Last week the inaugural edition of the Classic Gaming Bible took a look at Altered Beast, which is one of the greatest PC games of all time. This week we’ll be heading even further back to a game that caused quite the stir in arcades and was one of the early ways that SEGA showcased the power of its Megadrive/Genesis console.
Without any further ado, let’s take a look at what Altered Beast brought to the table and if the game is still good enough to warrant a play almost thirty years after it was released.
The Backstory
Altered Beast was released way back in 1988 and caused quite a stir amongst arcade fans, particularly due to the digitized voice-acting that, while minimal, could often be heard booming from the machine, drawing punters towards it in the process. Many an 80’s gamer will be able remember the phrase “Rise from your grave” for eternity.
It follows the story of a Roman centurion who has been resurrected by Zeus. Yeah…1980s arcade games weren’t all that big on historical accuracy. This centurion is asked to save Athena from an evil underworld demon named Neff. To help him along the way, he is given the ability to collect three spirit balls in each level, with the collection of the third transforming him into a beast that has increased power and can take out enemies more easily.
It’s not much of a story, I’ll grant you, but it’s more than a lot of arcade titles from the era presented.
The Game
The game itself is actually fairly simple. It’s a side-scroller that mixes some minor platforming in with the baddie killing action. You will face a nice selection of enemies along the way, including zombies, wolves and Minotaurs. Each stage – of which there are five – is capped off with a boss battle that requires the player to learn a certain attack pattern so that they can succeed.
The main draw comes in the form of the beasts that you can transform into during the course of each stage. Upon collecting the third spirit orb you will turn into either a werewolf, a tiger, a dragon, a bear or the golden werewolf, depending on the stage you’re on. Each of these beasts has their own abilities, with the dragon being able to fly and cast lightening, for example. Pretty much every level is built around you trying to transform into one of these beasts, but many players find the difficulty of the stages up to the point of picking up the third orb to be a little beyond them, as bog-standard centurion man isn’t exactly the toughest guy around.
Interestingly enough, the bosses would usually not appear until the player had become the beast of that level. However, if you pottered around for too long, the level’s boss would get impatient and take you on while you are still in human form. This isn’t something you wanted to happen, as it almost inevitably turned into a curb-stomp battle that saw poor little centurion sent back to the grave from whence he came.
In truth, the game has aged pretty poorly in the near-30 years since its release. Those coming to it from later generations may struggle to see why there was any fuss about it at all and playing it again now makes it obvious that Altered Beast gets by more on nostalgia than it does the actual quality of gameplay. It is fun to play for a while, but many will probably find the difficulty more than enough to convince them to move on.
The Rest
Altered Beast did have a fair bit going for it in other areas though. Graphically it was a pretty good looking game for its time and the Megadrive conversion carried that over quite well. That version of the game also featured parallax scrolling, which is a technique that was becoming increasingly popular in gaming at the time. It involves moving the background along at a slower pace that the foreground, creating a nice visual effect in the conversion that was absent from the arcade original.
The sound was also a highlight. We’ve mentioned the voices already and it certainly lent the game something different to many other titles around it. Even the conversions tried to ape those voices, with mixed success. Each stage has its own music too and there’s nothing particularly offensive there, although there’s also nothing that’s going to stick in your head for any period of time.
The other thing of note is the fact that the game feels really slow at times, especially when you are in human form. This is likely not a sign of the limitations of the times, as there are plenty of arcade games from the later 1980s that move along at a fair clip. Instead, it feels more like a deliberate design choice that allows you to feel more powerful when you do transform into a beast and start doling out some real damage at a faster speed. This is by no means a bad thing in theory, but players tend to spend a lot more time in human form, making the slow speed a little bit irritating, especially for those who are new to the game.
The Aftermath
Altered Beast has experienced something of a mixed history with critics. It was praised when it was first released, with many being impressed by the graphics and the core concept behind the game.
However, as alluded to earlier, history hasn’t been too kind to it. The fairly shallow gameplay is often criticised and many people don’t feel as though the game holds up in the same way as other classic titles.
Even so, Altered Beast has something of a legacy behind it. In doing my research I’ve found out that Breaking Benjamin – which is a band I’ve long enjoyed – made a Flash version of the game that features the lead singer as the main character. Neff, who is the evil demon from the game, also makes a cameo in the awesome Wreck-It Ralph in his Rhino-man form, which shows just how much research and classic gaming love went into that film.
Unfortunately, Altered Beast is something of a relic of its time, which is a bit of a shame. After all, the core concept is something that could probably be executed fairly well in a God of War style action game, should SEGA decide to bring it back to life.
Collector’s Corner
So, if you want to get your hands on a copy of Altered Beast what will you be expecting to pay?
The Megadrive/Genesis version is far and away the easiest version to track down. If you have a PS3 or Xbox 360 you can pick up the Ultimate Megadrive/Genesis collection for around the £10/$20 mark, which offers you the game and loads of other classic titles, including the Sonic series, Shining Force, all of the Phantasy Star games and a load more.
If you’d rather grab the Megadrive original you can expect to pay £5 in the UK, though the game trends closer towards the $20 mark in the United States.
There are also versions for other consoles. The Master System conversion is for completionists only, as the game itself is pretty poor. You’re looking at about £7-10 in the UK, but it’s harder to get in the US and you’ll probably need to import it for somewhere in the region of the $20 mark.
The game was also released on a lot of the British home computers of the time, like the ZX Spectrum and C64. Most of these lose everything that made the arcade game interesting, just because they weren’t capable of coming close to emulating the graphics and sound from arcade games released in the 1980s. The Amiga port is probably the best of that bunch, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to grab the Megadrive version.
Finally, the game used to be available on the App Store, but SEGA pulled it a little over a year ago.
The Final Word
So we’ve gone from one of the greatest games of all time to a title that you would struggle to call a forgotten gem, truth be told. Altered Beast is one of those games that you’re probably only going to “get” if you were around when it was at its peak and it can offer a good blast of nostalgia for older gamers, but it’s one that those who have been raised on a diet of modern games should probably avoid unless they want to try something with a bit of a novelty factor.