Battle of the Ports - Shadow of the Beast (シャドー・オブ・ザ・ビースト) Show
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A game loved by many for it's technical marvel but not for the gameplay. Strangely Shadow of the Beast was ported to many systems. Let's check them out.
Time Code
00:19 - Amiga
03:16 - Atari ST
04:42 - Amstrad CPC
06:08 - ZX Spectrum
07:00 - Commodore 64
08:27 - Mega Drive - Western release
10:03 - Mega Drive - Japanese release
11:46 - Super Famicom
13:34 - Master System
15:10 - Atari Lynx
16:41 - FM Towns
18:47 - PC Engine CD
20:41 - Atari 8 Bit home computers
21:28 - All versions side by side
Enjoy! - เกม
I love the amiga music. It has such a surreal and dreamlike quality to it.
@@teddym2808 I personally don't like the CD audio soundtracks of the Japanese consoles all too much. The Amiga original soundtrack is dark and depressing, while the CD-version are a lot more upbeat. Though not as terribly "happy" as in Super Shadow of the Beast though...
And the PC Engine lacks parallax scrolling. But gameplay should make up for the rest naturally!
Loved the art style and music shame the game was crap
EA releasing crap who could imagine.
The Amiga version was the one I grew up with. Super difficult, but just kept playing because of the killer music and graphics.
I think that's why most people put up with it.
Same.
this was the kind of game that really rewarded repeated playthroughs. I ended up finishing it because I learned the game.
@@RetroCore
It's really an oddball,a game badly designed ON PURPOSE! Strange!
Takes a brave man to play this much of Shadow of the Beast voluntarily
This game as essentially an Amiga tech demo. Imagine if Reflections had put as much effort into the game design as they did the presentation; they would’ve had a real classic then. I also like how JVC had to literally fix the Japanese MD game to make it fit for release in Japan. 😂
I played the C64 version back in the day and I liked the SID renditions of the Amiga tunes. If it’s one thing you could almost definitely count on with C64 ports, it was the music. No 8-bit systems came close. :)
As a ST fan this game gives me nightmares.
This game almost single handed swung the 16-bit home computer war. The ST stopped being the lead platform and itself started getting poor ports rather than the other way round.
It really is a poor port to the ST. It should have been much better.
The music on the Amiga version is awesome
Love the Roger Dean artwork and logo. His style fits very well with games. Like a playable progressive rock album.
And like a lot of prog, it’s technically impressive but too difficult to actually be enjoyable. ;)
When I was a kid we bought Terrorpods on amiga just because of that cover art. Damn strange game.
Damn, the music on the C64 version sounds great, the bass has got such a great kick to it.
Yeah both the Commodore 64 and Amiga were ahead of their time.
th-cam.com/video/n4M7e79XTYk/w-d-xo.html
I'm quite impressed that Gremlin were able to produce such impressive ZX and CPC ports of Beast I, need to keep reminding myself that they did dabble in other spheres outside their time spent on Zool and Lotus Challenge.
Wonderful video, thank you!
So I just like to add the things he mentioned here in chat that makes the Japanese Sega Mega Drive version made by JVC SUPERIOR over the American Sega Genesis version made by WJS...
-Adjustments to the graphics
-Better collision detection
-Fixed the jump kick timing
-Added missing art assets,
-New/Corrected audio
-Soundtest option included
-Ability to increase or lower live count
-Added a proper ending sequence
That is a lot of fixes over the US version & understanding to why the JP version is more sought after for collectors.
Nice list of changes. 👍
I remember when just about every video game store would have Shadow Of The Beast playing on the Amiga for display purposes all day. I think I only played the ST version once very briefly though. Funnily enough, I have the reboot on PS4!
I could not agree more with your opinion about this game. How this game was at one point considered one of the best games or a defining game on the Amiga is beyond belief. But I have to admit the artistic side of Beast is amazing, especially the music. Its assets would have deserved to feature in a better game.
That's all true, I've only ever played c64 version as kid loved it, I think I will have to give the pc engine version a try, I mean if it fixes gamplay issues then this is almost a perfect game, because everything else about it is already awesome.
