Shadow of The Beast, what a pile of crud on the Atari ST.

[gimbal]

First impressions last a long time. I still have vivid memories of booting up Last Ninja Remix for the first time and hearing the music - blew me away. I can absolutely not understand that people claim the C64 tunes are better, but... I never had a C64 of my own.

[Bren McGuire]

exactly this friend!

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

In any dissussion about SotB, you should always separate the technical merits and the game design/gameplay. The first is still amazing to this very day, the latter was even dull back then. It's a 8bit barebones game mechanic/level design combined with very good technical aspects. And that's it.

[CCCP alert]

I see, so the game that won "best entertainment software of 1989" by people in the industry is a lie and really a bunch of anonymous people on some obscure forum who failed at beating it are 'correct' and it is a 'bad game' hmmm I think not.

When actual reviewers at the time, especially those from magazines who did review arcade games and console games too, rated it an average of 8/10 to 9/10 and say things in summary like "technically brilliant and great fun" they are wrong too?

So basically everyone is wrong, especially me, except for some anons on here 3 decades later?

OK then

PS arcade quality = 60/50hz controller response and a challenge that can be completed if you have the joystick skills + time to complete it. Never said it meant anything more. I also said some arcade games are 'military grade' because few will be able to make it to the end, this is that type of game.

[Megalomaniac]

This is off-topic from talking about the ST version, but....

I'm not sure about this. CU Amiga/64 (as it still was at the time) gave Beast 84% but criticsed the lack of variety and moves (https://amr.abime.net/review_8809). Zzap! gave it 83% - they did criticise the difficulty, but also the lack of depth or originality (http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/disp...ap&check=1)

Amiga Action gave it 86% but one guy said "the gameplay seems to have suffered somewhat. Running around a mass of screens and punching nasties may prove very boring after a while" and the other said that the gameplay "can prove a tad repetitive (https://amr.abime.net/review_8809). ACE gave it 88% but implied that the audiovisuals prevent it from only being average (https://ia800604.us.archive.org/view...ACE2500071.jpg)

Reviews on reissue were generally more negative too - once there were other games which looked this good but had a bit more variety and innovation on the gameplay side, Beast lost a lot of its appeal.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

When actual reviewers at the time, especially those from magazines who did review arcade games and console games too, rated it an average of 8/10 to 9/10 and say things in summary like "technically brilliant and great fun" they are wrong too?

Sure, when it came out it wowed a lot of people and got ratings that matched. But the hype doesn't hold for long and in the cold light of day, even professional reviewers re-evaluated it:

https://amr.abime.net/review_535

"Once glorious graphics look only 'quite good' now, revealing the gameplay to be about as generic as these Psygnosis walk-about-and-kill-things ever get." - 53%

[Bren McGuire]

it's really tiresome to read on repeat what you write since you insist in saying things no one mentioned here as the basis of your whole argument i think you need to lie down you might hurt yourself maybe go watch the Oscars so you can be sure you know what the actual good movies are they surely willl tell you

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

I see, so the game that won "best entertainment software of 1989" by people in the industry is a lie and really a bunch of anonymous people on some obscure forum who failed at beating it are 'correct' and it is a 'bad game' hmmm I think not.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

I see, so the game that won "best entertainment software of 1989" by people in the industry is a lie and really a bunch of anonymous people on some obscure forum who failed at beating it are 'correct' and it is a 'bad game' hmmm I think not.

When actual reviewers at the time, especially those from magazines who did review arcade games and console games too, rated it an average of 8/10 to 9/10 and say things in summary like "technically brilliant and great fun" they are wrong too?

So basically everyone is wrong, especially me, except for some anons on here 3 decades later?

You really think those people from magazines were saying the absolute truth? You do know they were paid to write glowing reviews about certain games, right? Look at U.S Gold, they bribed people all the time.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

the game that won "best entertainment software of 1989"

I'd rather play Populous. Also from 1989 and much better.

[copse]

Crikey. A guy loves playing a game and says look it is fun to play for some of us. Then a bunch of people come along and browbeat him about how he is not allowed to like it because it can't possibly be fun and anyone who said so must be a liar.

Good on you CCCP Alert, ignore the fun police. It's a fantastic looking game with a lot of atmosphere and there are a lot worse games out there, many of which the fun police probably gush over.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by Thorham

I'd rather play Populous. Also from 1989 and much better.

