Hahah even though I enjoyed the Genesis version, I know what you mean. If you were playing two player on the arcade version (in which one of my friends has a cabinet of in his own house) and both of you were werewolves, the game would have an insanely hectic pace if you just kept doing the dash attack non stop. Genesis version didn't have that because it could only go so fast.
well yeah true, but there's alot more to it than that. not only are the Genesis graphics VERY significantly different (downgraded or cut out) from the arcade, i.e. sprites, color, animation, missing FX. etc. - but also the pacing and the gameplay difficulty are far different on Genesis. the Genesis Altered Beast is MUCH easier than the arcade, and generally goes at a faster pace because of this. although the arcade is more hectic as you said because enemies don't die as easily.
the one thing the Genesis version had that the arcade did not, was parallax scrolling. but that did not make up for the overall downgraded, washed out graphics with smaller sprites, less animation, missing scaling/zooming effects. etc.
of course, the Genesis version is overall the best home version of the arcade overall. the music is very close to the arcade. music from Sega System16 to Genesis did not suffer much downgrade.
the PC-Engine HuCard (never saw the CD-ROM version) although not on par with the Genesis version in many areas (music, parallax) the developer (NEC Avenue?) actually tried to be more faithful to the arcade
in other ways, than Sega's own Genesis version. more color, sprites that look more like arcade, effects that attempt to immitate the arcade more.
still, the Genesis version was superior overall, dispite this. neither system could reproduce the System16 arcade - i would've loved to have seen the SuperGrafx try though, with a 16 meg SHuCard.
i was pretty pissed when, years later, the Sega Smash Pack for Dreamcast and PC had the Genesis versions of Altered Beast and Golden Axe instead of the arcade.
