pickhut's 3D Altered Beast review

Ow.

I never knew there was a 3DS version. I need to research this further.

Yeah, Altered Beast was never good. Haha, things moving along at a snail's pace is definitely true. I seem to recall one of the more irritating issues with the Master System version being that if you got hit, you had like, ZERO invincibility window, and you'd be juggled to death in short order. Does that exist in this version? I don't remember.

Also, one of your screenshots shows two-player action going on. Surely that's a new feature? I don't remember being able to play with a friend.

Anyway, good bash review.

I dunno about being juggled in the Genesis version. That's the sad part: the game is so slow, boring, and mostly easy, that I wasn't able to see if something like that could happen. Though, I think the zombie punchers might be able to juggle if you're in an unfortunate recovery spot. And yeah, the Genesis game has 2-player support.

Thanks for reading, all! Been a long time since I tackled Altered Beast in review form (2004, specifically), so I wanted to see if my opinion changed while also taking a more "serious" in-depth approach compared to my SMS review.

Okay, to elaborate somewhat: Altered Beast is one of those games that plays better in concept than execution, precisely by design. It was an arcade port that had no consideration given to the expectations of home console players - but then little understanding was had in those days. "Iron Man Mode" games were more the norm than they are now, to be sure.

There was a reboot of this ill-begotten title for the GBA featuring pseudo 3D artwork (or real GBA 3D, I'm not sure) that utterly failed to reinvigorate the franchise. Sega banks on nostalgia and the first ten minutes of gameplay most people invest before picking up any of the Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star or Mortal Kombat titles that are certainly better games.

I wonder what a true genre reboot could do for an IP like this, but only a little.

Shameless plug: The Master System version

It was an arcade port that had no consideration given to the expectations of home console players - but then little understanding was had in those days.

Sega was one of the biggest offenders of this practice. It was neat at first: Sega offering console releases of their arcade titles, but it got really old well into the late 1990s. Other companies wised up and offered tons of in-depth bonus content to go with their arcade ports. Meanwhile, Sega thought they still could get away with abysmal ports on the Dreamcast. Their home release of 18 Wheeler is appalling. To be fair, certain Sega devs gave some effort to their Dreamcast releases; Sega Rally 2 and the Virtua Tennis games as such examples.