European gaming was horrible until the mid-2000s
This is the fated episode of BOTP! The one that I've been waiting for since you covered home games! My favorite versions are the OG Amiga release, the Japanese Genesis release, the Lynx version and the PC Engine one as well
This game was a major reason why I bought an Amiga back in the day. The presentation of the game made me forgive the lousy gameplay, and I played it for hours. Yeah, it was all fluff.
The Amstrad version is quite impressive.
I am glad to hear a critical review of this game as so many on the forums and Facebook pages put this game up on a pedestal. I’ll play the TurboGraphics version.
For looks and sound it is indeed special but as a game, nope.
Had no idea there was 2 MD ports!!
Me neither...
Yep. There's also 2 MD ports of next week's show too.
I've actually finished this game on the Amiga 500. Let me tell you it's one of the hardest games I've ever played.
Pat yourself on the back my man, here have a beer! Only true male alphas have done this. LOL!
That's some skill you must have there.
I just remembered it was the first game I had bought for the amiga. Game came in a big box and with a cool t shirt.
Thanks for revitalize this section. A lot of good games are remaining.
There sure are. Many originated on the Amiga as well.
Excellent vid thanks Mark. It's always going to be the Amiga version for me but those scaling effects are tasty on the lynx port.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Lynx version. I was expecting some jerky mess.
The colors of the atari 8bits look nice in they style. ... in general i love the Lynx version.
This one I knew had a lot of ports which makes the results more interesting. :) Yeah if I could redo it bitd I'd have made it a Metroid style game so it would have aged better rather than being mostly a tech demo, beautiful as it is.
Looks like ST dropped from 4bpp to 2bpp sprites, you don't usually see that happen on ST, my guess is more unique hues but less gradient from a 4bpp global palette maybe for speed sake idk. Quite attractive the CPC port graphics, music sounds better than the ZX one too. C64 is technically more impressive proportionally speaking since the Amiga hardware was quite strong when it arrived.
Shame the GEN port isn't better because that would be the ideal console platform for it, JVC knew it could be much better. :\ SFC one is just weird. I think the SMS one could be better, mainly I wish Sega had included a Pause button on the controllers. X( The Lynx version has really nice graphics for that platform, very clean. Mostly the FM Towns is very capable hardware, no cutbacks needed, and nice intro. Can't disagree with that, most enjoyable to play beats all so PC Engine takes the cake. :D Too bad the A8 version wasn't completed, looked promising.
I always thought that the Lynx version is a superb port. Animations, art, colour depth, smooth parallax scrolling.. great stuff. I didn't like the black outline of the main character though.
The character on the Lynx port seems to be a digitized sprite.
I don't think Psygnosis did the C64 port. If they did, they'd probably be able to spell their own name. "Pysgnosis"?
I just went back and looked, i didn't even notice that fck up.
Neither did he Lmao
@@retromonkey5262 it was Rockstar North, back in the day are DMA Design, owner of Lemmings and Menace
I remember seeing ads for this game in magazines back when I still had a C64 and an NES. It looked amazing. Little did I know it was nothing more than eye candy. A shiny turd is a description I haven't heard before, but it certainly is accurate in this case.
You are the MAN! I LOVE your videos. Don't EVER stop!
One of my favorite franchises. Have a lot of these versions here with me.
Its the Amiga version all the way for me personally but that music on the PC engine is amazing.
Mike Dailly of DMA Design described the PC Engine as a beautiful machine to write for, but porting SOTB to it, was a nightmare, taking almost 2 years to code.
I guess that was mostly due to finding a way to make the parallax work.
That music is awesome. Remember seeing it on my mates Amiga as a kid, was blown away! But so true about gameplay.
Mark, I partially agree with you. Yes, this game was a kinda polished turd because let's face it, the story was stupid and nonsensical, but the difficulty is what makes this game so special. SotB It is a memory game after all, and all your movements including your punches and kicks and turnarounds are timed, make the move too soon or a bit late and you get hit, the game punishes you because you didn't learn the patterns and timings, and come on! There are harder AMIGA games out there and this is NOT really a platform or a shooting game, it is a puzzle one. Want a harder game? Try Shadow of the beast 2 or 3, don't be whining. As you mentioned the game soundtrack is the best part (later levels have better songs) and it looked gorgeous, no other game looked like that at the time. I was lucky to play this on an Amiga 500 and I have to admit that I haven't played the other ports but now I want to. Yes, the end is ridiculous (you punch the boss' toenail to win) and it feels like it was rushed but I'm proud to say I finished it and with some energy left. Thanks for the excellent video Mark and ... I guess SotB for PS4 didn't make the list because it is a remake? Cheers!
