If I'm hosting, I don't have a one liner yet.
I'm hosting and I don't have a one liner. Give me a sec.
I got a one liner.
No oneliner today on.
I got a good one.
What do you got? You ready? Yeah, sure. Go for it.
Am I gonna do it?
Alright, I'll host. You say the line. Yeah.
Tale is oldest time it true as it can be barely even friends.
Then somebody bends unexpectedly.
Beauty and the shadow of the beast today on.
I can't beat that.
Don't talk over the intro.
You're right. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of pre to cancel. I am your host this week. Sick Jake, not alone. No. This week we got an extra special crew of people. Well, I mean, they've been here before, but they're extra special this week to me. So starting off with sinister. Sinister, how are you doing this week?
I'm just glad it's Friday.
Me too. And wolf, how about you? How are you doing this week?
I am feeling extra special. Thank you.
Great. And of course with the beautiful, what do you call it? Chops. Chard, how are you doing this week?
I'm good. I am bringing the extra special sauce today. So we're ready to go.
We're sorry, YouTube. We're sorry for the language we've used. I will say, chard, the one thing I do miss is you can't do it anymore. But back in the day, I remember watching you on Twitch and you would do the twitch things and I think you did more than a few Disney songs in the day. So you got a great voice.
Thank you.
It's been a while. And what could be more closer to Disney than the game we're going to talk about this week? Yeah.
By the way, sorry, Disney.
Don't sue. Don't. Yeah, please. Look, it's not steamboat Willie, but don't about. We're going to talk about a game that, look, this is a game that has a reputation as being bad, but I'm going to argue that it's not. I'm not going to go out on a limb and call it a hidden gem because we do that too much. But it's not as bad as you might think. And that game is an Amiga classic, shadow of the beast. So for those who have never heard of this game, not surprised. It's from a british studio known as Reflections. They still exist today, although I think they're owned by Ubisoft now, british studio that in 1989 it was one of their earlier titles. I want to say it's within three or four titles of them launching the studio, two folks got together and this is their second game they developed. And it was the first game that they themselves stated that they treated seriously, that they actually tried to do their best to make a graphical powerhouse of a game. And that is shadow of the beast. So I know we had some homework the past week or so where we're all going to play these games. Who here beat Shadow of the Beast? Anybody raise your hand?
Beat you?
Nobody beat this game. Nobody beat this game. It is hard as hell, hard as nails game. Here's the thing with this game. The designer of the game purposely wanted this game to be as hard as hell because in his words, he used to get frustrated playing games that were too easy. So he purposely made a game that's incredibly difficult. Now, it's an interesting game because it's been ported. Originally it was a mega title, which is a system that we don't have much exposure to here in North America. But I know it was all the rage in the UK back in the. But it was ported that game to damn well everything, right? Not as much as Tetris, but we had ports of this game on Genesis or the Mega drive we had it on. I think it was turbographic 16 Sega Master system. There's even a prototype for the Super Nintendo version as well, if you can believe it. So I have some video clips that I'll c 64. So I'll bring up some clips as we're talking through this game. But I think we're mostly going to probably focus on the Amiga and probably the Genesis version. The Genesis version is the one that we would probably have access to. But it's interesting because this is a franchise as well. It's not just a single title. There's also a shadow of the Beast, two and three. I'm not as familiar with those, but I think sinister. You played a little bit of those or tried to.
I played a little bit of two and then I spun up three for a little while. But I also watched kind of a long play of three. And three is an interesting animal. It is a big change and we'll get there when we talk about it, but it's a big change from the original.
Are two and three only on the amigo or did they get ported to other stuff too?
Two is on the Genesis, not North America though, right? It was Europe, but three. Let me look it up while we're sitting here.
I don't think it got released.
