A
Beat 'em Up by Sega, appearing at the arcades in the late 1980's, and later ported to home consoles like the
Sega Master System and
Sega Genesis. Two pseudo-sequels were made, one for the
Game Boy Advance titled
Altered Beast: Guardian of the Realms, and a
PlayStation 2 sequel titled
Project Altered Beast (which was released in Japan and Europe,
but not in America). The main gimmick is that your character can turn into various humanoid monsters, like werewolves and dragons.
Interestingly enough, the first game of this series is considered by many as a cult-classic game and
an average game at the same time. The reason is because the
Sega Genesis port was the first
perfect port from an arcade game, being extremely similar to the arcade version in gameplay, sounds and even graphics
* although hardware limitations prevented the inclusion of the rather impressive (for the time) scaling effects sequences seen on the arcade original
.
This doesn't sound awesome nowadays (we even have a trope called
Porting Distillation), but don't forget we are talking about the late 80's, ports were either
terrible,
different or simpler games.
Story-wise, the original game has
Zeus' daughter Athena being kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Neff and two centurions being
resurrected to rescue her.
In
Project Altered Beast the story follows a man called Luke Custer who is a
"Genome-Cyborg",
a human whose DNA and other genetic make-up has been artificially altered allowing
micro-chips containing the genetic make-up of other creatures to
transform him into an
anthropomorphic beast. After surviving a
helicopter crash, Luke
loses his memory and sets off to learn about the truth behind his past and the Genome-Cyborgs.
Altered Beast uses the following tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The NES version adds a werelion, wereshark, and werebird, and the GBA game adds power-ups and beasts.
- Animorphism
- All Just a Dream: The ending of the arcade reveals that the entire game was, apparently, one really bizarre movie.
- Artistic License - History: The manual even says the protagonists are Roman centurions. And yet the setting is Greek, and so are the gods' names. (then again, Rome invaded Greece and stole their pantheon...)
- Bald of Evil: Neff.
- Classic Cheat Code: Allows for reaching other levels, changing health/lives and order the beasts appear.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Probably unintentional(ly hilarious) in the Sega Genesis port.
- Everything's Worse with Bears: Level 3's beast.
- Evil Laugh: The main villain goes "Ho ho ho ho" when stealing your spirit orbs.
- Faceless Eye: Level 2 boss.
- Foreshadowing: Level 4 has statues of anthropomorphic rhinos. Guess which form the final boss takes?
- Furry Fandom: Naturally.
- Giant Flyer: The pterodactyl-like enemy.
- Growing Muscles Sequence: the effect of the first two powerups.
- Half-Human Hybrid: The final boss, the half-goat and half-horse enemies.
- Don't forget most of the beasts.
- Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Level 2 beast, Level 3/4 bosses, a Chinese dragon-like enemy in Level 2.
- Magic Pants: Character grows. Pants still on.
- Nintendo Hard: The arcade version and its ports.
- One-Winged Angel: All the bosses.
- Our Monsters Are Different: All the transformations of Neff. Including a weird flesh monster who throws his head at you, a eye-composed thing, a literal dragon-snail (too much snail) and a crocodile-jewel thing. His last form is a Rhino-man.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Level 1 and 5 beast.
- Panthera Awesome: The Level 4 beast, a weretiger.
- Personal Space Invader: The enemy that goes on your head and stays there until you punch it out.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
- Wise Fwom Youw Gwabe: Possible Trope Namer.
- Save the Princess
- Shapeshifter Baggage
- Shock and Awe: Weredragon's powers.
- Shout Out: The two-headed wolves are likely a reference to Clash of the Titans.
- Stupid Statement Dance Mix: "WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM, WELCOME TO YOUR-WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM!
" - Taken for Granite: Werebear's power.
- Temple of Doom: Level 4.
- Took a Level in Badass: Werewolf returns more powerful in the final level.
- Transformation Sequence: The player character, after getting three "POWER-UP!" spirit balls (the Werewolf morph is pretty detailed◊), and the villain when seeing you're transformed.
- Interestingly, the other transformation sequences were not nearly as detailed - they usually consisted of flickering back and forth from an image of the two forms rapidly.
- Instant in the C64 version.
- Turns Red: The bosses.
- Underground Level: Levels 2 and 3.
- Technically, levels 4 and 5 are also underground. The centurions are traveling to the underworld, after all.
- Upgrade Artifact: The orbs that pop out of the blue wolves when you kill them.
The PS2 game (Project) Altered Beast has examples of these tropes:
- All Your Powers Combined: This is Luke's specialty. He can equip different types of Genome Chips and transform into the beast most suited to deal with the current situation.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The U.W.H. (Unidentified Weightless Human) twenty-hit combo. On the plus side, it can kill any enemy except bosses. On the negative side, it requires memorizing a twenty button sequence, good timing and it only targets one enemy at time; in a game where monsters love to swarm you. Nonetheless, it's still necessary to defeat one of the rare enemies.
- Bat out of Hell: The Balrog.
- Body Horror: The transformation cutscenes. They're all quite detailed and painful looking.
- Bragging Rights Reward: The Weretiger form. Unlocked after obtainning every single Enemy, Beast, Boss and Unique data...which leaves nothing else to do.
- Cannibalism Superpower: Anastasia.
- Darker and Edgier
- Giant Spider: Xenesthis.
- In Name Only: The only relation with the original is the fact that the protagonist becomes beasts, one of which is a werewolf (with the weretiger and werebear as unlockables). It is in a modern setting, with the transformations being caused by genetic experiments.
- Monster Compendium: Aside from the Flavor Text, it also includes a small detail of the elemental tolerances and the option of looking at the monster's 3D model from different angles.
- Mysterious Waif: Anastasia.
- Parental Favoritism: Dr. Eric Jobs quickly forgets about his previous subjects once he starts working on a new one. This gets to the point it becomes the cause of Anastasia's Start of Darkness.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The Leviathan.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: There are 3 of these', first is a flashback sequence showing a fight between Luke and Brad shown upon getting the Minotaur form, the second is an actual playable fight against Brad and the third is against Anastasia
- Super Soldier: the "Genome Cyborgs".
- The Virus: the "Genome Mist".
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