Yeah, the PS4 game is not really the same game.
While the C64 version was released by Ocean, they worked on it Psygnosis and developed by DMA Design.
Ah, that's why it's so good.
That music. My God is beautiful.
The Amstrad / Spectrum versions were easily the best versions. You could tell they knew the gameplay wasn't much good and couldn't hide behind great graphics, so they had to make the game better.
That Pysgnosis made me chuckle. A sidenote, played some Lemmings yesterday, and reached Beast of a Level. Both being Psygnosis games, and DMA working on SOTB, I pondered if it had something to do with this, or just a cheeky homage.
For sure.
Best soundtrack ever
You said everything: " it's iconic game". Another excellent video.
Love this game and I manage to complete it on the Mega Drive conversion from EA. To be honest i remember this game to work just like the Japanese counterpart and maybe it was because i own and played the European 50hz version.
Thank for a great video as always Mark 💕
Been waiting for this one for ages, you did not disappoint mark!
Glad you enjoyed the show.
I've got the Mega Drive and PC Engine versions of this. I love the concept and the atmosphere, but yeah, the game suffers from the frustrating design choices that many Euro home computer games had. I guess making a game frustratingly difficult is one way to make up for it being short. It's not too bad to play when you've completely memorized it though, and I agree that the PC Engine version plays the best with responsive controls and tight collision detection.
Actually, the Japanese version of the PC Engine port has a couple of significant differences to the US version: the intro cinematic is almost full screen rather than being in a window, and it's harder as it doesn't give you any continues.
Ooh, I liked the continues of the PC Engine port. A shame they removed them from the Japanese version.
Great video Mark, i was looking forward to this one. Well, I do agree with you that the game has poor gameplay due to the unfair difficulty and not so great level design, but it's a bit understandable since you can finish it in 15 minutes if you're good at it... But artistically speaking, it's a masterpiece. The great use of color and the parallax scrolling, the surreal world and character designs, and the eerie ambience soundtrack that wraps it all together... And that's why I think the Amiga original still is the better version. The FM Towns/PC-Engine CD version has a overall worse presentation (just look at the lazy job they did at Aanbron monster face), the CD remixed version of the OST is more upbeat and as a consequence lost all of its eeriness that gave life to the world and the zoomed in graphics makes the game looks worse in my opinion. The gameplay might be better, but the rest is worse.
Happy to see a new video
Completed it, got the tshirt (literally!). The game wasn't great, but man did I love imagining how to make it better. It's really just one of those memorisation games, like Rick Dangerous, so not exactly unfair, but frustrating. Beast II OTOH is WAY WAY WAY more difficult. But, the atmosphere, general quality of art and music was unprecedented at the time (yes even on consoles)
YES!! Can't wait to tuck into this one!!
Funny that those guys are the ones of the Driver series and improved A LOT on their games
Never enjoyed playing this game on my Amiga, but damn it was impressive back when it came out.
In 1995 or therabouts, I bought a pc cd with a lot of snes games, and yes, super shadow of the beast was on that. Never knew it was an unreleased game :P
Yep, the image has been around for quite some time.
The Amiga version will always be the definitive one and was a jaw-dropping showcase back in 1989.
As for the ports, I'd really like to try the Lynx version!
Then PC Engine version has good controls and grabbed the great soundtrack from the FM Towns version but otherwise looks a bit sad, with some poor color choices and a noticeable lack of parallax scrollings. And this version has other downsides such as the fact that we don't see the outside of the castle or the last boss whose pattern has been replaced by a simple boulder thrown at you.
The Mega Drive port is visually the closest to the Amiga original, actually running in wider screen estate + with beautiful backgrounds + keeping most parallax scrollings but the gameplay is a bit off and the sound FX could have been better.
The FM Towns version is said to be a cakewalk but otherwise looks great, having very detailed graphics and even more parallax scrollings than the original Amiga version but running in lower resolution.
The Master System version had the good idea to expand on the gameplay but the excecution is bad. A shame.
