Altered Beast

Altered Beast is a legendary side-scrolling beat 'em up set in Ancient Greece, where a fallen centurion is resurrected from the grave by Zeus. Your mission is to rescue Zeus's daughter, Athena, from the demonic god Neff. The core mechanic involves collecting spirit balls dropped by defeated white wolves, which cause your character to undergo dramatic physical transformations. After three power-ups, you morph into powerful creatures—such as a Werewolf, Weretiger, or Golden Bear—each possessing unique elemental attacks and supernatural strength to defeat the grotesque bosses guarding each of the five rounds.

Commodore 64

Released in 1989 and published by Activision, this conversion attempted the ambitious task of shrinking Sega's high-end arcade hardware into the 64K limits of the Commodore 64. Developed by Software Studios, the game features recognizable, albeit simplified, versions of the arcade levels and transformations. While the C64 version lacks the iconic "Rise from your grave" digitized speech due to memory constraints, it compensates with a rhythmic SID soundtrack that captures the eerie atmosphere of the underworld. The sprites are large for the system, though the scrolling and collision detection are notably different from the original. Despite the technical hardware hurdles, it remains a notable example of late-80s arcade-to-home porting, capturing the essential "Power Up" loop that made the original a pop-culture phenomenon.