Altered Beast

Arcade cabinet.

Altered Beast is an action platform beat 'em up developed and published by Sega for the arcade in August 1988. It was later ported to about a dozen platforms.

The game is set in ancient Greece. Zeus' daughter Athena has been kidnapped by an evil magician named Neff. Zeus resurrects you, a dead centurion, to fight your way through Neff's henchmen and rescue Athena. In each stage, if you defeat two-headed white wolves, they will leave behind a power orb which will make you stronger. If you collect a third orb, you will transform into a powerful beast like a werewolf or dragon and gain special attacks.

Personal

I saw first saw this game in the arcade room of Lakeland Arena in the late 1980s, and I initially thought the game was called "Alter Beast." Although I never played it at the time, I loved to watch other people play the game, and I remember seeing kids get as far as stage 3. I was really impressed by the graphics and the idea of turning into a werewolf seemed so cool. Years later, I found a System 16 emulator online and played the game all the way through. The process took tons of credits, and the last stage was so hard I wasn't even able to get enough orbs to transform before having to fight Neff. This kind of disenfranchised me to the game.

Status

I do not own the game, and have never beaten it.

Review

5	3	7	7	4

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• For the time, the game was very impressive. It used top of the line hardware both in audio and video.
• The entire game is very creative. Being able to morph into fireball-throwing werewolves, electricity slinging dragons, and the rest is fantastic. Enemies like the skull-holding skeletons, head leeches, and rattlesnake dragons are all really interesting and beautifully rendered, and the bosses are especially impressive. Aggar, the head-hurling dead body boss of stage 1, is one of my favorite bosses in video game history.
• The graphic effect where body parts of slain enemies expand toward the screen is really cool.
• The game's music composed by Toru Nakabayashi and sound effects are good, and digital speech was still impressive in 1988.
• The arcade game has a wonderful attract demo.
• The ending is pretty cool.
• The NES port, though horrible looking, adds two new stages to the game where you change into a shark and a phoenix.

Bad

• The game punishes mistakes brutally, especially in later levels. It seems like Sega designed the game, not so much to be fun, but to drain quarters.
• The game is really short. When playing at an expert level, the entire game takes less than 15 minutes to finish.
• The player's body grows with power orbs, but his head doesn't, which looks ridiculous.
• The attacks in the later transformations are kind of silly. A bubblegum blowing bear? I bouncing ball throwing tiger? WTF?
• In the last stage, you're short-changed by transforming into a werewolf again rather than a new beast, but the game tries to play it off as a new transformation by calling it a "gold werewolf." Nice try!
• The morphing animation is only drawn for the wolf. All other morphs just flash between the two rapidly.
• The foreground bodies in the final stage look great, but the artist ruined the seriousness by adding the The Thinker and The Scream into the mix.
• The "rise from your grave," intro speech sound sounds a bit... off.
• A rescue the princess story line, how original.
• None of the boxes have very good art work.

Ugly

• The game's controls are terrible. The player's attacks are sluggish, and jumping is especially bad. I always feel like I'm struggling with my player more than the monsters.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Arcade cabinet
  
  Decent look, but the bezel and control panel are pretty bland. I love the Altered Beast text.

• 

  Arcade marquee
  
  I like the idea, but why use a reptile eye when the primary transformation is a werewolf? Also, the dude's eye isn't very manly.

• 

  Arcade cabinet side
  
  Again, good idea, bad execution. The transformations just look like men wearing masks.

• 

  Genesis (USA / Europe)
  
  The wolf head looks pretty bad, but I like the ochre palette. The lettering comes from the arcade, but it has been made to look more ragged, which I love.

• 

  Mega Drive (Japan)
  
  Uses the complete art on the back with more of the creepy enemies, and adds a nice blue to compliment the ochre. Also great lettering.

• 

  A poster of the art.

• 

  Master System
  
  I like the transformation idea, but not the art style.

• 

  Famicom (Japan)
  
  Really awful art. Looks like a still from a cheap 80s cartoon.

• 

  PC Engine, PC Engine CD
  
  Shows more of the full art.

• 

  Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum
  
  Just awful.

• 

  Tiger Electronics
  
  Uses the Genesis art.

Documentation

• Altered Beast - ARC - Manual.pdf

  Arcade manual.

• Altered Beast - CPC - Manual.pdf

  Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 manual.

• Altered Beast - C64 - Manual.pdf

  Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS manual.

• Altered Beast - GEN - Manual.pdf

  Genesis manual.

• Altered Beast - SMS - Manual.pdf

  Master System manual.

• Altered Beast - NES - Manual - Japan.pdf

  NES manual.

• Altered Beast - Steam - Manual.pdf

  Steam manual.

• Altered Beast - ARC - Instructions - Japan.jpg

  Japanese arcade instructions.

• Altered Beast - SMS - Hints.jpg

  Master System hints.

• Altered Beast - ARC - Ad.jpg

  Arcade advertisement.

• 

  Spanish advertisement through Activision.

• 

  French advertisement through Activision.

Maps

• 

  Arcade, stage 1.

• 

  Genesis, stage 1.

• 

  Master System.

• 

  MS-DOS.

• 

  ZX Spectrum.

• 

  ZX Spectrum, from Sinclair User.

Graphic Sheets

• Arcade
• Genesis

Collectibles

• 

  Aggar.

• 

  Statues of the transformed beasts.

Fan Art

• 

  Fan art by Daniel Vendrell Oduber.

• 

  Fan art by Santi Ikari.

• 

  Fan art by JordiLupo and BrotherOstavia.

• 

  Fan art by Peetcooper.

Videos

Commercial, Japanese Mega Drive.

Longplay, arcade.

Longplay, Amiga.

Longplay, Amstrad CPC.

Longplay, Atari ST.

Longplay, Genesis.

Longplay, Master System.

Longplay, MS-DOS.

Longplay, TurboGrafx-16.

Longplay, ZX Spectrum.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Altered Beast
Japanese	獣王記	Juuouki	Beast King's Chronicle

Links

         

• segaretro.org/Altered_Beast - Sega Retro.