And the Atari ST port is just a lazy job which is put to shame by "Wrath of the Demon" on the same system!
The Amiga version is also the only one with the "Well-music" (it's included in the audio test menu of the Japanese Megadrive port, but not used in-game).
It's also the only one with a separate Boss-theme playing in the Tree at the three bosses there. That theme is also included in both Megadrive versions but played in the Castle instead.
Speaking of the Megadrive version and it being notorious for playing too fast on US Genesis consoles: what about us poor Europeans getting all these pre-1992 American and Japanese games playing too slow on our Megadrives?
@@Cornughon Good infos about those boss themes. I didn't know that.
As for the speed, it depends of the games. Sonic 1 for instance is a notorious example of a game that's too slow in its PAL form but then, even early on, there has always been games optimized for the EU market as with Thunder Force II for instance. And then you have the contrary, games that *must* be played in 50 Hz speed like SotB here or Zool for instance.
But then there are games that I'm still not sure about their "right" speed. My logic is that it depends of the developer location. A game made by japanese or american dev'? 60 Hz then. Made by EU dev'? 50 Hz. but there may be exceptions...
@@ryzmaker11 The origins of the game are a good rule of thumb to know if it's supposed to be played at 50 or 60Hz. Another one is if the game is from 1992 or later (like Sonic 2), it's often 50Hz optimised. If it has the 'newer' boxart style (with the large white-in-blue 'megadrive' letters), it's definitely 50Hz-optimised.
I'm curious though: are there any PAL-games which actually used the additional 24 rows of pixels?
@@Cornughon yeah it seems to work like that for the most part.
As for resolution, you meant PAL games that used the extra 16 pixels of height? Only a few I reckon and, if I'm not mistaken, this includes Super Skidmarks
@@ryzmaker11 yeah the extra height is what I meant. I'll check Super Skidmarks out, thanks!
The PCE version shows you can take most of the kuso out of the kusoge without changing it entirely, fascinating.
Brilliant review :)
Looks better than altered beast to me ...
And I think 07:17 it's a tad hard to see the character with that colors against the yellow background....
I remember this was one of the first games I rented a day after buying my Megadrive, I rented this and Ghouls N Ghosts and finished both before returning them the next day, hard but not impossible but then again I played it PAL 50hz, it is not a good game but had some charm.
In the early 90s I worked in small computer retailer. We had this playing on the amiga all day to show its graphical capabilities off.on the c64 it was only available on cartridge with was prob for the best as on tape it would be aweful multi load
Sterling job. Great video and supreme courage! XD
I own the PS4 remake its awesome, the amiga original is an unlockable on it so im not missing out on anything.
I didn't know there was a PS4 remake. Thanks just looked it up looks good.
@@edstar83 Def worth a try, its very cheap on PSN now
I wish they had turned it into a metroidvania.
The FM Towns version looks like a teenage metalhead decided to make an "enhanced" version of the game in Unity. The character artwork and sprites are unintentionally hilarious.
You know... what REALLY sold this game was the amazing graphics (for its time) and the insanely good soundtrack... and of course the Parallax. I don't think no one had ever seen parallax like this before, not even on arcade games.
And it's amazing to see how even the 8 bits versions made an effort to keep some of the parallax there.
The PC-Engine one is the one with the less impressive parallax of all... and then its the most playable one. Go figures.
(I am taking it from you, never played the PCE version :D )
Even today the graphics are impressive. They're still at the peak of 2D sprite work and incredibly imaginative. It's a shame indie crap isn't trying to copy this level of sprite work instead of Megaman
@@graveofmonsters4076 100% agree with you.
"Durr my indie games looks retro". No it looks like shit, retro games looked way better than this. That's one huge pet peeve I have with those "Indie retro-modern" games. They don't look like the old games at all.
I think the only reason anyone ever bought Shadow of the beast was for its looks and sound. I doubt anyone trully bought it for the gameplay.
@@RetroCore "Shadow of the Beast sold more Amigas than the marketing team at Commodore"
They're all good but the Commodore Amiga Master Race version is the best for me.
