Ah, Altered Beast. One of the more bizarre Sega Genesis games, it's difficult to forget the tale of a warrior recalled from death by the gods to rescue Zeus's daughter from Neff the evil wizard by kicking demon dogs to death and climbing the muscular ranks to finally become a mighty fireball-hurling werewolf or an electric dragon. It's even more difficult to forget the Genesis's spoken word limitations that warped the vocal command "Rise from your grave!" into "Wise fwom your gwave!" Nadia Oxford of 1UP's Retro Gaming Blog recalls the strange adventure that was Altered Beast.
As the first pack-in title for the Genesis, Altered Beast was one of gaming history's most notable gateways to the 16-bit era. How did gamers weaned on Super Mario react to their first experience with doubled-up bits? Let's just say there's a reason Sonic was embraced as the Genesis' mascot.
Altered Beast isn't a game that anyone remembers for much beyond camp value. The auto-scrolling beat-em-up action only stands out for the character transformations and Neff cackling, “Welcome to your doom!” with the voice of an elderly female smoker. Regardless, it claims an important spot in gaming history: before we had the means to run with the hedgehog, we had to walk the dogs.
Personally, I always found Altered Beast to be frustratingly unplayable. The Genesis version plants its arcade roots a little too close to the surface, as it's clearly designed to devour quarters with angering difficulty levels over anything else. As the Altered Beast franchise retrospective at Hardcore Gaming 101 says:
Altered Beast is one of the few games that has been deemed a "classic" while at the same time being completely terrible. How does that work, exactly?
It's not a total loss though. Sega is sitting on a gold mine here. They should get in touch with someone over at the newly rebranded Sci-Fi Channel, Syfy, and begin discussions on bringing the saga of Altered Beast to a Syfy Original Film. It would fit right in with Mansquito, Sasquatch Mountain, and Sharktopus.
