This week's game is Altered Beast: Guardian of the Realms, the GBA sequel to Sega's classic game that shrinks it down while adding improvements here and there to the formula.
I've never been much of an Altered Beast fan, but I think this game is a slightly better experience overall and I found myself more into it than not. The basics are exactly the same, but they've added to everything that counts, giving the player 10 forms to play with (that can be upgraded in an unclear way) and 15 levels to go through, which makes for a much longer game (that's still only a few hours long). Diversity is this game's biggest achievement as every single level offers unique environments, enemies, and bosses. These environments vary much more wildly than the original game's too, which helps to keep things interesting when the gameplay gets a bit worn out. There are a lot of general balance/consistency issues, from weird hitboxes to the transformations varying wildly in effectiveness and bosses that range from quarter munchers to being nearly harmless, but the game is never taxing enough to have these things ruin the experience. The weird pseudo-3D visuals will likely turn people off, but I actually found them to be strangely effective in adding atmosphere to the game! Their grimy, muddy look paints a picture of an unsettling world that's filled with unusual monsters, which makes opening the door to each realm more exciting because you never quite know how it's going to look. Ultimately, this is still Altered Beast, but it's slightly improved Altered Beast, so I'm cool with considering that a success!
