Altered Beast: Guardian Realms

An old Sega ?classic? rises from its grave and transforms into a bigger, longer, all-new punch-kick-turn-into-monster-a-thon.

Man becomes bigger man. Bigger man becomes biggest man. Biggest man becomes monster that shoots magic balls, performs spin attacks, and defeats weird, creepy boss?before reverting to man once more. Altered Beast: Guardian Realms succeeds marvelously in crafting a wholly faithful sequel to the ?classic? arcade and Sega Genesis game right down to the challenge, pacing, graphical style, and weird Zardoz-meets-Clash of the Titans soundtrack. It even goes the extra mile with three times as many levels (15 as opposed to the original?s five) and a dozen new ?evolving? transformations.

Unfortunately, for all the effort at mimicry, the gameplay at the Beast?s heart doesn?t quite withstand the test of time. Only those with the Sega Nostalgia Gene spliced into their DNA will be able to fathom why Altered Beast, with its stupid-simple, ultra-repetitive 2D side-scrolling punch/kick/repeat gameplay, was ever popular in the first place.

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