Altered Beast

The Good
Sega had a great collection of great coin-op arcade games, just waiting to be ported over to the Sega Master System.

Altered Beast is certainly one of the great, classic Sega arcade games. The idea of bringing that "arcade experience" into your living room, was one of the reasons that people bought a Sega system to begin with.

While porting arcade games over to the home console, worked well for Sega in terms of the 16-bit Sega Genesis, some of their initial efforts with the 8-bit Master System were a bit of a disaster.

Sadly, the Master System port of Altered Beast is one of these 8-bit disasters.

The Bad
Granted, the Master System could not match the original arcade graphics or music.

To be fair, neither could the 16-bit Sega Genesis and it was probably not until the 32-bit era of gaming, that it really became possible to perfectly port popular arcade games onto a home console system.

Yet, while Altered Beast for the Sega Genesis showed off what the 16-bit hardware was capable of doing, even if it was not a perfect port of the arcade, the Sega Master System port failed to demonstrate the 8-bit hardware, especially in relationship to their main competitor; Nintendo.

Simply put, when you played Altered Beast for the first time on the Sega Genesis, you did feel like you were being welcomed into the "Next Level" (which was one of Sega's more creative advertising slogans).

In contrast, when you when played the Master System port of the game, the hardware advances were not as obvious enough to impact the outcome of the "Sega vs. Nintendo" video game war.

The Sega Master system version of Altered Beast also suffered from obvious and chronic slowdown. I am not sure if this was a case of bad design or simply the hardware limitations of the system.

Regardless of what it was, Altered Beast did not help sell the Master System, as port for the Genesis really helped sell the system as a viable alternative to Nintendo.

The Bottom Line
Altered Beast is a great Sega arcade game, which did not translate well onto Sega's 8-bit home console system.

The Good
I have to say that being one of the first Genesis cartridges is an advantage on it's own. Aside from that, original gameplay, scheme, responsive control, and nice graphics are a catalyst to this one's classic status.I really like the back- and foregrounds.

The Bad
O.K. The glove's comin' off now. I HATE being trapped. Blind dates with lepers have to be more rewarding that getting continually hurt with not even one second of invincibility. You can get drained of an entire LIFE on one simple enemy. The fact that the levels aren't longer kinda sux too. I've found myself skipping the white wolves just to play longer. They only want you to fight the Boss as a beast. I guess I just wish the game was a little deeper.

The Bottom Line
A great game. If you haven't played it, do so. If you have, good job. Peace.

The Good
Mostly the idea of, in each stage, becoming a new werebeast, each with its own special attacks. I also liked the involvement of Greek mythology like Zeus, Athena and the underworld(i.e Hades). So I understand, Team Shinobi's original backstory was, a race of werebeasts had risen above the the other races, becoming god-like, so Zeus, deciding they had become too powerful, turned them all to stone. When his daughter Athena was kidnapped by "Neff"(the bald-headed antagonist appears to have been originally unnamed), Zeus decided to revive one of the wearbeasts for a rescue mission i.e his lightning bolt breaking you out of the stone block at the start. Other versions of the game had you as a dead Roman centurion bought back to life(by a Greek god!).

The game is good to watch, the large combatants and the facial view of your transformation into a werebeast in each stage. "Neff" is a pretty cool villain, transforming into monster-bosses("Welcome to your doom!"). Good background music too, haunting, with a rocking beat. Another thing I link is the feeling of power when you go from being a strong yet vulnerable man, fighting only with his fists and feet, to a werebeast, almost invincible with fire and electricity attacks....until the boss arrives and puts you back on the defensive.

The Bad
It plays only averagely. Of course it's perfectly common for an arcade game to look great, but not be particularly easy to get the hang of, lest you get too much for your money. So, fighting as an unarmed muscleman, it's pretty easy to get knocked down. Fighting the bosses as a werebeast is pretty tough too, there are strategies for winning, but they still take a bit of luck and effort. However, there is no backtrack-penalty for losing a life or getting a game over i.e at the arcade you can win if you're willing to spend the money.

The Bottom Line
The original arcade version is the best I've played and it's worth the money and/or time that it takes to complete it, even a few times. It can be a great feeling, becoming a werebeast ;)