Or even Simcity, it might have simple graphics but building your own city is really addicting

[Megalomaniac]

Remember that this is the second recent thread in which Shadow of the Beast has been mentioned. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=117001 That very quickly turned into this member ranting about how people who don't like it are obviously crap at it (despite most criticism of the game not mentioning its difficulty). Something I've seen this user claim many times before. People have frequently put up counter-claims, based on reviews, that some found the game repetitive and dated (even for 1989), that the disk accessing is excessive, and that the t-shirt made it overpriced. He appears not to have acknowledged them. Nobody said he's not allowed to enjoy the game himself. Nobody has claimed that it doesn't look fantastic, or that it has no atmosphere. Just that they don't enjoy it, and (in most cases) not because it's too hard.

[Cris1997XX]

I hate this game with a passion, I'm bad at it and I couldn't care less. Even abusing save states on an emulator wouldn't be worth it to put up with the bullshit difficulty and repetitive level design...there, I said it.

[cloverskull]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Remember that this is the second recent thread in which Shadow of the Beast has been mentioned. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=117001 That very quickly turned into this member ranting about how people who don't like it are obviously crap at it (despite most criticism of the game not mentioning its difficulty). Something I've seen this user claim many times before. People have frequently put up counter-claims, based on reviews, that some found the game repetitive and dated (even for 1989), that the disk accessing is excessive, and that the t-shirt made it overpriced. He appears not to have acknowledged them. Nobody said he's not allowed to enjoy the game himself. Nobody has claimed that it doesn't look fantastic, or that it has no atmosphere. Just that they don't enjoy it, and (in most cases) not because it's too hard.

Yeah, reading through this thread in its entirety is interesting. Like, what a strange hill to die on, justifying why a game you subjectively like must be objectively great.

[kremiso]

i would like to see a somewhat fourth sotb chapter at some point, with better gameplay and technically similar to the first one (main sprite included)

and maybe with a decent ending

[Tigerskunk]

I didn't particularly like Beast either back in the day.

But my stance is rather that you have to see it in the context of its time when it was released, and that a lot of people have a rather rose tinted view of other games that they were playing at the time that were also not really good, game play wise.

I have a feeling that SotB gets a bad rep because it was so beautiful.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

I didn't particularly like Beast either back in the day.

But my stance is rather that you have to see it in the context of its time when it was released, and that a lot of people have a rather rose tinted view of other games that they were playing at the time that were also not really good, game play wise.

I have a feeling that SotB gets a bad rep because it was so beautiful.

But most people have acknowledged that it was both graphically and sonically a tour-de-force and rightly so. It's the rest of it that feels lacking. And sure there were other shallow games of the time but there were plenty with a lot more depth too.

If SotB had been exactly the same game but with lacklustre graphics and middling music, it would've been instantly forgotten. I guess you could argue it gets brought up more than other mediocre titles because it does a least get remembered for something.

[jotd]

1. watch the intro / listen to the music
2. play 5 minutes / die unfaily
3. boot Gods

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

But most people have acknowledged that it was both graphically and sonically a tour-de-force and rightly so. It's the rest of it that feels lacking. And sure there were other shallow games of the time but there were plenty with a lot more depth too.

Yeah, but how many single player 2D action game on the Amiga have been better than Beast in 1989?

Most of what was released up to that point has been unplayable crap. Yes, so was Beast as well.
But then, at least it looked and sounded good...

I felt like Turrican was the first really good action game that I wanted to replay again and again. And that came out in 1990.

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

If SotB had been exactly the same game but with lacklustre graphics and middling music, it would've been instantly forgotten. I guess you could argue it gets brought up more than other mediocre titles because it does a least get remembered for something.

True...

But on the other hand, people make out its gameplay worse than what it actually was, just because it was beautiful.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Yeah, but how many single player 2D action game on the Amiga have been better than Beast in 1989?

A quick check on LemonAmiga's averages reveals loads with higher averages - Hybris, Arkanoid, Datastorm, Rick Dangerous, Shufflepuck Cafe, New Zealand Story, Pacmania, R-Type. Allow for 2 player games which are still fun for a single player and we add Bubble Bobble, IK+, Marble Madness, Speedball, Silkworm, Gravity-Force, Emerald Mine, Kick Off. About 50/50 split between ST ports and games developed around the Amiga. Obviously a couple of those are a bit love-it-or-hate-it, but that's how they average out.

[rare_j]

I first played Shadow of the Beast on the Spectrum, back in the day, with a cheat.
Then a few years ago I decided to play through the Amiga version because of its reputation, I wanted to see it through to the end, see for myself.
My wife's mother walks in and observes for a few minutes. I'm punching rows upon rows of badly drawn enemies that sink into the ground like cardboard cut-outs, and the player character advances a tiny patch of ground between them. 'It looks quite boring' she says. 'It is.' I reply.
True story.