It's just amiga.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So let's start with the first game here, shall the beast. So there is a story to this game, and this is where it kind of has an interesting premise, essentially, I think your name is Avalon. You're kidnapped as a baby by an evil wizard, as you do, and you're basically turned into an evil beast. The shadow of the beast. Right. And you're basically used as slave labor by this evil wizard. And at some point in the story, you break free and you're trying to get revenge and take down this evil wizard. So it takes place what you think is maybe a fantasy world, but it's got, like, a bit of a Sci-Fi bent to it. When the game opens up, you see flying zeppelins in the background. There's elements of broken technology all over the place. I mean, you even get like a laser gun at some point in the game. So it's got an interesting setting. It's a post apocalyptic fantasy setting, which you don't see. I don't think you see that often. So did you guys appreciate the setting or did not hit for you?
I want to say that, first off, this is a game that I played a long time ago as a kid on the Amiga because my uncle had one. I did not get it then, but I was like nine, maybe, if that. Honestly, I was probably younger than that. I was probably like seven. Anyway, didn't click with me. I didn't get it. I was really bad at it. And it's. Given how stupidly hard it is, that makes sense, right?
We're bad at it now.
Who is good at it?
Yeah, I don't know if you're bad at it so much as it's just.
A fucking hard game, but checking out.
Videos of it this week, immediately I was like, this is like Rygar, but you're a monster who uses his fists instead of a dude using a disc shield with a fin until you get exactly what I was thinking was like.
Until you get to number three anyway.
But I was like. I was getting huge Rygar vibes and then the sort of futuristic post apocalyptic setting. Even more Rygar vibes.
Yeah.
So I want to call you say that.
Oh, go ahead.
Yeah, I was just going to say, in two and three, you kind of do get the Rygar throwing shield thing. It's like a spiked blade, which makes no sense when you look at the first game because there's nothing like that in the first game.
You're also human in the other two. Okay. So for me, when I spun this up, the very first thing that it hit. All of those retro feels for me were the early 3d text with the shine on it, the centered shine with the 3d edges that kind of, like, look like that. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's a signosis game. Oh, my God, it's a signosis game. And so right off the bat, I was like, oh, hell, yeah, I'm in. I'm full on in here. And then I played.
But, yeah, I was there for a bit.
Well, it's interesting because cygnosis is known when it comes to Amiga titles. Signosis is known as the studio that has the banging tracks. The soundtracks are amazing. It wasn't developed by them, it's developed by reflections. But I do wonder, as a publisher, how much influence they had on the sound. They must have said, hey, we'll do the sound. There has to be some kind of connection there because all their games are bangers when it comes to soundtrack.
And if you want to talk about the most valuable piece of this game that has come out of it, I want to rip the soundtrack off of this thing and create a CD of the soundtrack. It's that good.
Yeah. And that's not a stranger to the Amiga. That's one of my favorite things about going through the Amiga library today on the mister is that most every game I've played on the Amiga has a killer soundtrack. And you can always tell when the studios that had games on the Amiga brought them over. The Genesis, more often than not, those studios brought the great music with them. Not quite as good as Amiga, but I think they did pretty good job with the Genesis version of these soundtracks.
Yeah. Okay. The video is at a point where it's a boss. And honestly, the bosses remind me of weird fantasy version of the bosses in Contra. On one side of the screen, you're shooting them, you're doing whatever. I mean, these move a little bit more, but it's kind of that. Some weird thing on one side of the screen that you have to deal with. Right.
And I don't know if it's just because of the name, beast is in it. We get a very altered beast feel for this kind of game.
And I don't know if it's kind of punching.
I don't know if it's the punching and the side scrolling or what, but when I fired it up, I was kind of like, oh, I wonder if you get to turn into some cool shit in this, because it feels very altered. Beast, it's just such a weird game because it doesn't play into your brain like when you start the game and you're dropped into it, you automatically want to go right. I don't know why. My brain just wants me to go right. And you don't go right, you go left. Super Mario brothers.
That's what I'm thinking.