Suddenly I realise, that maybe in the future Mark will perhaps make a few battle of the ports, such as Project X, Super Frog , Hero Quest (the Games workshop game). Space Crusade,(again a Games Worksop game based on a table top game), James Pond 2 ,Moonstone , Zool, Cannon Fodder, B.C. Kid (Bonks Adventure) and Baby Jo. Some of those games can be put into a mini BOTP episode, with each other because there are not so many ports. But of Space Crusade, it could be a rather long one. Since that game had quite a few ports, but only (as far I am aware) The Amiga version had an expansion for the game. And sorry for going a bit off-topic, but I would love to see either a TAS, a playthrough of the Amiga version with some kind of cheating. Since that game was tough as heck. Great video mate :-)
Ooh, a lot of games listed that I don't like 😅
@@RetroCore At least I did not mention (which I am going t now ;-) ) Body Blows , and First Samurai, and Second Samurai :-) But I think you like a good shooter, Project X is not a bad one :-)
Interesting. I've never heard of this one before, but yeah. It does seem pretty unfair at times. Also, congrats on your first home computer/console BotP! It did not disappoint, even if it wasn't any that I suggested. It's that good.
Ooh, this isn't the first home computer game to be covered. I did Wolfchild a few weeks back 👍
Wow. Must've missed it for some reason. I'll check that out soon.
There are some really good looking CPC demos that attempt something closer to the Amiga - but I'm not sure how far along those came.
One of the first Amiga games I've knew about. Never played the game on the original hardware but knew it was a cult classic among Amiga players and was a big hit back then. Then I emulated the thing and...hated it, but, the music and graphics are damn good for sure, very surrealistic. I think I'll get that PCE version, sure is at least playable.
Thanks
Man if the C64 had the colour palette of the Amstrad it would be the ultimate 8-bit micro
PCE-CD & FM-Towns ❤️ 🎵🎶
now i have to rip them both :)
good show, as usual 🏆
Muy buen trabajo. Estoy de acuerdo, la versión de PC-Engine es la mejor.
The 1990's- "What if every bass was a slap bass?"
You can tell it's a bad game buy just running through enemies rather than wasting time killing them. Love the Amiga music of this version though
Try and run through them without the cheat he is using and see what happens
Great video, thanks!
Completely agreed with your assessment of the game. Even though I sought the game and finished it back then I recon that it was a harrowing experience. Only the hope of seeing great graphics and effects kept me playing it seems.
Some people still seem to claim the game is worth playing but it really is not. It was a great tech demo as well as a reminder of the failings of western game design. No point in making a game beautiful if it is not fun.
Wow, to this day I've never seen the FM Towns version. I guess technically I still haven't ;) Looks a nice version, as does the PCE CD version.
I was there, back in the day when this came out for the Amiga. Had the T shirt too, at one point. This was getting a lot of air time on the demo Amiga's in game shops, or as in my town, camera and Hifi shops. J
Just for context, I came from Atari, Vic20 to Spectrum (then Amiga) and this game just looked and sounded truly wonderful. What a delight to the senses. Even back then my friends and I knew the gameplay was poor, BUT LOOK and LISTEN to the game. Incredible. I still to this day, being an old fart, I have never experienced the awe I got from seeing this game for the first time. Nothing on Xbox X or PS4Pro. I guess just because the jump from 8bit to 16bit was a leap and a half. Thanks for the upload and your time to produce this,,,,great work.
Yup, according to data the SFC port was never officially released, and the leak came way after the game had been cancelled.
Amazing video. SOB is probably the most overrated game of all time. Great graphics and great sound but the gameplay is pure crap.
@Retro Storm Yeah, I remember being very hyped when I found the jetpack. It was my second computer game and it was incredible in every way.
The Spectrum version has images between levels, but only in the disk version (on the Spectrum +3). Other than that, it's the same as shown here.
Victor to WJS: "fix your shit or we're not publishing it"
That was the best of that year. The game was very hard. Playability was not great but not was bad. Was a great game. The consoles and other computers appears after the Amiga. So, they are a shadow of the Amiga. P
Regarding the Dire ST version :
from dlfrsilver in Atari Forum:
shadow of the beast ST (Mark mc cubbin here)
Postby dlfrsilver » Mon Feb 02, 2009 8:22 am
I have mailed Mark Mc Cubbin about shadow of the beast ST and a game called tentacle. He has given some bits of what happened with beast ST version:
"Good questions, Shadow of the Beast did very well on the ST (it was no.1 two years in a row in the sales charts). As far as the details, happy to share them.
