[A-Z Games] A: Altered Beast

I've actually barely played this but I remember it strongly through osmosis (yeah, there is a semi-permeable membrane) as a friend mentions it regularly. This may not make sense to those that think games make you antisocial, but this friend has credited the sound of Altered Beast as a huge influence on him, especially the sound design and music. To such a degree that he referenced it in his speech on getting married which was not even in English and so a quick "Rise from your grave" was chucked in.

The game itself is a fairly basic right to left action scrolling beat 'em up released to the arcades in 1988. As you progress, power ups collected by defeating certain enemies will eventually make you stronger until becoming a beast. It is an OK game but it is really more notable for being one of the first ever Mega Drive games and so probably sold a few copies on that basis. The 16-bit Mega Drive was Sega's hardware to be released in late 1988 in Japan to compete with the 8-bit Famicom (NES, outside Japan) and had to prove itself more capable than the Nintendo competition. It did this with huge sprites and the type of sound fidelity that was unmatchable by Nintendo's 8-bit system.
I have played the game more recently and I'm not sure I'd recommend it as it is clearly an arcade conversion with few, if any real, concessions made to the home market. It is fairly short and feels a bit of a one trick pony but it is still quite visceral. Each level is varied in terms of the design and even the beast that you turn into and this, even now, seems quite odd as the power ups are not consistent. I guess this improved the spectacle of the game in the arcades, with the feeling that you were seeing new things^[1] and your beast transformation was a full screen change and so was probably quite exciting. Being an arcade game of the era, it is, however, something of a memory test and designed to kill you such that you keep pumping the coins in.
The Mega Drive's first games were not quite in the same league as the Super Nintendo's^[2]...

http://game-oldies.com/play-online/altered-beast-sega-genesis#

3 other A titles that might be interesting: 
Axelay -  Scrolling shooter that separated the SNES from the Megadrive. Visually, at least.
Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis -  The best of the 2D style tennis games with simple charm and great game modes.
After Burner - Massive F-14 cabinet, massive game.

^{1. This idea of seeing new things was soon, in my opinion, replaced within the arcade world by the tight, repeatable rulesets of shooters, beat 'em ups and driving games.↩}

^{2. In Japan, the Super Famicom released with just two games – F-Zero and Super Mario World. Both of these games are still held up today as bona fide classics with Mario World, especially, containing some of the finest moments in gaming. In Europe – almost 18 months later, the amazing Super Tennis was added. All of these games are completely playable and enjoyable today.↩}