Altered Beast GENESIS

Altered Beast is a 1988 arcade beat-’em-up from Sega, ported to the Mega Drive as one of its earliest pack-in titles — the game most people’s first console session actually was. Designer Makoto Uchida set it in a stylized Ancient Greece: Zeus raises a dead Roman centurion from the grave to rescue his daughter Athena from the underworld god Neff, and arms his resurrected champion with a power nobody expects from a beat-’em-up hero.

Every level scatters glowing spirit balls dropped by wolves; collect three of the same type and the centurion transforms into a beast — a werewolf, a were-dragon, a were-bear, or a were-tiger, depending on the stage — each with its own attacks and a temporary boost in power that’s usually enough to turn the tide against that level’s boss.

The transformation gimmick, the deep “rise from your grave” digitized voice clip, and the game’s status as the console’s default bundled title made it a formative Genesis memory for a lot of people who might not otherwise remember the specifics of the boss fights.

Controls:

↑ = up
→ = right
↓ = down
← = left

A = attack
B = jump
C = attack

Enter = Start