I know some ST demo scene guys thought it could have been done better and in reality there are areas where it could have been better, however, game development is about compromise and this was the case here. The first version of the game I did used all the same art as the Amiga running at 60/50fps, however, it required an ungodly amount of memory since the most obvious tricks were pre-computing the parallax scrolling ( for the underground section, which was only 2 layers ), then, simply movem.l the tiles to the screen as needed. The reality is thought that this wasn't reasonable ( it would have been a 1meg only game versus 512k ).
After several iterations/tickes, it was decided that this version would be launched either as 1 meg only or on the STE (and of course then we could use the HW scrolling too). In the end the version that was used for the underground sections used 1 bit plane for the background layer of parallax and 2 bit planes for the from layer, this allowed each layer to be independently drawn to the screen as fast as possible without having to have a huge pre-compute buffer. Although I still precomputed the shifted blocks, by carefully arranging the palette so that the odd and even colors were the same for the first 8 colors in the palette it meant that I could draw anything into the first bit-plane and it wouldn't affect the front layer. For sprites, due to memory constraints, again I couldn't pre-shift those for speed ( as always the fastest way draw was movem.l ), so I used another trick which was movep.l, which allowed you to write the graphics data on odd boundries across the ST interleaved screen. I had custom sprite routines for odd and even boundries for speed (versions that used movep and versions that were just straight movem).
There were similar compromises for the tree-sections ( the 11 layers of parallax sections ), I wrote a copper emulator on Timer B that heavily modified the palette to get all the colors needed, the large trees were all sprites pre-computed. Although of course, doing this reduced the overall CPU time available but was necessary to get the additional colors to get it looking half-way decent. The reality is, if I didn't actually have to have a game in there yeah, I could have had the nicely pre-computed scrolling doing it's thing, looking like the Amiga version ( I already had this for first prototype ). Psygnosis decided not to do a 1 meg only version or even the STE version, unfortunately. Around the same time frame we ended up doing the ST version of Flimbo's Quest, this was also a bit of a show-case on the Amiga. This time we could actually get two full color layers running because we could pre-compute the parallax.... Still, overall, I was fairly happy with it given the constraints, many of which you don't have for the demo-scene :)"
Another crackin video sir
I was wondering if you did a battle of the ports for this. Sure enough. This is my biggest "blinded by nostalgia" games. I know it's a bad game, but every time I hear that intro song I get a smile on my face. This is the game that made me obsessive over Commodore and the Amiga.
Shadow of the Beast is the epitome of 16-bit European game development. Great use of color, great art style, beautiful graphics, and an absolutely miserable chore to play. I always assumed it was due to a lack of budget for play testing. Based on your video, it's apparently more about European game designers loving incredibly difficult games. That is a love I do not share.
Yep, this is why I was never a computer game fan. The European game design never sat well with me. This is why I've always been a console gamer.
@Rooflesoft Games The only U.S.-developed games I liked in that era were story-driven adventure games by developers such as LucasArts. The rest were mostly garbage. I did like Earthworm Jim, though.
@@tommylakindasorta3068 I believe Earthworm Jim was a British game
@@dartsma464 Shiny Entertainment, the developer of Earthworm Jim, was based in Laguna Beach, California, USA.
@@tommylakindasorta3068 I thought it was coded by David Perry that started Shiny. Some of his best early work was Savage and Trantor the last Stormtrooper on the Amstrad CPC. David was born in Northern Ireland which is a part of Britain. He started working in Mikro-Gen in Britain. I was wrong about who coded it, it was an external guy that offered it to Shiny.
Well...although you are right about the pc engine version and the fm towns one, i still prefer the Amiga original for what it offered back in the day! Yes it had bad gameplay but the graphics and the sound it had back in 89 was sooooo good! The ...wow factor of this game was so big and was the turning point for the 8 bit users of the time to go 16bit! It was so atmospheric that everybody wanted to buy an amiga back in the day! I can only compare the feeling with the shock i had when i first saw defender of the crown back in 1987 again on the Amiga! I understand that in Japan you could see better games but in Europe this was awesome!
