Shadow of the Beast Review by: Totts - 9.3/10
Shadow of the beast is probably one of the most popular home computer games ever. At the time of its appearance, the game gave the world at that time full of hostile Amiga and Atari ST followers something amazing to admire. This was the sensational, at that time technical implementation of flawless Parallax scrolling and huge boss sprites. The playability was a little off track, but the atmosphere conveyed by the graphics and music was simply unique and had to ignore. Between the Amiga and Atari ST. most people voted in favour of Commodore Amiga which shows this game in slightly better quality.
You start the game with a humanoid beast in a beautiful and sunny landscape near a fountain. When you first play shadow of the beast, one has to go to the options to the left or right. Leaving the player free to choose its path, until you find that the wrong decision brings a premature end. The game play is here unfortunately completely fixed and predefined, even if it looks different in the beginning. You should turn left. After a few meters of racing that simply beautiful view is due to the scrolling first opponents which will meet our unusual hero. These have to be defeated with a targeted fist shock, but only when it strikes accurately and at the right time. A seconds delay and you have thus missed the right opportunity one directly lose one of his twelve life points. Suddenly springing up shooting traps ensure before reaching the target again for a further loss of life. After some time you get to an old tree, you may enter. Once again as a player you are amazed by the sensational and dense background graphics. The number of enemies and obstacles is here consistently and too soon see you at the end of his forces arrive. Still impressed by the graphics, creating somehow a bottle to achieve, which equips the weakened body with new forces. And after not too long ago one sees a winged demon with fire spitting and guarded an ORB is the first great foe against. You should smash and thus gain a limited power book, which is vital for the fight with the boss of the tree section. This is even bigger and more spectacular, but also deadly. If you do not manages to defeat him with a few targeted shots, you are overcome which leads to the immediate end of the game. And you can start from scratch again even if you only at the beginning of his adventure.
You will have to develop a skill here for memorizing all traps to complete the game as it is only after several attempts to finally reach the underground catacombs that the right approach for most enemies and final opponents can be well learned. In the catacombs the number of monsters increase in the course of the game enormously and it is pressed from all possible sides. As soon as some enemies attack, you can not respond. Bosses like the monstrous giant worm or the three-headed dragon can not conquer without loss of energy. And the distance between the life-giving water is growing. The extremely high level of shadow of the beast is probably the most negative aspect of this technically brilliant game. I do not know any who has played it ever successfully without cheating at it really. Due to this fact the fun will be slowed down significantly which is a pity as this game is superbly presented.
In addition to the original computer versions of shadow of the beast, I have tested the Amiga and PC engine version. The mega drive conversion is very similar to the original, being almost equal, but with much poorer music quality and poorer graphics. On the PC engine it looks somewhat different. The graphics are only minimally worse, but you do get slightly modified music in CD quality sound. The Parallax scrolling has largely been removed too. The really interesting change is in the playability however, the controls are not so fussy, you can progress much further without problems and you even get some continues. Thus is the PC engine version is the best but the genesis version is well worth a look as it is a legendary game and is a marker of some revolutionary innovations in technical game play.
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