All games that start always start with you going to the right. This is the only one I think I've ever played where I was like, that's the wrong way. I need to go the other way.
In fact, if you start the game by going right, it'll let you go right for a good amount of time, and you'll take damage from all the enemies that come flying at you on the screen, and you'll end up basically at a dead end. And it's infuriating that that's the default of this game, that you're supposed to go left, like, right from the get go. It subserts your expectations and throws a wrench at you. But I got to say that before.
You even get started, it's got these little cutscenes from time to time, at least in the Amiga version. And it opens with one of those. And they're mostly sort of to set the stage for what the game can't convey to you through the pixel art they're trying to convey to you with it's humid and dank and all that. Right. So they use descriptive words to sort of get that to you. But it also, outright, in that opening cutscene, it says, looking east, there's a wide open field to you, to the east or to the west. But if you look east into the field or into the forest, there's just eyes staring out at you. So it's trying to convey, don't go right, go left.
Right?
Yeah. And it's wild. And like that opening scene, the music is otherworldly. It really sets the tone. You're in, like, a pleasant forest, but you're running through this forest. And at least in the Genesis version. So this is something that came up, is that the Genesis versus the Amiga version? So reflections made the Amiga version, and then I guess, cygnosis basically farmed out ports of this game to various other studios for other systems. So the Genesis version was done by a different company, and that company did, although it says in what I read that it was in error. I don't know if it's an error or just the way they designed it. It is faster on the Genesis version, at least. I find, compared to the Amiga version, not a lot faster, maybe 15% faster. But it is faster, and it's probably more noticeable, too, with the lower resolution of the genesis. Go ahead.
That 15 ish percent faster actually jives with conversion from pal.
There you go. And that makes sense. I think that's what it was. That they misjudged the NTC SC frame rate, or the frame rate being different. So it messed up their coding, because in this game, with that and the low resolution of the Genesis, when you're doing that opening scene, running through the forest, the first two encounters you come across are boulders flying at you from the right side of the screen and then giant bats from the left, and they fly at you like warp speed. The reaction time it takes to get them is insane.
You have probably two frames of reaction.
And it's so frustrating because this is a game where the creator wanted. He wanted a hard as nails game. And in this game, you have exactly one life. No continues. It's just literally one go.
And no check either. I know you said no continues, but every time you die, it is the beginning. Every time, no matter what.
Not especially long game. I think it's six stages. Six or seven stages, 27 minutes.
I think some of the long plays.
Yeah. If you know where to go in an exact order to do things. Yeah. You can do it in less than 30 minutes. If you can survive that long. Yeah.
But it's like all of these games where there's, like, blind jumps and everything else. It's like your job is not to play the game as much, like, it's not the mechanics of the game as much as to memorize when to punch, to memorize when to jump, to memorize, when to duck, to memorize, and then, okay, I died. I found a new thing. Well, I better remember that thing now.
This game is very much on the vein of, like, in a battle toadsie, a battletian kind of set up where it is impossibly hard for the first time you play it, and then you're just timing out where everything's at and watching it. This game would almost be like after, if you played it enough times, you should be able to beat this game like battletoads without dying or using it continue because you should have it memorized so well that you won't take damage from anything. And that's some of the long plays I watched. The guy barely took damage for anything because he had the timing down, like, perfect.
