Altered Beast

Altered Beast (獣王記 Jūōki, literally "Beast King's Chronicle", in Japan) is a 1988 arcade game developed and manufactured by Sega. After its initial arcade release, it was ported to several home video game consoles and home computers.

Game description

Altered Beast is a platform/fighting game that puts the player in control of a hero who has been raised from the dead to rescue Zeus' daughter, Athena. The player battles undead and demonic hordes, controlling the shapeshifting hero. He must defeat several levels in order to save the kidnapped goddess. The game takes place in a setting resembling Ancient Greece, complete with gods, temples and ruined Ionic columns.

The player must battle armies of fictional and undead creatures to his goal of defeating the evil Demon God Neff, who is holding Athena captive. Along the way, the player has to obtain "Spirit Balls" (power-up orbs which increase his strength and size) from defeating two-headed white wolves. When three are collected, the hero transforms into a beast with exceptional abilities, and the music changes to something far more upbeat and adrenaline-charged.

The game contains several levels which the player must battle through. At the end of each level is a "boss" creature, which is Neff himself in different forms. The enemies the player encounters differ depending on level as does the beast the hero transforms into. These beasts include werewolf, dragon, tiger, bear, and the more powerful golden werewolf (other beasts can be seen in the Japanese NES version and the Game Boy Advance version). Each beast has its own special abilities, such as the dragon's ability to fly. Between each level are small animations giving the player glimpses of Athena's peril.

The game was moderately successful, the player's ability to transform into different creatures being a big draw. The game actually does have an ending where the player rescues Athena. At the completion of the game (upon Neff's defeat in the city of Dis), Zeus thanks the player for his help. The credit sequence is rather long and gives the impression that the entire game was actually a film; interspersed in the credits are images of "actors" in various stages of costume for the different characters or monsters in the game. One of the more memorable features of Altered Beast is the well-known quote, "Rise from your grave!" said by Zeus in a very grating, but haunting digitized voice at the start of the game. However, the quote has often been interpeted as being "Wise fwom your gwave" or similar variants because of inherent distortion/garbling of the digitalized voice, possibly stemming from technical limitations of the arcade software. As a result, Zeus has often been likened to Elmer Fudd in many reviews of the game.

Altered Beast was produced as a standard upright only with custom artwork on the cabinet. In most versions, the game's controls consist of an eight-way directional and three buttons, one each for "punch", "kick" and "jump". The game has single player and cooperative two-player modes.

Ports

Altered Beast was ported to several platforms after its original release in 1988. It was released for DOS, NES, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx CD, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64. Sega Smash Pack for Windows and Dreamcast contained an emulated version of the Mega Drive/Genesis port. The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis version is particularly noteworthy as it was the original pack-in game for that system in North America and Europe.

Certain differences are seen between the several versions of the game. Some of them, like the Master System one, have only four levels (and suffered from ongoing in-game slowdowns), while others have different beasts to mutate into, such as a humanoid lion form seen in the NES version, or the bear form seen in the Mega Drive/Genesis version. The Turbografx CD version (released only in Japan) incorporated a new CD-quality soundtrack that greatly differentiates it from other versions.

Music

Toshio Kai composed the Altered Beast music, though he is credited in the Mega Drive/Genesis version as "Nau" (not giving full names was a Sega trademark in the 80's and early 90's). The title theme (repeated in levels 3 and 5) and the first level theme are considered classics by many gamers. Brazilian band Megadriver, specialized in Sega Mega Drive music, made a metal version of the Altered Beast soundtrack, and also a patch to play this soundtrack in MAME. ^*

Legacy

A PlayStation 2 version of Altered Beast has been released, but is a completely different game, in a modern context, and is called "Juuohki: Project Altered Beast". In Japan, it was rated 17+ for its intensity. SEGA has confirmed that this game will not be released in North America (where it would have been called simply "Project Altered Beast", and likely would have gotten an M rating).

A European version has been made and released since sometime in 2005. It is called, simply, Altered Beast, and is about a man called Luke Custer who is a "Genome-Cyborg", which in the game is a human that has had his DNA and other genetic make-up altered so that he can (after acquiring the chip containing the right genes for each creature) transform into a mythical beast. The main creatures are the Werewolf, Merman, Garuda, Wendigo, Minotaur, and Dragon. Its storyline differs from the original Altered Beast games. There are a number of difficult boss challenges and puzzles within the game, plus some extra characters (Weretiger, Grizzly, and the alien-cloned U.W.H.) for those who finish the game.

Altered Beast: Guardian of the Realms is a sequel for Game Boy Advance in the style of the original arcade game published by THQ. It adds new features like power-ups, new beast forms and destructable environments. ^*

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