Trivia / Altered Beast (1988)

• Killer App: The Genesis version was quite impressive for its time period, being fairly close to the arcade original in a time where arcade games got extremely parred down for console versions. Sega knew they had a decent game on their hands that could sell the technical prowess of the Genesis and used it as the pack-in, which helped sell the system early in its life.
• Port Overdosed: Sega licensed the original game out to almost every platform then in existence. In addition, Sega has included the Genesis version with almost every classic game compilation they have ever released.
• Referenced by...:
  • To promote their fourth album, Dear Agony, Breaking Benjamin released a flash game on their website based on Altered Beast called Altered Benjamin, starring the lead singer as the player character. It can be played here.
  • Matthew Sweet named his fourth album Altered Beast after the game. A live EP of his is also called Son of Altered Beast.
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd: In "How the Nerd Stole Christmas", the Nerd calls the Sega Genesis port of Altered Beast "A nut-kicking feast I can't stand in the least."
  • MF217 tends to prefer referencing the black sheep of the franchise known as "Project Altered Beast", because he personally believes with the right amount of polish and more effort put into the concept, he feels like it's perhaps the best course of action as to how to modernize the concept of a shapeshifting focused beat-em up even if it's not true to the roots of the series. One of his OC's, Mirror M, has a damaged eye which even in spite of the immense Healing Factor Mirror M has, it'll never heal, which is the same deal regarding a scar that the main character of this game has across his chest because of his rival having wounded him with a neurotoxin based claw swipe.
  • Midnight Fight Express: The description for the zombies, called Deadheads in-game, at the Graveyard level ends with "RISE FROM YOUR GRAVES."
  • Wreck-It Ralph: Neff, in his rhino form, is one of the members of Bad-Anon.
• What Could Have Been: Surprisingly, the original intention for the Final Boss, the Rhino, was actually supposed to be the final Beast form.