go to Wikipedia, I'm not going to talk about it here. If it's not in the game, I don't talk about it. That's just how I roll.
Gameplay:
Once you figure out how this game works, it becomes very simple. Coming into this blind, you'd think it is a somewhat typical side scrolling platformer/beat 'em up. You start on the left side of the screen. The screen scrolls forward, enemies coming at you from in front and behind. You can jump, kick, and punch. Gameplay reminded me a bit of Kung-Fu for the NES. Your punch and kick attacks are very rapid, and you have to keep yourself at arms length from your enemies.
As I was playing through, I would notice that occasionally a blue wolf would run across the screen. It moves faster than other enemies, so it is very possible for it to get by you. As I made my way through the game, I began to notice that each time I'd kill the blue wolf, it would release an item that would power my character up. When you collect an item, your character becomes bigger and more powerful. Once you collect three of these items (by killing three blue wolves) you transform into a beast.
There are only five levels in the game, and each level has a different beast that you can transform into. The first level is a wolf, the second is a flying dragon. Subsequent levels include a bear, a tiger, and a golden werewolf. When you are in your beast form, standard enemies don't stand a chance. Unfortunately, you don't get to fight very many of them. Almost as soon as you turn into a beast, an evil magician dude appears and summons the stage boss.
Defeat the stage boss, you move onto the next stage. These bosses can be somewhat difficult, but with a little practice, you'll realize they each have an exploit or a weakness. Once you learn that weakness, they become fairly easy.
So really, this is what the game boils down to: you start a level. You fight through some enemies. You kill three blue wolves and collect the items within them. You transform into a beast. You fight the stage boss. You move onto the next stage. Conceivably, the levels keep going and going if you let all of the blue wolves get past you and you aren't collecting any power ups. That's what I didn't realize the first time I played this. Once I realized that the stage will end as soon as you kill three wolves and collect their power ups, the game immediately sped up for me. You can make it through a level really, really fast armed with this knowledge.
Like I said, there are five stages in total. Each one can be beaten (boss and all) within 5 to 10 minutes. So yeah, it is a fairly short game. I wouldn't say it is easy, though. It's actually kind of tough. You only get three lives to complete this game. There are no extra lives to pick up or continues to earn. There aren't even items that refill your health. You essentially have to have a perfect run if you want to beat this game. So yeah, it can be quite challenging. Short, but challenging. It can be cheap, as well. Lots of enemies like to just COME RUNNING IN from off screen, giving you very little time to react.
Graphics/Sound:
This is a pretty basic looking and sounding game. That should be expected. This was the first "pack-in" game to come with the Sega Genesis. A lot of people seem to think that the Genesis came out of the gates right away with Sonic, but that isn't true. The system came out a few years before Sonic was released. Altered Beast was the title that initially came with the Sega Genesis when you bought a console in its early years. The OG pack-in title. If it looks old, that's because it is old.
The game doesn't look fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, even by Genesis standards. I can name about 50 Genesis games off the top of my head that look better than this. Not to say it looks bad. It is just very basic. I suppose the beast transformations and the design of some of the bosses help salvage the look of the game.
Music and sound effects are pretty average, too. Nothing really stood out to me too much as I played the game. There is a catchy song or two to be heard, but they faded quickly from my memory. Pretty forgettable in the music category. There were a few sound effects that stood out to me: the laughing of the bad guy and the yell of your character when he dies. I also like it when the bad guy says: "welcome to your doom!" It may not be much now, but voice acting in a game this old was a big deal back then.
Overall:
This was a fairly fun game. I'm not jumping out of my seat over it or anything, but I enjoyed playing it. I liked the learning curve of the game, and how simple things become once you figure out how it works. I did not like the difficulty of the game, and how enemies would run onto the screen and cheap shot my character. That was my main problem with the game. Give us some health items or some extra lives. Anything. When you have to be essentially perfect to beat the game, it can lead to frustration very quickly when you suddenly hit a rough patch. You can be on a great run, only to have it fall apart in seconds. And if you fail, you have to start the whole game over again. It doesn't help that the hit detection is very questionable in the game as well.
I've been going back and forth on my grade, but I think I'm going to settle on C+. It's an above average title, but I don't quite feel good enough to give this game a score in the B range. I feel as if when I take a look back at all the games I have played in my life, this game won't have left much of a long or lasting impact on me. I appreciate the importance of the title and what it accomplished, being a pack-in Genesis title and all that. But from a personal standpoint, the game is simply "good" and not much more than that.
THE GRADE:
C+
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