Yeah. And that's what it is. It's the pattern recognition. But I want to talk about the second stage when you go into inside the tree, which, first off, when you enter that tree, and you get your little story, which is cool. Immediately after the story cutscene is over, a fireball comes flying into your ass. It's the only spot in the game that has a fireball, and it's right from stage two. Get go. It's such a fuck you. It's like the snowball on ballotodes, actually, now that I think about it, and it's just wild to me. But this stage is the perfect example of what this game is like. There is a boss you have to get to at the end of the end of the stage. He's completely invincible to everything you can do. You can punch and kick him all you want. You can't beat it, and you'll die if you try. In fact, if you go to the boss early, you're stuck at the boss until you die. You have to first navigate your way to get an orb from a gargoyle statue that shoots a flamethrower at you. It's stupid. You get this orb, though, and it unlocks the ability to, I guess, do hadookins. For some reason. It makes no sense. You get a fireball, and what I didn't realize the first couple of times I tried this game once you kill any enemy with that fireball, you lose it. So the challenge of this stage is you have to first go find a key to get to the boss, then go get the fireball, and then go to the boss and make sure you don't go the wrong way and have to kill something, because as soon as you kill another enemy, you lose it. And if you think that fireball responds. No, doesn't respond, you get out.
They're forcing a pass.
Game is ridiculous.
After you get the fireball, it's the damnedest thing. But once you have that fireball, you go to the boss of the second stage, and then. Oh, it's easy. A few shots. No, it's like a dozen shots at least.
And the thing's rolling, screen filling.
Bone horror. And if you touch it, you just touch it.
Bone horror.
That's what it is.
Bone horror.
I can't remember the names of.
That's presby lore. No, that's going in the lore book.
Yeah. I don't care what its real name is.
It's bone horror, but it's really something to see.
Well, then I want to talk about the last boss, because the last boss then is foothore.
You want to jump ahead already? We'll get there. We'll get there.
Well, I'm not wrong.
Is it me?
Because I found the first boss, not to be all that terrible once you get the fireball. Okay, let me be honest with you. I watched a video, I watched a long play, and I went, okay, I'm going to give my hand at this and see what happens. And every time I took damage from the boulder and the bat, within the first five minutes of game, I restarted because I was trying to figure out the pattern. I get to that boss, I hadook in the boss to death. And then I make it past that with no problems fighting the boss. But then beyond that, totally, totally lost. Couldn't figure out what I was doing.
Yeah, well, all the other bosses in the game are basically, you got to tank it. Like the second boss, the boss after that one, basically, you have to get up in his face and just wail on it. And, I mean, you could maybe try to dodge the flames from the second boss that is throwing at you and try and learn the pattern, but so fast. And your character moves so clunky. Like when you want to turn around, it does the Mario world where you face the camera around, right? Like it's extra frames of turning. And that looks great, but it's awful when it comes to responsive control. So you don't have the degree of control to dodge things. So you literally walk through the boss and punch until it dies and hope you had enough life. So that's what this game is like.
Yeah. So there are certain places where a damageless run, honestly, I think even if you're a speedrunner, is probably not a thing. You save all your damage for the handful of bosses that you just get in their face and just swing away. Like you have a Joaquin Phoenix moment. You swing away. Just swing away.
Good use of movie.
Thank you. Yeah. Now one thing that we haven't talked about, and it's absolutely beautiful. In particular, on the very first screen, this game took parallax to the parallax level. They're like, let's show you how parallax works.
Layers upon layers. It's more layers in here than lasagna. It's good stuff.
The Amiga version had visual parallax, I think. Yeah.
Did it?
I think so.
Visually, this game is absolutely beautiful as a piece of artwork. This game was like one of the earliest video games as art in my mind. You know what I mean? Musically, visually, it's all there. Like, the sprite work is great. Little weird that they were like, okay, each enemy is just going to be like one color and we'll just do shades of that color. I get it. I find it odd. And a little jarring, given what everything else looks like, but. I get it. But outside of the way they chose to do that, it all looks beautiful.
Yeah. The background art and the screen art and everything is all done by Roger Dean, who did those fantastic covers for a lot of, like. Yes. The band. Go look up their cover art. It was all. Did the. He did the background art for. Sorry, sorry.
No worries. But the gameplay is why I did not really bother playing it this week, because this looks like a test of your patience for tedium, honestly. It's go do the same thing 17 times in a row, and then move and do the same thing 17 times in a row, but a different thing.
Right, but isn't that battle toad?
