Retro Coin Op Synopsis

“Rise from your grave!”

Zeus has a mission for you. And if you’re guessing it has something to do with a kidnapped princess, you’ve obviously played a video game before. No, Altered Beast didn’t have the most original setup, but the journey itself… that was a little different.

At the start of this game, an evil magician kidnapped Zeus’ daughter, and the Greek god raised you from the grave to get her back. Creeping across a side-scrolling world (and underworld), you encountered two-headed wolves, headless zombies (actually, they did have heads—they just carried them in their hands) and other mythological nasties.

But here’s the kicker: if you punched or kicked one of the flashing white wolves, a blue ball of energy would be released. Grab that, and you would be transformed into an “altered beast.” One power-up made you more muscular, the next made you even bigger and more animalistic and a third power-up would complete the transformation. On the first level, you became a fearsome werewolf (or if you were the second player, a werelizard); on the second, a winged weredragon; on the third, a werebear; the fourth, a weretiger; and finally, a powerful golden werewolf (or werelizard, as the case may be).

With each transformation came increased powers, including werewolf fireball punches, electrical dragon charges, lumbering bear rolls and a zippy tiger kick attack. These added abilities came in handy when facing the bosses at the end of each level, culminating in the lightning bolt-throwing wizard himself at the end of stage five. Unfortunately, each new level started you back at your normal form, since that cheating wizard kept stealing your power orbs.

With its varied characters, transforming animations and general level of violent mayhem, Altered Beast had the goods (and the gods) to keep gamers happy, and enough gruesome images to give young players nightmares for weeks.

“Welcome to your doom!”

Arcade Machine Release History

1988 - Altered Beast

Arcade Game Sub Categories

adventure
fighting

Machine Manufacturer

Sega

Other Arcade Game Links