EA was a top shelf publisher for Genesis but that's where they dropped the ball
1:18 - Yeeeeeah, there's that lovely theme! I've done a remaster on my channel as well as an augmented mix with my own artistic flair!
Nice, I should check that out.
@@RetroCore I would be legit honored if you did!
I had the c64 version back in the day, one of the first games I bought, loved it and beat it many times, yeah it's hard but I got through it, besides nothing is worse than Robocop2 sliding mechanics, once you've over come that, nothing else is hard lol, atleast that's how I felt back then. I will definitely check out the PC Engine version, if they fixed gameplay then it really is a great game, because the art and music are already damn good.
8:54 I'm one of the very few human beings who have managed to beat the Mega Drive version two times. I was challenged by a friend of mine and if i managed to do so, he would give me his copy of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap on Master System and sure enough, i did it in front of him on real hardware. Its posible but requires mad skills, memorization and patience to do so.
Congratulations. So did you actually get Wonderboy 3 from him?
Yup and i don't plan in selling it anytime soon :) Love that game to death :D
Amiga rules... :) This was my favorite game to show off my A500's power. :) It's a game that rewards people for paying attention. You couldn't be more wrong about this game, dude. It's not console pablum. :) The FM Townes arranged soundtrack bites butt, btw. ;)
1:39 "shinny turd"
2:12 "gameplay prospective"
The malapropisms are strong in the subtitles.
When he says: “The game looks really good, then the game starts.” You know that port is going to be bad
I like the challenge ! I think Id try it on Amiga
Went down well on Lynx with French mag, console plus.
2-page review, 92% score.
Same when they reviewed PC Engine CD version, 2-pages, 92%
Eh, so the PC Engine which is better scores the same?
16:56 this is what happens when Alf and a human reproduce.
Hehe, it could well be.
The ZX Spectrum version also have the intro "cinematics" of the Amstrad version, but only on the +3 disc release. You probably used the cassette one, which has them removed to improve loading times.
I wasn't aware of that. I did indeed use the tape version.
Love the commodore versions.. c64 Music especially
I didn't realize there were so many versions of this game. And I'm glad to know that the game is just flat out unfair, and that it's not me sucking.
As for the TurboCd version being the best of Shadow of the beast ports, it's kind of a sad thing to be the best of! I recall drooling over the screenshots of this game, thinking it would play like a Japanese platformer, what a let down!
The original Shadow of the Beast seduced us with the sound and graphics, but what a bastard of a game! I don't believe anybody beat it or the sequel (ten pints) without cheats. Please show us! Beast III was fair, but a little late. The C64 version was fair, giving you 12 units of energy more.
Maybe in the future I'll cover beast 3.
Beast 3 is a Amiga exclusive.
acutally, C64 version of it beside published by Ocean Software and Psygnosis, it was actually developed by DMA Design (Rockstar North, creator of Grand Theft Auto series)
Super Nintendo actually done by IGS, not Psygnosis according to Nintendo Power
Igs was the publisher. Many western magazines always used the publisher name as the developer. That would really piss me off when they'd say some crappy company such as the now defunct acclaim we're the developer of a very cool Japanese titles that they had licensed.
@@RetroCore oh now i understand.
but about Rockstar, Take-Two purchased the BMG Interactive (where the Houser Brothers working) to form Rockstar Games. After that, they collab with DMA to make GTA before Rockstar decided to aquired them as Rockstar North, during GTA 3 PC development
Great episode. Totally agree with you about but I've always had a very soft spot for this game. My favourite version is the C64. It could only have happened on a cartridge and is a technical tour de force. I wrote about it a few years ago here: averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2015/10/shadow-of-beast-for-commodore-64.html As the cart is something of a rarity these days I wish I hadn't sold it for a fiver back in the day!
I played the Mega Drive port back in the day. Beautiful, fascinating... And utterly confusing. That said, I think I'll stick with the Japanese version from now on.
Good call.
Only downside of the japanese version is that the story screens are in japanese even on an american console.
Maybe you don't like that driver, but it sounds pretty good in that game. You know, it's not the sound driver, it's the way you use it...
I had the lynx version. The music is very good. The game is crap, but not worse than the other ports it seems. it was one of the better (best?) looking lynx games.
It's not really suited to handheld play and is missing the flying sequence and game completion sequence