This is why I don't play battlets.
I was going to say he has never gushed about battletoads. So he has no legs.
Okay.
No, I'm the only one that gushes about. Maybe me and GP were the only two that gushed about battletoads.
I heard.
Know it's my favorite game. I really do wish I'd go back and play it some more.
You know why I did find it a little weird. Go ahead, wolf.
Real quick. I just want to say, because I'm seeing the orbs flying around on the screen, I want to say this. I find it a little weird that the cygnosis owl in an orb is an enemy at a certain point.
Just to remind you we're here. No, you were fine.
I don't know. I think that's awesome. Honestly. Signosis owl is an enemy. Why didn't this happen?
I think the best reason that I get a very alterbeast feel for this game is like the eyeballs and the orbs with the veins in them. That was one of the other things that was kind of made me feel. I mean, it's definitely designed in a similar fashion of alter beast plays completely differently. It's not the same thing. It just visually, it looks very alter beastie. And that being. I mean, it was an arcade, but it came out on the Genesis. It has that same kind of dance to it. Those eyes look like fucking like. What'd you see right now? They look like an.
And. Yeah, when you pick up the vials, it really should say power up.
So, for those watching the YouTube video, I just put up the Amiga version. So, this is the Amiga version. So you can see the twelve layers of Parallax. I looked it up. So Genesis has quite a bit of Parallax as well, that it's not quite as good looking as the Amiga version. Mega, but great. When we look at the style. Here's the thing. Yes. The psychosis owl of being enemy is cool. The eyeballs. There is such a wide variety of enemy types in this game that you don't see in other games. Most games like this, platformers beat them ups. It's usually the same, what, five, maybe six different enemies. It feels like almost every stage in this game has unique obstacles and enemies and creatures, bosses, including giant hands and.
Crap that come out of the ground.
Where do the missiles come from? They look like tiny firecrackers. That's what they look like to me. They got the triangle top with a little tube. They look like toilet paper rolls with explosives inside of them.
Now, I mean, think about this. This game did come out in 1989. And I know that the Amiga, for all of its warts, really was ahead of its time.
I think it was.
It really was as far as the graphics quality and the sound quality. But it's a gorgeous game. There were a lot of badly done Amiga games as well. So this game is absolutely stunning. Jake, I've heard a lot of you were going to try to sell this game. I don't think that you've actually.
I just told. What else do you want me to say? It looks beautiful. You said that yourself. It's got twelve layers of Parallax. I think the enemy variety is what gets me on this game. I think the vibe, the visual presentation is very special. Whether you play on the Amiga or you're playing on the Genesis, this game looks great. It feels right at home with the Genesis, to be honest with you. That whole biopunk graphic, eyeballs, blood vessels, that feels like a Genesis game if I saw one. It's funny that I'll show some footage of it later on. There is actually a prototype of Shadow of the beast ported to the SNES. They actually had to call it Super Shadow the Beast. And you can play it. You can download the raw and play it. And it's funny because Superintendent famously, is not as gory as a genesis could be. So they actually censor out a lot of that stuff. Even the music in the SNES port feels more light hearted, a little bit more friendlier, a little more chipper and happier. It's very bizarre.
They tuned everything up to a major.
That that's what it feels like, I think they did. It feels like Shadow of the beast, but. Sorry, Disney, but it feels like Disney version of Shadow the. It's. And because this is a dark game, right? The story of this game, the plot of this game is also interesting to me. Right. Like, you're a guy who's been basically enslaved by an evil wizard. You're turned into a monster all your life and you've escaped, and it's a revenge story. It's like Django, except you're a monster quest three, kind of. Yeah, except. Oh, yeah, it has evil wizard too. So I think the variety of enemies and all that stuff is really neat.
I have a question. In terms of the story. When in the Amiga Genesis game, do you find out that you've been enslaved?
So you find out. Doesn't it tell you in the opening? Isn't that what it does?
