Gamers nowadays don't get Altered Beast. Back then it was a very stylized action game and (at least for an arcade game at the time) was very appealing. The slow prodding gameplay revolved around capturing the orbs and transforming...and that was its hook. It worked then, and was a pretty successful arcade game but doesn't make sense by todays standards. Still a classic for me:)
Yeah, I mean back when it was new in 1988 I played the game to death. I did sort of enjoy the big look to everything. the mythical beasts and the whole idea really but I still thought it was a bit poor compared to Golden Axe. But yes, back in the day Altered Beast really stood out in the arcades just like many of Sega's classic titles.
The part that always frustrated me was that the white dog would always appear when there were 3-4 other enemies in the way. I kill them, walk over to the dog ready to kick it and every single time, it jumps toward me at the last second, knocking me down and taking off health!
Wait, WHAT!? 'I played the game to death?' Then why the hate at the beginning of you video? I don't understand. The condescending 'It's not a very good game' , 'It does have it's charm I guess' Doesn't sound like you like it, sounds more like you just don't understand why people like this and you are some how being forced to make this video. If it's you attempt at being funny I didn't get it, I'm sorry, and I'll take it back.
I love this excellent game. Here in México we had the full vertion. I mean the full cabinet, controls etc, and of course: the greatest music. Thanks for to make this kind of material dude. regards from México.
No, no it's not. ;) And that's coming from an arcade junkie AND diehard Sega fan. A MUCH better Altered Beast style game was Konami's Metamorphic Force.
@@animejoe4041 No. Metamorphic Force is nothing like Altered Beast. One is a single plane belt scroller from 1988, and the other is a post Final Fight 1993 beat em up with that distinct Konami style. 5 years is a long time in terms of tech and arcade development. Just because they both involve beast transformations doesn't make them comparable or similar in any significant way. It's a shallow surface level comparison. As far as gameplay and design philosophy they're night and day.
@@RetroClash95 Both games involve dead warriors being resurrected by a god/goddess and sent on missions where they're empowered with the abilities to collect power ups and transform into mighty beasts. There is no closer comparison to Altered Beast than that. Metamorphic Force has a tremendous advantage over Altered Beast because it is the newer game, and fortunately Konami did not waste any of those advantages. The ONLY thing in Altered Beast that is superior is the Dragon creature that you can turn into. He is bad ass!
@@animejoe4041 by your logic, Pac Man is a shittier version of Ghosts n Goblins. They're released five years apart from each other, are completely different in terms of gameplay, but they both have ghosts in them and are arcade games.
Altered Beast is one of those games that deserves more praise then it actually gets imo. It's really pretty decent overall. That being said, I'm floored at how many bad ports this game has. When I saw the Famicom version I told myself "wow, it' can't get much worse than that". Imagine my shock and disbelief when I went through the rest of the video because oh boy was I wrong! I own the Sega Genesis version and always wondered if it was better on other systems. Apparently the answer is that its not better anywhere else, not even close. Even some parts of the arcade version is overshadowed by the Genesis port, that alone is enough to blow anyone's mind. I really expected the PC Engine to be a great port, but sadly it's just so subpar compared to the Genesis version it makes you wanna cry. Its no wonder why the majority of people don't typically enjoy this game very much. The only good version is on a console that Nintendo die-hards love to use as a punching bag. On top of that, it was a launch title! On the flip side, us Genesis fans have an arcade port to be really proud of. One of the few instances of an arcade port having improvements over its original counterpart.
I was a nintendo fanboy growing up, but even I appreciated some of the excellent games the MD had at the time. And now that I am older I appreciate the hardware much more than I did. And can see its design is pretty decent for its era.
Even though the game was mediocre at best, I was still very pleasantly surprised that the game was actually better on the Genesis than the arcade. The sound and music especially. Really impressed me back in 1988 and made me a believer that consoles were finally getting to that convergence point where it would match and even surpass arcade quality.
I don't agree with the bad game part. The game has the typical simplified arcade playability, and it it's quite good for what it is. Specially for the time. I always liked it!
I like the arcade version better than the megadrive version as I think the arcade version looks and sounds better. I owned a sega genesis and copy of Altered Beast back in the early 90's when I was a teenager and I loved Alteredbeast and I still love Alteredbeast today.
@@RetroCore Yes, but does it fix the gameplay? I can forgive the silly zombie death particles, but the beasts do not even play properly! You would not know this unless you actually try the arcade version.
