Altered Beast PCE vs Megadrive/Genesis

[Keranu]

Haha, well we got the official NOT ARCADE PERFECT nod from handygrafx in regards to Altered Beast. As usual, thanks for your expertise, handy! 

[Joe Redifer]

What?  I thought Altered Beast was arcade perfect!  I could have sworn it was.  Are my dreams being crushed?

[PCEngineHell]

Yea well they said Strider on Genesis or Mega Drive was near perfect,but that was bullshit. I played through both the Mega Drive and Genesis cart plenty,the MegaDrive does have Striders voice like the japanese game pcb,but still at any rate both carts have very reworked graphics,and Strider himself looks funny compared to the jamma pcb. Honestly after playing the PcEngine port all the way a few times I like it much more. Yea a tad more flicker in areas,but its a more solid port. I like the sprites and colors more on it,and the extras thrown in to balance what they could not do make it great,in my opinion.

[handygrafx]

How do you feel about the PCE Altered Beast?

well, I think the programmers TRIED harder to mimic the arcade more than Sega did with their own Genesis translation.

I mean, neither version compares to the arcade, but the sprites of the PCE Altered Beast look more like the arcade even though they lack enough color & definition.   overall I like PCE version.  it's much more challenging than the Genesis and even the arcade.

[nat]

I agree with everything you just said.

[Keranu]

I agree with everything you just said.

But do you agree that if Arthur's foot isn't shown hiding behind tall grass when crouching down ruins the arcade perfection?

[Joe Redifer]

LOL That's the reason why I hate the Saturn version.  Because of that it seems like a completely different game than the arcade.

The Genesis version is 100% pixel-perfect.  It's the arcade that isn't Genesis-perfect.

[CrackTiger]

LOL That's the reason why I hate the Saturn version.  Because of that it seems like a completely different game than the arcade.

That and the different ending music.

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah, the difference between the saturn and the arcade is like the difference between Tetris and Contra.  Ghouls N Ghosts has no business being on the Saturn.

[Ceti Alpha]

It's the arcade that isn't Genesis-perfect.

LMFAO! 

[FraGMarE]

I'm going to revive this thread, as I've done some homework in researching these games.  The reason the PCE and PCE-CD versions SUCK is a minor but glaring flaw and is as follows.  When you press jump, you crouch DOWN for a full 18 vblank ticks (that's .3 seconds) before you take to the air.  That's ridiculous!  The arcade and Genesis versions don't have that lag at all.  Also, the recovery time after you are hit in the PCE and PCE-CD versions seems to be either short or non-existent, so that if you get surrounded, enemies can juggle you back and forth endlessly until you die.  Oh yea, and using Run for jumping would have been nice, at least for an option.  These all really seem like minor things to fix.  Would anybody here be willing to take a look at the ROM and ISO of these games and see how easy manipulating these values would be?

[TurboXray]

A number of years back, I created a hack for the rom version. It replaced 'up' with select for jump. For people with the 3 button avenue pad. It played like the arcade and genesis version, IIRC, in that the jump button only jumped so high; you still needed to press up along with the jump button (in this case select button or button III on the ave pad) to get the high jump. I handed it out to a few people here, but it's been so long that I don't remember who.

 I can't remember if I looked into the CD version or not, to alter the jump controls.

[FraGMarE]

A number of years back, I created a hack for the rom version. It replaced 'up' with select for jump. For people with the 3 button avenue pad. It played like the arcade and genesis version, IIRC, in that the jump button only jumped so high; you still needed to press up along with the jump button (in this case select button or button III on the ave pad) to get the high jump. I handed it out to a few people here, but it's been so long that I don't remember who.

 I can't remember if I looked into the CD version or not, to alter the jump controls.

I think I vaguely remember that hack.  Would you be willing to expand on that ROM hack and screw around with the jump timing and/or recovery timing?

[soop]

Altered Beast is boring, but it's slightly less boriing on the MD

[TurboXray]

fragmare: PM'd

[Senshi]

Altered Beast is boring, but it's slightly less boriing on the MD

+1 outside of the nostalgia for this game, I dont understand the affinity for it.

[Keith Courage]

I like this game. The beef with the pc engine CD version is lack of two player support. Just like Riot zone...

[turbofan1]

I`ve never understood the whole concept of Altered Beast.Are you some shape shifting zombie,that can transform into weird animals and stuff to save some woman.Is that pretty much it in A nutshell?.

[CrackTiger]

I`ve never understood the whole concept of Altered Beast.Are you some shape shifting zombie,that can transform into weird animals and stuff to save some woman.Is that pretty much it in A nutshell?.

It's just a bad B-Movie, like Sex Girl Patrol. It's not supposed to make sense.

Altered Beast still makes more sense than Sonic and Mario games though.

[HercTNT]

Muscle bound naked freak with severe case of lupis, gold ring crazed blue hedgehog with a lead foot and mishapen sidekick, or a short italian plumber with a bizarre turtle bashing fetish. yea, i would say the the muscle bound freak is more in the relm of plausibility