I thought it was pretty early on.
Let me see.
I didn't see that at all in the playthroughs I watched.
Maybe it's probably the, like. Like Super Mario telling you that all of the bricks are like bowser converting the people into bricks. And you're just.
Can I point out something? Whoever designed these razor backed, army helmet wearing weird raptor beasts that went on the COVID of the game, why aren't those anywhere in the game? I have not seen a single one of those running around. I'm just curious.
I'm just pulling up the Commodore 64 version to see if there's story in that one because there's extra Plot in the C 64 version of all things. There's more screens of text in this one. But you're right.
When you start the game.
Yeah. It's polite.
I want to point out that the only reason I knew about the enslaved monster thing, right, is because of the PS four remake.
Okay.
There was a PS four remake in 2016. And they make it a point of, like, you're playing the opening and you're literally held by the chain by some dude levitating behind you, and you get to a point where you kill someone, his hood comes off, and this main character has a flashback of this guy from when he was a child, and that's when he turns on his captor. And I was like, I didn't get any of that in the old game.
Yeah, I was going to say this dude could be out for like a cup of Froyo and it's just a really dicey area of the neighborhood. I don't know.
The character designs in this really out there, really interesting, but I had not a fucking clue of what was happening in this game.
Also, why is it called I just punch bats and bold?
Why is it called. I'm just going to say that every single title screen is just beast.
Just beast?
Yeah.
Did they just make the game and decide, oh, we got to make the name longer?
Well, when you get to the end, it actually does tell you at the end that you have been freed from the shadow of the beast. And so maybe Beast being the logo, is implying that you are under the shadow of the beast. I mean, I'm stretching here.
It might be a thing of like, oh, that's why they called it that. Giving you line in the movie, if you can make it to the goddamn.
End of the game. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
But every single part of this game, it says at the end, congratulations, you've beaten the shadow of the beast. This game is over. It's pretty much the same thing. The only difference in any of these ports, the only thing that's different is in the Sega mastor system version. In the mastorcism port of this game, I'm not going to call it an ending, but you get a small cutscene of the beast slowly transforming into a neanderthal looking caveman dude, which is what you play, as in the second and third games.
Not into a bone horror, but into a.
Not into a bone horror. No. So the master system version maybe gives you a bit more plot in that way with the ending or in this nest game. This nest game. I got to say, for those who are seeing on this in YouTube and on the audio of the thumbnail, there's a smiling picture of the beast. That's in the SNES version. If you want another reason why it's so cheerful, once you beat the game and it gives you the congratulations screen, you get a picture of the beast. And no lie, he's smiling at you. It's such a weird.
You better have cool shades on and doing the finger guns.
All right, you just brought up the ending again. I'm calling it now. You need to bring up the Amiga version again, and you need to bring up the final boss. You need to bring up the fetish.
The fetish boss.
This is why it's a show.
If you're listening on audio, if you're listening on audio, you really need to either go watch a long play yourself or come view it here. You need to see foothor.
Oh, whoops, I missed it. That's the ending. Hold on. Overshot it.
Yeah.
Congratulations. You freed yourself from the shadow of the beast.
So maybe this is why.
Is that a euphemism for you never have to play this game again? Is that what they're trying to say? You were freed of never touching this game? Again, congratulations.
It's so fun. You want to go through it again? So maybe the reason it's called child of the Beast is because the literal boss, the end boss, is a giant, and all you see on the screen is a giant toe.
Literally the toenail with, like, the worst toenail ever. Like, he needs a manicure.
I know a good podiatrist.
And he keeps trying to drop his club on you. Like, he just is.
Like his one mangled ass toe.
Look at that.
He's doing the bat.
Yeah.
It's toe justice.
It's toe horror.
That's classic Tony's.
