Altered Beast

Rise from your grave! With this memorable call begins Altered Beast, one of the most iconic games ever to accompany a console launch. For many players this title was the first thing they saw after switching on the Mega Drive, as it was often bundled with the console. That alone etched it indelibly into the memory of an entire generation as a symbol of the arrival of the sixteen-bit era.

The game is a beat 'em up with a touch of Greek mythology in which you come to life as a resurrected Roman centurion, sent by the god Zeus to rescue his kidnapped daughter Athena from the underworld. You fight through ranks of the undead and demons in the classic style, advancing from left to right and dealing out blows. The real peculiarity lies in collecting energy from defeated enemies, which transforms your character into a mighty beast, be it a werewolf, a dragon, or another creature with devastating abilities.

The game's origins lie in SEGA's arcades of the late eighties, and the home conversion for the Mega Drive was tasked with showcasing the new console's capabilities to a broad audience. That is precisely why it became so widespread and well known, even though its gameplay depth was rather modest by the standards of the day. The title's strength lay in its instantly comprehensible action and the striking transformation into a monster.

Visually and sonically, Altered Beast benefited from what was then impressive graphics of large characters and from digitized voice lines that rounded out the atmosphere and stuck in players' memories. The mythological setting full of the undead lent the game a darkly tinged but stylish flavor.

Today Altered Beast is seen more as a historical milestone and a nostalgic memory than as a mechanically deep game. Even so, thanks to its role at the console's launch and its unmistakable atmosphere, it has held a firm place in SEGA's history and among collectors and those who remember it.

Why play it: For a nostalgic trip back to the very beginnings of the Mega Drive and the striking transformations into mythological beasts.