Shadow of the Beast Longplay (PC Engine) [60 FPS]
263Developed DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1992.
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Opening Credits: 0:00
Intro: 5:10
Title Screen: 6:05
Main Game: 10:19
When Shadow of the Beast was originally released for the Amiga computer in 1989, everybody took notice. The multi-layered parallax scrolling, sumptuous graphics and brilliant music are still remembered to this day.
Whilst the game was a technical masterpiece, the same couldn't be said for the actual gameplay. The combat required split-second timing, memorisation of enemy locations and generally punished the player at every turn.
The game was ported to a number of other platforms over the years, with the PC Engine conversion being the final edition to be released in 1992. Handled by DMA design, it seems that the development team not only attempted to preserve the presentation of the Amiga version, but also to correct many of the inherent gameplay problems that caused so much frustration!
Firstly, the Beast's punch doesn't cycle through so many frames of animation before and makes timing attacks a lot easier this version. The speed at which enemies scroll across the screen have largely been reduced too, so the player has more time to react to threats.
The health system received some minor tweaking so that the Beast can have up to 25 hit points, a much more generous total than the meagre 12 on offer in the Amiga version.
The graphics in the PC Engine version are of a very high standard indeed. The background layers now include some minor animations with tentacles emerging from walls, or blinking eyes in the gloom which do not feature in the other versions of the game. The animation of the main Beast sprite is superbly detailed and fluid; the animation cycle includes many more frames than the Amiga and appear more detailed overall. Considering that the game shipped on CD-ROM, the developers would have had much greater freedom in asset sizes than the Reflections team who were limited to 720k floppy disks.
While David Whittaker's original arrangements for the Amiga will always remain my favourite, there's no denying that the full CD audio soundtrack produced by D.C. Productions (Chris Howlett and Ian Henderson) for both the PC Engine and FM Towns versions of the game is brilliant and is the principle reason why I decided to longplay the game.
The game is bookended by intro and ending movies that look great. I particularly enjoyed the wry humour when the hero grins, revealing missing teeth, possibly as a result of being beaten up during the course of the game.
There's no doubt that the PC Engine version is the most fun version of SotB that I've played to date and, accompanied by some excellent music, comes highly recommended.
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