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Shadow of the Beast: Amiga classic returns from the darkness
16-bit showcase game that was just too tough to be fun
A beastly tale
One day, while casually enjoying the view of some mortals being sacrificed, Aarbron recognises one of the victims as his own father, sparking a sudden remembrance of his brutal and cruel past. A few more thought processes later and it’s game-on to hunt down ass-wipe Maletoth and relinquish a little slice of justice.
Enemy beasts queue up for a beating
All this dark moodiness was supported by an accomplished musical score penned by legendary composer David Whitaker. His prolific 1980s gaming output is often recognisable since he relied on several key digital instruments within his compositions – Speedball, Xenon 2, Golden Axe and other notable works all bear Whitaker’s hallmark sounds.
With the Amiga’s ability to play relatively high-quality samples, Whitaker sent countless ambient echoes, thuds and pan-pipe whistles from the Amiga’s relatively advanced audio controller – the chip otherwise known as Paula, to fans in the know. Just like the visuals, these evocative audio atmospherics gave Shadow of the Beast a cinematic grace way beyond the standard gaming fare of 1989. Check out the long-player in the video below.
Unfortunately, among all this technical revelation, Shadow of the Beast’s insistence on providing a slice of gaming "realism" became its regrettable downfall. As in real-life, you received just one life to complete the game, with no reprieve after making a fatal mistake. Dead meant dead and – worse than that – it meant starting all over again.
To complete level 1 you needed to be fairly competent with the controls and able to learn from past mistakes. To get any further required an obsessiveness and willingness to persevere that, quite rightly, eluded most gamers. Yes, the invincibility cheat meant players got to see the other levels, but Shadow of the Beast’s lack of truly fun, rewarding gameplay is one of Amiga history’s missed opportunities.
Beast on Amstrad CPC for your pleasure
As one might presume, Shadow of the Beast’s success made it a prime target for conversion to plenty of other home formats, with typically mixed results. The garish screens of the Amstrad CPC and Speccy versions were framed by a couple of snakes for no particular reason, and the Atari ST attempt couldn’t quite match those tasty Amiga-specific graphics routines. Certain Japanese variants such as the FM-Towns and PC-Engine versions fared a little better, with some additional visuals and faster loading times.
Sega’s Megadrive ended up with an especially strange Beast that played extra speedy on American and Japanese machines, having been created for the UK’s 50Hz PAL format originally – as if gamers needed something to make the blessed thing any more difficult.
A sequel, Shadow of the Beast 2 cropped up in 1990 and contained another Roger Dean T-Shirt for the charity shop bag gaming fashionista’s wardrobe. This time, hero Aarbron’s sister has been kidnapped by one of Maletoth’s servants, so big brother takes on the inevitable quest to liberate her.
More puzzle-solving elements were included in the adventure, providing a little more depth, but with some dodgy control moments and further ridiculous difficulty, it was another piece of gaming frustration at heart.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
