Creative genius behind Shadow of the Beast series

[amuleth]

Well, the gameplay issues aside, this series is a totally mind of a creative genius. Hands protruding from the trees and earth (II-I), instantly appearing spikes (all three games with some variations), the monster slowly pushing the rock to block your way (II), the boss designs was never seen before (such as the one with two skull heads in the original game), weird moral choices (first helping the prisoners and then killing them on the spikes in the second game)... This is no Mario or Castlevania. Also no need to talk about the other worldly music that fits perfectly to the series.

This game was certainly beyond its time for its creativity and originality and there is no other game which can compete with it, even today (maybe Dark Souls?). It's a perfect combination of some kind of futuristic technology, fantasy and tribal themes. A total work of art.

I always wonder where their inspiration comes from? (except Roger Dean artworks)

[Cherno]

This game was certainly beyond its time for its creativity and originality

Let's not forget that among the featured enemies are also Psygnosis logos and eyeballs, a sure sign that someone ran out of ideas for interesting monsters. Furthermore, many of the humanoid monsters are variations of the same basic sprite.

Freeing the prisoners and letting them run into the spike traps isn't really a moral choice because if it's not done, the player is stuck and the game can't be completed.

What I like about the second game is that there's one monster that will not be seen be most players; in the Goblin dungeon, if one drops into the water below the prison, there's a Star Wars trash compactor-style eyestalk creature that appears nowhere else in the game.

[s2325]

I like to think this is same creature following main hero:

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Well, Martin Edmondson was the guy behind the overall visual look of the Beast games - obviously blending a lot of influences, including Roger Dean and various sci-fi and horror artists (I see a lot of visual ideas from comics and book covers in those genres). If I recall correctly he did pretty much *all* the graphics for each of the Reflections games done on the Amiga - I think I'm right in thinking he moved into more of a manager/director role by the time they were developing for the PlayStation (when the amount of content required for a game required a team of artists).

However, as mind-boggling as Beast's visuals were (especially for 1989!) I think that the overall vibe and atmosphere owes just as much to David Whittaker's music as it does Martin Edmondson's visual style. Of course, Tim Wright took over the musical reins for Beast 2 and 3 and did a fantastic job - but I think he'd readily admit that he was following DW's "blueprint" from the first game.

For all the gameplay aspects didn't live up to the presentation (apart from the 3rd game, maybe), I'd still argue that those games are almost works of art in their own right for the atmosphere alone.

Originally Posted by Cherno

...Psygnosis logos and eyeballs, a sure sign that someone ran out of ideas for interesting monsters. Furthermore, many of the humanoid monsters are variations of the same basic sprite.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that Paul Howarth and Martin Edmondson were both only about 21 years of age when they made the first game. Putting the logo in there may well have been a gesture of thanks. As far as the frustrating rows of identical baddies could be, they were necessary because of technical limitations of sprite re-use on the same scanline.

[Cherno]

^I won't argue the fact and what they achieved is remarkable, especially considering their age, but I wanted to produce a counter-argument to the claim that the whole thing is nothing but pure creative genius.

As for the sprites, I wasn't talking about the lines of identical monsters. I meant that the humanoid enemy sprites all share a common "base-sprite", so to think, with only minor details changed between enemy types, such as heads, color, and weapons. It becomes apparent when comparing the animation frames for walking and attacking. Of course, this is an extremely common thing to do in sprite-based games, with a simple palette swap being the most simple example.