The fact that I loved the original Altered Beast just proves that sometimes "art" is inexplicable! Great to see some of those ports as I didn't see much of these 8 bit console versions back in the day. It would appear I didn't miss much though. The SMS port really does look abysmal despite the large sprite handling etc. It almost looks like a PC CGA game! Could something have gone amiss with the colour values when the bitmaps were transferred over perhaps? Actually all the ports except the MD version look dire. With the MS-DOS version, my eight year old queried "Is that a rat or a werewolf?"! But I still love the coin op original. Love it. Damn those rose tinted glasses!!
The PC Engine CD port requires the system card 1.0 so it won't crash when you turn into a beast. Any system card that is higher than this will freeze the gameplay.
Thanks for your efforts here BTW. I really liked the remix tune at the start, awesome that. I loved the arcade version and played it a lot in the day. I think the the graphic style and back drops of the game made it stand out back then, as you say it wasn't an amazing game really. The sou X effects were what captured me. Plus the changing into a werewolf on the first stage was a good idea as (for me) it was the best powered up character. The MD speech sounds very clear for an early game too. Cheers.
Thanks for your comments. Back in the day I played Altered Beast to death because it was the only game I owned for my Mega Drive in 1988 for about 1 month. I could finish it in one life unlike now :) But yes, it's not a great game however I always loved the beast transformation screens.
I had the Speccy version and I was really impressed by the beginning intro cut scenes before going onto the menu screen, especially the eyes close up cut scene as graphically wise they looked spot on to the original Arcade version but minus the colours.
In the US, this would be the pack-in game for the Genesis itself, so everybody that got a Genesis that Christmas in '89 had to make due with this for the meantime.
Same in the UK as well. I had the Japanese version though in 1988 :) I played it every day for a month until I got some othr games at Christmas. I think it was Super Shinobi (Revenge of Shinobi) I got next. A very big leap in quality that's for sure.
Christopher Sobieniak Yes, I was pretty lucky. I sold my Master System and 11 games to get most of the cash for a Mega Drive. My parents gave me the rest of the money as my birthday present. Man, being a gamer in 1988 was amazing. The difference between the 16Bit Mega Drive and the Master System and NES was so obvious. Same again when the Saturn and PlayStation came out. The leap between say the PS3 / 360 and XBox One / PS4 wasn't anywhere near as dramatic. I finished GTA5 on the 360 and now going through it again on the Xbox One. I still enjoy the game and can see the improvements in graphics but it doesn't have the kick or the leap in quality that older consoles had when they came along to replace an older generation.
All I can say is that if you don't respect "Altered Beast", then you're obviously not a Sega gamer, since it was the one game that came bundled with the Sega Genesis before it was replaced with "Sonic The Hedgehog".
I am most definitely a Sega gamer but that doesn't make Altered Beast a good game. I'm coming from the point of the Arcade original. It wasn't very good compared to Sega's other Arcade games of the time. True that the Mega Drive port is fairly good and I did play it to death until I got Super Shinobi but it's still avarage at best to me.
Actually, it might be running in 16 color VGA mode (640×480@4bpp). Unlike many believe, original VGA could not display 256 colors at 640×480. Or indeed, it could also be EGA compatible 640×350 mode. In any case some type of 'hi-res' 16 color mode and not the 256 color MCGA / Mode 13h (320×200).
I agree. Altered Beast was never very good in the first place. I like some of the mad ideas though (the first boss that throws his head at you). But the gameplay is very subpar compared to Sega’s usual effort.
It's fascinating how game could become rather famous not because of its good or bad qualities, but just because of one single phrase. As for the game itself - looks "meh". Generic arcade platformer. Commodore 64 version looks surprisingly nice. Spectrum port is...EYE SCREAM... Famicom / NES version looks like some kind of poor bootleg. Surprisingly bad conversion.
I was wondering when you'd cover this :) Excellent work as always. This game was another one of those that I would play on a Friday night at the local pizza place.
Say what you want about the Famicom version, but at least it played smoothly. And got a bunch of extra levels and transformations. No one said it had to be good, lol.
WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE !!!! Played to death both the Arcade and MegaDrive versions, and the computer versions are crap because US Gold. On next videos, you dont even have to explain, just say "US Gold" and we all will understand they are crap. Thanks for the videos, love them!
