![]() This brings us to the game’s aesthetic inspiration, Greek mythology. Hades is the ruler of the underworld in classical Greek Mythology, but Uchida makes for an interesting twist to the lore. His Japanese name Majin roughly translates to “demon god” or a “magician” since he plays the role of the ruling head of the Greek Underworld. Unlike Athena and Zeus, Neff is not included in the real Greek pantheon he is a character of Uchida’s making. This game’s story follows the main character, a nameless centurion, who must find the Greek goddess Athena who was kidnapped by Neff, also known as Majin in the original Japanese game. “Altered Beast pic” by wellohorld is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Uchida’s inspiration for the game came from many sources, ranging from the Howling movies to Greek mythology. Sega has since released games with heavy Greek mythology influences, but it appears that Altered Beast began that trend. Most games focus on depleting health at the time, so this spin was a refreshing idea. Altered Beast was a unique idea at the time in that the main character started out as a strong muscular protagonist who had the chance to grow even stronger as the game went on. Makoto Uchida was the game developer for the original Altered Beast, and he went on to develop other games such as Golden Axe, Alien Storm, Wing War, the Dynamite Deka series, and Alien Front. Namely, the Sega Master System and later on Sega Genesis and Sega System 16. Later, it was released on many home consoles, but the console it is most known for was Sega. The History of Altered BeastĪltered Beast was originally an arcade game that was released in the arcades in 1988 as a 16-bit game, and it is a side scroller “beat ’em up” game. ![]() Its fantastical bent is an endearing testimony that some games can combine aesthetic elements in ways that we did not expect to find entertaining. However, this game is much more than an adventure quest set in the ancient world of mythological Greece. Although the main character for Altered Beast must rescue a princess as well, that is where the similarities end. This game wasn’t as brutal as the Mortal Kombat games as far as visceral blood on the screen, but there are the occasional decapitated heads and demon-slaying that make the content less tame than other games at the time. Featuring the Greek god Zeus as a catalyst to drive the plot forward and make the main character “Rise from your grave!” was a lot different than Mario collecting mushrooms and rescuing Princess Peach. This game was an anomaly among the console games of the 1980s, such as Nintendo’s lineup with Mario’s characters. However, there are some arcade Sega games that may have slipped under the radar of most gamers today, one of which is a game called Altered Beast. Most of their games are relatively familiar, such as Mortal Kombat or Sonic. The 1980s were a booming time for Sega, a Japanese video game developer company that released home console games starting in the early 1980s. Some of these were the consoles sold by Sega. This was back when arcades were a bit more popular than home consoles, but at home, consoles were growing in popularity. and was probably still unsatisfied) and Ubisoft, which is pushing Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell towards cinema screens.The late 1980s had its own fair share of interesting video games ranging from a variety of different consoles released by many different video game companies. Sega will, of course, be looking to catch companies including Electronic Arts (which, unsatisfied with adaptations of its games, drove Need For Speed in-house. Nothing concrete has emerged about any of them yet, but this new hire suggests that things will be moving more quickly from now on. So what is the company working on now? The likes of Altered Beast, Streets Of Rage, Shinobi, Rise Of Nightmares and Crazy Taxi have all been targeted as either live-action or animated possibilities. The company currently blends Sega and a massive advertising agency in the effort to produce film, TV and digital ventures. With Sony already developing a film based on speedy mascot Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega is more directly looking for ways to exploit its bulging back catalogue.Īccording to Variety, the company has hired Evan Cholfin, a veteran of working in production companies for filmmakers such as David Fincher, to be head of development and production at a company called Stories International in Tokyo. The hit rate might remain sketchy, but the march to turn video game properties into movies and TV shows continues unabated.
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