Get him some gold bond powder because he's got some foot problems. Right. Like, it's gross. It's really something else. And all of them have the same end boss. It's this giant. It's the club, and it's the toe. I think one port. I think the c 64 version. It's not a club. It's like a hook thing that comes from the side of the screen, but otherwise you're still fighting a toe. Literally. The end boss is a toe. It's soaked.
That toe. And some Epsom salt. He's got some bunions.
No, the end boss is not literally a toe. It's toe whore.
It's toe.
I'm trying to understand. There was a wizard that turned you into this creature, and you fight a toe to end the game. Is it just the wizard wasn't available? Was he busy?
Look, it's out of town.
Look.
What's the rogue like that? Everybody likes that. Mother puts you in the corner. Yeah. It's binding of Isaac before binding of Isaac happened. Because there's the end scene where mother keeps trying to stomp on you.
Doesn't make any sense. Which one is this? The Commodore 64 version.
This is the master system version. The master system version was also neat in that you have an item screen. I don't know if it's neat, but you have an item screen, so you have to actually manually use potions and keys.
It's real neat that they didn't.
I mean, this game sort of cut.
Off halfway through when it's coming down.
With the mallet, it already kind of straddled the line of, like, somewhere between platformer and adventure game. I feel like the fact that this implemented an item screen just made it further toward adventure game while still keeping it an action platformer. Right?
Yeah.
Why do you keep rotating between human and weird wizard?
He was transforming back.
He's a human special effects.
Oh, he's got nice sandals too.
Yeah, it's the master system. What do you want, man? What are you expecting?
Apparently, I want a pair of Birkenstocks with my shadow of the beast. He's got Jesus sandals, man. Come on.
But in the second game, that's what you look like. In the second game, you're basically the caveman dude. But in the third game, for some reason, you have an Indiana Jones hat.
You're Indiana Jones. You're Indiana Jones in the third one so bad. The third one. The third one actually takes. I mean, we'll skip ahead a little bit because the second one is basically the game. It's the same kind of thing, except for I think you can actually choose your levels in the second one, like, where you want to go. But in the third one, first off, you get a weapon from the beginning. We're back to Rygar Wolf. It's the chain thing that you get to launch out with, like. And then you're Indiana Jones. Don't ask. I don't know. You're Indiana Jones. And it's actually a puzzle platformer where you have to move things into the right place. You have to use platforms. You have to use rocks to launch you onto platforms. And they took it, and they're like, okay, so people have complained a lot about this game, that it's just a difficult platformer, period. Let's add some puzzle aspects and make it so that at least you feel like you're making progress. And they added checkpoints. They added checkpoints.
Still impossible. This game is still ridiculous.
There's a goddamn ray gun in the first one. Have we completely neglected the idea that there is a gun that you find in the first one at some point in the game?
There's actually, like a flying shim up sequence, actually. They go full on.
There's plot to him looking caveman like. It's because he's not fully human yet.
Oh, is that what it is?
He's only regained some of his humanity in the second game. The third game, he's finally his human form, and he has to defeat the monster that turned him into a beast once and for all to keep it. This was a trilogy before trilogies were huge.
You've hit a halfway point. I'm sorry. It's cromag, man.
But it's a halfway shadow of the cromag. That's what it is. How do you know he's human? He wears a hat and pants. That's the final evolution.
Nothing like a sears to make you superhuman.
This is a horrible remake of BC's quest for tires.
Oh, God, this game is so fucking crazy.
Oh, shit.
The lore was so deep. Now I know why Jake likes it so much. The lore is just written all over.
And you know what? You don't need to read it. It's not descriptions. It's just there.
No, that's not true, because it literally prints it on the screen when you fire it up.
You don't have to open up an item.
No, it's more in your face than, say, the moon saber or some shit.
God, that's funny.
No, Jake, I played. I played these games and, well, I played a few minutes of these games. And I mean, playing.
I played them for five. I did the homework.
I honestly gave the first one, like, 30 minutes, and I was ready to throw the controller. I was at that level.