For two whole months Altered Beast was the only game I had for my Mega Drive until receiving Super Shinobi for Christmas. I learned to appreciate Altered Beast quite a bit as a 14 year old boy. It is a little boring but not that bad.
Is it me or the tunes also sound better on the MD than in the Arcade version? One awesome thing about the NES version: the "cat" faces symbolising your lives :)
Yeah, the MD sounds very close and better than the arcade in some areas. Also, the "Welcome to your doom" speech on the MD version is voiced with better intonation IMO.
I owned the Famicom version on pirate cart and played it on my famiclone. I gave it to my cousin and he still has it. It was a white cart with the japanese megadrive boxart on it,I bought it just for that and it was amazing(and expensive for a pirate cart)
Honestly only the arcade version is any good. Yeah, the mega drive version seems good. until you go back and try to beat the arcade. SUre it has the parallax scrolling, bu tthe gameplay is all wrong. To wit: 1) enemy patterns are different. this is reason #1 why it will not help you beat the arcade; 2) werewolf kick is OP, and fireball throw anuimation is different. if you try to use the dash bakc and forth bit on the firs tboss that works on genesis version, you will get pwned. 3) dragon zap is harder to time perfectly. this affects you ability to beat the boss properly (by timing force field attacks to kill it up close) 4) again the method to beat the boss on mega drive does not work in arcade 5) tigers bouncy ball is way too weak, and vertical fire leap takes damage form hitting bottom of boss instead of bouncing harmlessly off. 6) last boss is fought all wrong as well, with the physics of the jump and dash being off. For future reference, here's how you are supposed to beat each boss in the arcade. Head thrower: go up to it and press punch repeatedly. dodge th eheads, using kick if you need to to get out of the way. Eyeball boss: get right up to it and mash kick with proper timing, and your force field will immobilize the eyes and beat the boss with zero effort. Snail. immediately start bear breath on it and puh it back to the wall. this will cuse it tho shoot spiralling projectiles that you can destroy with your spin. do som, then spin jump back and resume breath. repeat till dead Dragon thingie:when it goes low, duck and punch when earby to attack with fireballs. when it breaths fire at the bottom, leap over it. when it's high, use kick attack form behind it, passing through the back. also use it to destoy the mini dragons. FInal boss. do a low jump. at max height, press kick. you will graze the top of his head, and deal damage. repeat until dead. when it gets mad (bright purple, it will start steaming before it charges. wait for the steam to finish, then jump and kick. will die easily.
Got my Sega Genesis for Christmas back then. Me & my brother played Altered Beast until we got good at it, since it was the game that came with the system.
I always wanted to play the arcade version to compare to Genesis and I guess MAME fits that bill. Upon watching all the versions I see where a remake combining the best elements of all could come in. Seems remakes usually come up crappy like the Golden axe for PlayStation. I also always wanted to grab Nef and just keep punching him in the face like a final fight move. I mean the Robed Nef. Hell, fighting him shooting lightning, then he grows big, fight his giant form, then he can transform into the monster and you kill that. Then while you’re pounding his face in he grabs you and drains you of your power and turns all giant head and floats down and you crawl in after him. Fuck, I wanna punch giant floating head too. Lots of color variation so different mob toughness and if made a little like say metroidvania you could explore the entire graveyard... or more like splatterhouse 3. Stillkeeping the basic game play. (That awful altered beast 2 was just too damn taxing so perhaps the charm is AB’s shortness).
Retro Core, especially other games like Cyber Shinobi uses tiles instead of sprites it means that the framerate will be lowered or choppy as hell could they use sprites instead tiles? What were they thinking!? Oh by the way why's your gameplay footage particularly the arcade version does have sprite shimmering?
As a kid in 2001, i played the Genesis version on Sega Dreamcast as part of Sega Smash Pack Vol. 1, but didn't realize the music and sound were change from 16 bit to the 8 bit. I have the emulate version on Xbox Live Arcade (Which you cannot featured) and the 3DS version as part of Sega 3D Classics Collection.
Hopefully next week. The Retro Core shows take a long time to put together. BOTP normally takes about 7 to 8 hours from playing the games to editing everything together. A Retro Core show takes about 12 hours I think.
