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I was bored one night, so for the hell of it, I popped my copy of Altered Beast into the Genesis, and I noticed a few odd things in it.

1) The gravestones in the first level that pop out of the ground all have a word written on them... a name, actually - Stella. I have to wonder - who is Stella?

Look closely - the name Stella is right there on the tombstones

See?

2) In the foreground of the last level, there are what looks like corpses strewn about. One of these corpses looks eerily similiar to Edvard Munch's "The Scream" painting (the screaming figure, at least). It may have been intentional - or not, I don't know.

There, in the lower right-hand corner - Edvard Munch's The Scream!

The Scream in close-up

3) At the end of the game, right when the credits come up, it says "Coordinate - No Nukes". I don't know where that came from. Ever notice that you can beat up the credits too?

Strange things indeed... it's amazing what you notice at 3:45 in the morning.

Update - 6/19/02: Martin Brear recently sent me in a picture of another Altered Beast oddity... a half tombstone in the arcade game bearing the name "Alex". Could this be the same Alex that dies at the beginning of Sega's Golden Axe (which did come out at almost exactly the same time as Altered Beast)? It could be...

Update - 8/5/02: From Dan Bromley - a theory about where "Stella" may have come from:

A wild guess but could the gravestones in Altered Beast be a reference to the cult Greek film Stella?

Stella info on the IMDB

It's definitely a possibility...

Also from Dan: a plausible idea as to where the "No Nukes" message may have come from:

1988 (when Altered Beast was in development) was the year when Japan and Korea saw a boom in 'No Nukes' associations, organisations and foundations against nuclear power and weapons (Fujimi most memorable). Maybe in the credits the coders are showing their support to the anti nuke movement at that time. As good a guess as any :-)

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with that one, Dan. ^_^

Update - 11/22/02: From James (aka PrimeOp) - another theory about where "Stella" may have come from:

I can't believe that I didn't notice this until a few days ago. I was getting sprites from different games and happened to come across this...

I was getting some stuff together about strange game crossovers and I played Alex Kidd to get a snapshot of the Opa-Opa ship in level 2. After I did, I let the demo play and started wondering what the 2nd player girl's name was. Look above Alex's name:

I think that's the answer to the Altered Beast grave mystery ^_^

Hmmm... it definitely could be. The screenshot that James provided is from the arcade version of Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars (the only Alex Kidd arcade game ever made), and personally, I had no idea there even was a second player in it. If that is indeed the case, maybe the Alex in the tombstone from the arcade Altered Beast is actually Alex Kidd. It makes me wonder if the guys that programmed the Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars arcade game programmed the Altered Beast arcade game... it sure seems that they did.