GAME CLEAR No. 14 -- Altered Beast (1988)

Altered Beast (1988, Genesis)

Port of: Altered Beast (1988, Arcade)
Developer: SEGA
Publisher: SEGA
Clear Date: 1/15/2021
Clear Platform: SEGA Genesis Mini

After penning a quiz about the Genesis for trivia website LearnedLeague, I finally decided to grab the Genesis Mini. I’d heard rave reviews about how it was the best one of these mini consoles yet, and a couple of its games are fairly pricey in cartridge form, so I figured it wouldn’t be the worst impulse purchase. However, I also couldn’t help but remember my SNES Mini, which has sat almost completely unused ever since I bought it.

I resolved for that not to be the case with this Genesis Mini. Altered Beast has always been a fairly easy clear that I’ve never beaten, and I’ve always found its voice acting charmingly goofy, so I chose it to play first.

It’s okay. There are many better beat ’em ups on Genesis and indeed on the Genesis Mini, but I don’t buy the prevailing narrative these days that it’s awful. It has a sort of clunky charm to it. Plus, there’s not much that I love more than being a big muscley guy running around punching and kicking bad guys.

I spent a good deal of time getting Game Overs on the final stage because I didn’t realize there was an options menu or a continue method. Neither is indicated to exist whatsoever in-game, but both are clearly listed in the manual, which does not come with the Genesis Mini. After looking that up, I cranked up my lives and was able to knock it out no problem.

Overall, I had fun with this very dated brawler. What I especially had fun with was the bear transformation in level 3. He can turn enemies to stone by yelling at them and has a Samus-style screw attack. Wow! Make a whole game based on that!

As for the Genesis Mini, this was a fun first couple hours with it. The controllers are faithfully reproduced and feel nice. The menu music composed by the one and only Yuzo Koshiro is a charming medley of SEGA sounds, and the selection of titles is impressive. So far, I’m impressed with the device. Hopefully some more titles on this thing make future appearances in my GAME CLEAR posts. In particular, I’ve got my eye on Alisia Dragoon and Beyond Oasis as games I’d like to get to. Time will tell if I do.