Retro Core Was gonna ask the same question, cheers for letting us know why there more BOTP than RetroCores :). Any chance of a RetroCore Xmas special? RetroCore has allways been my fave console show (Due to being informative and well researched, also kinda reminds me of all the good old-school gaming magazines we used to get here in the UK During the 90's) would certainty be nice surprise during the Xmas holidays. Keep up the good work.
Mike Contra I'm actually going back to the UK this Christmas so there won't be any uploads during that period. If I have time I may do something to be uloaded from the UK but I doubt I will have the time.
Dude you dont know digly shit....1989 sega genesis altered beast put a shiver in Nintiendo back...16 bit era started and the sega genesis was kicking ass!! It took two years for the super Nintiendo to come up with a new console to rival the sega genesis...so altered beast is a gaming gem!!
Back when I used to buy (or rent! ... and copy) C64 games on tape, I'd always read the cover insert. On the backside there would sometimes be screen grabs from other ports, and I often thought "wow the CPC version looks so colourful!"... If I'd known the games would be running at 4 or 5 fps like this one... :P
hehe, yeah. The poor CPC always gets shafted. Either it's a poor spectrum port with no colours and bad frame rate or very colourful but still with a poor frame rate. maybe that system was hard to program for? In the right hands it could pull of some amazing stuff. Just check out this unofficial R-Type port - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kHH1V-zOlZk.html
Retro Core That's a great remake! I wonder how hard they had to work to squeeze that performance out of the machine. It's strange -- the C64's 6502 CPU runs at a much lower clock speed (0.985 mhz) compared to the CPC's Z80 at 4 mhz. Even taking into account that the CPC video hardware needs to steal clock cycles (apparently taking it down to 3.3 effective mhz), and that the average CPI is higher on the Z80 (maybe double the cycles per instruction, or slightly more), it's still a mystery as to why so many CPC games appear to have a really low frame rate. Otherwise, the specs are not bad for the time, although the Amiga and Atari ST wrecked it about a year after release...
To each their own, I guess. You are right about Altered Beast not being the greatest to begin with, there could have been so much more put into it. It's as if Sega just didn't try. Then a year later, they actually DID try and the result was Golden Axe. 2 things about Golden Axe- one of the rideable beasts, the weird bird/reptile hybrid thingy, also appears in Altered Beast as a regular enemy, while the guys armed with maces sound like they are screaming "Oh, Shi-iiii-it!!!!" when they die, at least, that's what it always sounds like to me
The Master System version is truly dire, where Sega tried to replicate the huge sprites of the original instead of tailoring the game to the capabilities of the system. One of the worst arcade ports on the MS.
Oh man, you don't have idea but this got to be the first video game from any console I saw in an electronic store when I was a kid, now I know the name :D. I think it was about 1990 when I saw it but I don't remember exactly what port was, but from the colors, not sure but I think it was the megadrive one, I only remember how impress I was of the color graphics displayed on a big tv screen, I still remember that moment clearly. The only games I have seen so far were from the pc in my house, a 1989 clone ibm with black and yellow display monochrome monitor
Loving these 60fps comparisons, thanks. So many of these games just shift background chunks around instead of using smaller sprites and it looks poor. I really disliked when Master System games in particular did this, MS Golden Axe is another example, they look like slideshows.
That would have been excellent. There's so much that should have been done on the Saturn or Dreamcast in ways of arcade packs. Saturn while it did get many super scaler games (in Japan mostly) could have has Arcade perfect System 32 compilations of 4 games per disc. While the Dreamcast could have done Model 1 and Model 2 compilation discs.
@@RetroCore ahhhhh mate that would of been mindblowing super hang on, turbo outrun, imagine space harrier 2 using the arcade engine on the Saturn sega really should of released tons of their arcade back catalogue if not on the Saturn but certainly on the Dreamcast the sprite scalers in gorgeous 60fps.. 😁
For me best port is the one as close to original as possible. It may have additional caps or features but the base mechanic should stay the same. The version for Mega Drive is not the best of ports at all. They may add additional background layer for scrolling but the game is different in few aspects from arcade. It can be called Mega Altered Beast or Redux but it is not 100% close to original. Frankly, none of these ports are good. MD should be most perfect considering the hardware caps and the brand (SEGA).
Looks like they tried too hard to replicate the big sprites look of the coin-op on the CPC and promptly shot themselves in the foot by killing the frame rate.
