Shadow of the Beast

gamarjoba da mivesalmebi ToriJ video t’amashis mimokhilva. Whew, we have a big one here today. Shadow of the Beast. And not even the good Shadow of the Beast, we're playing the Sega Genesis version. The Genesis port was notorious for being exceptionally bad due to increasing the default 50 Hz refresh rate to 60, because that was the standard for all Sega Genesis games in North America. So, the game became more difficult because it was running 16.7% faster than intended. Blast processing!

  Throw your hands in the air, and wave them like you just don't care!

Like most 8 to 16 bit games, Shadow of the Beast starts right off. No cut-scene, no text scroll that I know of, just right into the action with a purple beast in blue underwear. You can punch, you can jump, and you can perform a flying kick while in the air, and that's it. The health bar is basically the number twelve that goes down with each hit you take, and every hit you give back you score points. When your health goes down to zero you start back at the beginning and there are no continues. Because we wouldn't want to make the game fair or anything.

Enemies are going to be coming at you faster than the speed of light. There will be nothing one second and then in the next you'll be hit by an enemy. You need to have the perfect memorization and reflexes to make it anywhere on this game, which can pretty much be said for every game in the 16 bit era. Only those games gave you ample time to react, here it's like the Weeping Angels, if you so much as blink you're going to find yourself in the middle of the wilderness, wondering why they didn't just kill you. You can duck, but the ducking isn't very good.

  This is as far down as you can go. I still got hit by a fireball in this position. Would it had killed them to allow you to duck a little bit lower?

Believe it or not, the game actually does have a story. The purple guy in the loincloth name is Aarbron. He was abducted at a young age by the evil beast lord, Maletoth, turning him purple. But one fateful day, Aarbron remembers that he didn't used to always be purple, and upon learning that Lord Maletoth executed his own father before his very eyes, Aarbron sets out to avenge his father's death and slay the beast lord once and for all! I would be happy to avenge him too, if I knew where the hell I was supposed to go! Anyone who has played a lot of 2D side scroller games will know that right is your go to direction, and left just leads to a dead end. Some games lets you go left, and this is one of those games. With a little exploring you can find a well, and your home. The well requires a key to open whereas your home seems to be filled with monsters trying to kill you! Not very roomy.

  I don't know about this. The last time I went down the bottom of a well in a game it went badly.

This is about as close as the game comes to a cut-scene, an image and then a text scroll underneath it. This happens with both the well and when you enter your house. Didn't I already play a game that tried to get me to read? Funny how the game with less amount of text manages to be more boring with it than the game that threw it at you around every corner.

There are a lot of different enemies throughout the course of the game, and they'll come at you from either side of the screen. Some times it won't even be enemies, it will just be rocks, like someone is just standing off screen throwing rocks at you. We have eye balls that vanish and then reappear causing damage if you stand too close to them. You got to get the pattern down exactly to get past them. Take so much as a wrong turn in this game and you'll find yourself between a rock and a hard place.

  I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

Where did that statue come from?! It wasn't there before. Look how big that enemy is, there's no way you're getting past that thing. You can punch it, but a lot of good that's going to do you when it can kill you in one hit. This game doesn't screw around, it knows you want to win, it knows you actually wants to make progress, and it's going to take every opportunity it can to give you the middle finger! “Try to get past this challenge, asshole! You came to the wrong cave!” I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'd rather play Dark Souls.

Not long before you meet the skeleton of death you can punch these little green bugs over and over again with no end in sight unless you punch them and proceed right until they just vanish. Where were they? Hanging out with the guys throwing rocks off screen?

For a game that came out in the early 1990's, the graphics are superb and I love the artwork. All the enemies are pretty creative and not something you'll soon forget. Even Aarbron's design is pretty neat if you can get past the hideous looking loincloth.

  I just can't.

The music is pretty enjoyable to listen to as well. There aren't many tracks in the game, but it's one of the few times I don't mind listening to the same song repeatedly, it's actually pretty catchy.

There isn't much else to say, Shadow of the Beast is a good game that didn't have much luck being ported to the Sega Genesis. If you want to play it you're probably better off getting it for the Commodore Amiga, or finding the European or Japanese version of the Sega Mega Drive. If you're one of those hardcore gamers who enjoy playing games that are nearly impossible, then go ahead. Try your luck. Only a few people who came across this game has managed to complete it.

Merry Christmas.

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