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Altered Beast (Genesis) artwork

Altered Beast (Genesis) review


"Weekend at Neff's"

The goddess Athena has been kidnapped by the nefarious Neff and taken to the Underworld! Of course the almighty Zeus, king of the gods, did what any loving father would do... h-he used a dead person to fight his battle. But not just any dead person, a once-great Roman Centurion with incredible strength! Even with this great vigor, Zeus knew it wouldn't be enough against an army of the undead and the bizarre, so he bestowed him additional abilities. With the stage now set for Athena's rescue, the only thing left for Zeus to do is resurrect this warrior with a declaration:

WISE FWOM YOUR GWAVE!

As he leaps from his resting place, the nameless fighter is surrounded by Neff's minions in this auto side-scroller. You must grip control of the warrior, and use him to repel rotting corpses and winged demons, coming from all corners and kicking them into bloody chunks. If you kill a "three-headed" gray wolf, a Spirit Ball will burst out that can be obtained, making you grow taller and bulkier for the first two Spirit Balls, allowing for extended punches and kicks. However, if you manage a third successive Spirit Ball, a dramatic sequence plays out; a detailed, close-up image of the warrior's head, amidst flames, has him screaming while morphing into a humanoid creature. An Altered Beast!



As a toned, transformed werewolf, your furry fighter can unleash projectile balls with his fists and a flashy knee attack that propels his body across the screen. But here's another catch: you're not regulated to just a werewolf. Each of the five stages feature a unique beast with different attacks, such as a flying weredragon that can destroy purple blobs with an electric barrier or a husky werebear that turns human-sized wasps to stone. These powers prove to be most useful when encountering bosses, Neff's monstrosities that include stage one's devil giant whose body is a pile of corpses or stage two's menacing plant that fires a spread of gooey eyeballs.

Altered Beast is many things. It is a side-scrolling action game with a theme loosely based on Greek mythology. It is also infamously known for the execution of said theme to the point of being camp; the goofy, muffled digitized voices, along with the outright straight-faced attempt at displaying Schwarzenegger-esque body builders mutating into fluffy and scaly critters, turned quite a few heads in hindsight. But it was made by Sega, a company known for making good action titles prior to this release. At the very least, there's a high chance you'll have a fun time with the game.



Then... you realize halfway through Altered Beast that it has one of the worst structures you'll ever experience in a side-scroller.

Each stage is separated into three portions, with Neff showing up at the end of each one. If you're not in beast mode by the end of the first portion, then you must traverse each subsequent portion until you transform, or reach the final portion where a boss fight occurs regardless. The problem with this is that, even if you're just a tiny bit decent at action side-scrollers, the flow here is absurdly basic. What this means is that you're easily able to obtain beasthood within the first portion in every stage and beat the game in ten minutes.

Most enemies are downright easy to kill due to the fact that they are slow and easy to dispose of with kicks. And considering half the rogues gallery will counter your punches thanks to your arm's short length, you're reduced to using just the kick button pre-beast. The only time enemies become "tough" is when they clog the pathway whenever you try killing a gray wolf for their Spirit Ball. The problem with this is that, probably thanks to oversight, the safest place to stand in every stage is right in the middle; let them come to you. The only downfall here will be your impatience.



So let's say the devs actually forced you to go through all three portions per stage... will that make Altered Beast better? It will actually make it worse. The following two portions add absolutely no worth to the first, and again this has more to do with the enemy presence, their leisure pace, and their incompetence. Under these circumstances, having to endure all three portions is torturous. So you're seriously stuck between a rock and a hard place: play naturally and beat the game quickly with no real fun whatsoever, or purposely go through every portion and be bored out of your mind.

Lending to its arcade roots, the Genesis version loops back to the first stage once you beat the game, which in turn adds more enemies. This unfortunately doesn't make the experience better or harder, as you just have more slow fodder to clear off the screen. The only thing that can be considered a challenge here is staying alive for as long as possible, your own "survival mode," especially since you're given limited lives and no continue. But if you, as the player, have to make up your own rules to compensate for the game's basic blueprint, then the developers have failed at making something enjoyable.

If you are aware of Altered Beast from afar, about its silly visual and audible presentation, along with the tributes, jokes, and memes it has spawned throughout the decades since release, then keep it that way. The game is at its best being admired from a distance.



dementedhut's avatar
Community review by dementedhut (October 11, 2024)

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Feedback

If you enjoyed this Altered Beast review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

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LeVar_Ravel posted October 17, 2024:

Congratulations on your 20 years of reviewing, and your sense of history!
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dementedhut posted October 17, 2024:

Thanks! Yeah, I was recently looking over my review catalog on the site and noticed 20 years was coming up on the site, so I decided to do something silly for it. My submission input isn't what it used to be, but that's more to do with being occupied with other things in life, so I try pacing myself.

There's definitely been some ups and downs in terms of the quality of my reviews, which is more noticeable in my "early-latter" reviews where I focus more on joking than actually reviewing the product. You can pull off humor in a review, but there has to be a right balance. I could take those down, but I leave them up as a reminder of what not to do.

Working on the quality of writing a review is a never-ending process, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Masters posted October 18, 2024:

Congratulations!

Time flies... for what it's worth, I think you've always struck a nice balance between humour and reviewing the actual game. Keep on keepin' on!
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dementedhut posted October 18, 2024:

Glad to hear that, Masters. Thanks!

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