Because until Sonic success Sega never thought all their games should be exclusive? It was not unlike Hudson who developed (alongside NEC) the PC Engine but still released various games for Nintendo plataforms.
@@RetroCore I played it on the wii. I actually thought it was gonna be the arcade original, but i was dissapointed when i saw it was the Megadrive version. I'm sure the arcade version did get released on the Virtual Console, but it was probably japan only just like many other arcade games that appeared on the Wii VC.
It is not true about Amiga, that AI was responsible for choosing punch or kick. Amiga developers studios has acknowledge that amiga can only use one button joysticks (what is a lie and not true at all - it was probably to make amiga joysticks compatible with other smaller gaming systems on market that time) so many ports suffer about this fact. Developers had many ideas to distinguish which button to choose. In this game whether it is punch or kick player have to set stick in correct position - for example normal kick when stick in neutral position, and punch when stick was leaned to left or right. There was no other way, only by acknowleding that amiga joysticks can have 2 different buttons. I have seen games which supported that fact - Mortal Kombat 2 and proper joystick.
Actually, pretty much every system that supported the Atari 9-pin standard joystick, could have used at least three buttons, it's just that nobody ever made such a joystick for them. In addition to the joystick lines, most all of those systems also had two analog lines for reading paddles, mice, etc. So it would have been trivial to connect a button to each of the analog lines for a total of three buttons. In fact, if you varied the resistance on the buttons, similar to how turning a paddle varied the resistance, you could have connected multiple buttons to each line, all without any changes to the system itself. Of course the software would have to be written to scan for the extra buttons, but the point is that it was entirely possible. In fact, Atari themselves created 12-button keyboard controllers, such as the one included with the 2600 version of Star Raiders. If you figure that five of the buttons are equal to the four directions and the fire button on a normal joystick, that still leaves seven more buttons!
Thinking back - and it's a long time ago now - I had a Quickshot two button controller for my Amiga 600. Can't remember too many games using both buttons but I think MK II did. (My memory's hazy though as that was about 30 years ago so I could be wrong.)
Hello I enjoy your shows very much, however I think you should lose the voice over; I like the older shows better where I could enjoy the game music while reading your comments. Thank you!
Hi soso sisi, I'd like to loose the voice overs too but many people prefer the voice over so what I'll do is release the 30fps version of the show without voice overs and release the 60fps shows with voice overs on RU-vid. The version without voice over can be downloaded via my site..
Sprites on MD version are smaller and colour is more 'washed-out' than arcade. To say the MD version game is improved on the arcade is misleading - parallax scrolling is only thing better than arcade. The way the stones and enemies are 'damaged' is also stunted on MD - tiny sprites missing the '3d' effect of destroyed remnants falling/flying off out towards screen etc. The PCEngine HuCard version does'nt crash and features better graphics than the CD version - also BGM music is largely the same as CD - but Hu game features no speech samples :( . The Hu versions sprites are bigger and better coloured than the MD version - alsmost arcade perfect - and feature the '3d' limb/stone block damages (albeit they do suffer from flicker/glitching)
Hmm, I wonder if the Hu card version was relreased in japan? I've only ever seen the CD version over here. Are you sure the MD sprites are smaller? They look much bigger to me than the arcade version.
Retro Core No way, the MD version sprites are smaller - look at the two headed wolves for instance - they look more like dogs on the MD - also the main characters look washed out on MD - the MD has some nice music and sound effects - and less glitching than PCE - but PCE has bigger more colourful sprites.
The Kaylied Gamer The sprites are definitely more colourful on the PCE which gives them better definition, but maybe they look bigger to you due to the slightly lower overall screen resolution?
jbmaru I've checked the sprite size of the main player and zombies and they are bigger on the Mega Drive version. Other enemies such as the 2 headed dogs and so on are smaller though.
jbmaru The PCEngine resolution is pretty similar to MD resolutions on most games - so reckon that is hardly the case. The fact remains the PC Engine HuCard's sprites and some effects are closer to the coin-op than the MD version. The coin op did not feature parallax layer scrolling. Maybe if Sega had ditched this non-required parallax layer completely and used this 'layer' to produce the large raised tombstones etc. and similar details (like it does for most the main bosses bodies) then maybe the MD's sprite proccesing could have been better utilized?
the best port is the arcade one.the worst have a few contenders including the ps2 version. btw who's playing the games in the video?, seems that barely play games. in the rygar review also sucked his gameplay.