An arcade perfect port that is almost too perfect.
One of the first things that you will notice when you play Altered Beast are the beautiful graphics. Being an early generation Genesis game, the graphics were some of the best on the system then and even though out the Genesis’ life. The sound effects were equally impressive. When you change form, the howl that echoes is a cool effect. The digitized voices are also excellent. The music is adequate but fails to stand out. The game play is simple and easy to pick up. The only problem I had is that the game was too short. The levels, depending on how quickly you morph you character, aren’t really all that long and there are only five levels total. Once you play through it, there really isn’t much more incentive to go back and play it again. I guess you can see how fast you can get through the game or set some other similar goal, but that can’t hide how short the game is.
Being that this game was to showcase the superiority of the Genesis over its rivals, I am not surprised how little there is in the way of game play. Altered Beast won’t really win any fans from the current generation of gamers out there. It is more of a museum piece for classic game collectors who were playing games for the past two decades. It is a pretty game, but there really isn’t much there when you look past the aesthetics.