I’m sure I’ve mentioned Shadow of the Beast a few times over the years… and can you blame me? The ultra-difficult series side-scrollers featured some of the best soundtracks you’ll hear on retro platforms, though without an emulator (and the appropriate disk images), it’s impossible to enjoy the combined experience of old-school graphics, gameplay and tunes. That was until a fellow by the name of “darkfalzx” came up with modern, faithful ports of all three games.
Called “Shadow of the Beast Legacy”, the focus has been on crafting an “engine”, rather than filling out content and as a result, only the first title is considered playable at “97% complete”. My personal favourite, Shadow of the Beast 3 is only 65 per cent complete, but that includes the level one, by far the most memorable part and good enough if you just want some of the nostalgia feels.
Bad news is when I tried to download the Windows version of the port, I was met with a 509 error from Dropbox — apparently the account is “generating too much traffic” and so the links have been disabled. On the bright side, builds are available for Linux, Mac and Android, as well as the Ouya if you have one lying around.
Shadow of the Beast Legacy : Popular remake gets another update! [Indie Retro News, via Boing Boing]
Image: Indie Retro News
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11 responses to “Shadow Of The Beast Legacy Is An Attempt To Faithfully Port The Original Games”
I love these games – even if they can only be played with a trainer 🙂
I just brought the Atari Lynx version of Shadow of the Beast the other week – I’m slowly chipping away at it. Each run gets me tiny bit further, but it’s slow going. Great games, for sure. The soundtracks are to die for though.
Still listen to them myself! 🙂
Yep, me too! When I was a kid, I recorded the all the Amiga soundtracks (and the Mega Drive ones) onto tape. The opening tracks, especially for the first two games, still get me. The TurboGrafx/PC Engine (EDIT: CD) version of the first game has a killer arranged soundtrack, if you haven’t heard it yet. It’s brilliant!
I owned it on the Lynx. Was super difficult, but I played it so much I was eventually able to finish it without losing a life in pretty quick time to boot.
The Lynx version was awesome, though it did change up a few things from the Amiga original. It removed an entire level (the jetpack level after the castle), most of the other levels were redesigned, the bosses were different, it had an inventory system with a separate inventory screen, and limited ammo for the weapons that used it.
Yeah, it’s pretty different, though most of the changes, I feel, are for the better and made with careful thought to the platform. I like the continues as well – they’re a godsend, even if they do throw you back to the start of the area 🙂
I used to own the Amiga originals and loved them. I never got too far but the soundtracks are so memorable. I’ll have to look into getting the soundtracks now that you have inspired me.
Now I just have 1 and 2 for Megadrive (and 1 for Master System) so I think I’ll have to get them out and have a go.
Wonder if that remake for ps4 is still going ahead, haven’t heard a word about it in 6 months.
I didn’t even realise a remake was in the works until I started looking into this. Which shows how much news (well, lack thereof) there is about it.
Still have my very faded original Beast t-shirt which I wear now and again. And second only to fellow gamers accosting me with a “oh my god you still have the tshirt”, is being accosted by metal heads who go “were they a UK band I’ve not heard of?” hehehe
Funny you mention that, because there is a death/progressive metal band called Psygnosis, haha 🙂
I owned almost all of the Psygnosis games. My first was Barbarian, with its beautiful Amiga Graphics and sound it had me hooked. Psygnosis could always get the best out of the Amiga.