Developer Black Jack has started the development of an AGA-specific port of the 1988 Sega arcade classic Altered Beast, targeting stock Amiga 1200 hardware for a recreation over the original 1989 OCS version. Sega’s Team Shinobi, under project lead Makoto Uchida, developed Altered Beast for the System 16 arcade board, releasing it in 1988 to showcase large sprites, detailed animations, and voice samples like “Rise from your grave” and “Power up.” Set in ancient Greece, players control a centurion resurrected by Zeus to rescue Athena from the demon Neff, progressing through five levels by collecting power-up orbs from white two-headed wolves to transform into beasts—wolf, dragon, bear, tiger, or golden werewolf—each with unique attacks. The game was eventually packed with the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis launch in 1989 outside Japan. Developer Black Jack’s effort to recreate it for for AGA Amiga 1200 computers, is to improve on the inferior OCS port by Software Studios/Activision, which suffered graphical limitations and slowdowns. OCS limits screens to 32 colors from a 4096-color palette (12-bit), forcing dithering and compromises on Altered Beast’s vibrant power-up transformations and enemy palettes. AGA boosts this to 256 colors from a 24-bit (16.7 million) palette with 8-bitplanes, enabling direct palette cycling for beast forms like the fiery wolf or golden werewolf without OCS-style color banding. The development is still in early stage and a release date is TBA. You can read more on EAB about the ongoing development.
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