Wait, so this guy can't afford a shirt? Is he just so still so much of a beast that he still has to go out fucking topless to go fight this thing? Or he's just.
Shadow the juice four is the puffy shirt phase of its evolution. Okay.
The pirate shirt.
But I love how he's got the ninja stuff.
Yeah. And they introduced you, like, the exploding bodies. So apparently, once you've progressed past Cromagdon, you get multiple lives.
Is he playing the drums? He's killing dudes playing the drums. That's where the good music comes from.
It's Donkey Kong. Whatever. Where you had the drum set. Remember that game on the 64?
I think you said this one was good, too, right? I think you were saying this is the game that has amazing death music.
It's either two or three. I think it's three that has the best. And it's guitar metal death music. Okay, so this is a puzzle that's coming up right here. So there's that swinging dick that's hanging up there that's going to crush you.
I'm still trying to understand. The burning piece of meat is a danger, but you can literally walk through the fire.
Okay, so you free this weird creature thing that's like deformed raisin. I don't know. It's like a pug gone bad. Yeah. And it takes care of that. So these are the puzzle elements. These are the puzzle elements.
We're giving away the deep plot of shadow the beast three. I'm sorry, guys. If you want to experience it for yourself.
Yeah. Okay, so he's working on another puzzle here where he has to have enough weight to move the Indiana oog. So it's actually a puzle Indiana oog. But does it have tow.
Why does it just have a giant man sitting naked at the end of a bridge?
Oh, my God. What the hell?
Yeah.
Sup?
But throw your statue blinket.
That's what it looked like.
It did look like a blanket.
It takes place in Washington. This is what it is.
This game was like. Somebody was like. They tried to draw on what they remembered from never ending story, but they were blasted out of their mind while they were watching it, and this was what they got from it.
What is Brian Cranston's bearded head doing in this game?
You don't like the random disembodied head?
No.
So this is a level select. This thing that came up is a level select.
This guy's dreaming of a.
And I'm sorry, but that guy has spent way too much time out in the sun.
Wow. So I'm going to say this right now is shadow the beast. Two and three are definitely different kinds of games. They're not the same as the first game. They're dramatic departures. And they also. I don't think they look as good. I think the first one stands better for 1989.
I agree.
And I think these ones are sequels, even though they were made. I think they're made in what, 90, 91? I think so. They weren't too far off, but they don't look nearly as nice. They have a weird black outline of the sprites work at all.
I got to admit that the puzzle concept in this is kind of neat. It's out there. It's way the fuck out there, but it's kind of neat.
I like that it actually becomes a game where there's a puzzle aspect, like.
You were saying, that kind of fits, too, because where are you going to start? He's regaining his humanity. So it becomes less about just smashing things and more about thinking about what you're doing. So I can get past that. But it's weird because three was actually a two year development time. And how it doesn't look as good as the other one. As the first one.
I don't understand shadow of the beast, the search for a shirt.
Well, because the first game. But, I mean, games were kind of rushed back then, but nine months was a pretty short time frame for the first game, and it looked amazing for that short amount of time, I think. I didn't realize the third one was two years. That's disappointing.
I will honestly say that the puzzle aspect of the third one makes it feel like it's actually more of a game instead of a project in suffering. But I'm with you. The graphic aspect in the third one is, I mean, the first one, to me, has the best look to it.
I'll say. The animation quality in the third one is really good. It's really smooth. It's really clean. But the artwork itself kind of blows.
Yeah. The backgrounds look like chameleon in certain aspects of it. It's got that same.
I can see that stony kind of.
I expect to hear. And Kid Chameleon was fucking weird, too. So it feels like it's going hand in hand with that style of game. It is very bizarre with as cool.
And alien as everything looked in the first game. I don't understand why they didn't continue that with the backgrounds. For the most part, at least, the immediate backgrounds. The distant background like that looks really cool. That feels a lot like the first game. But then the structure around you sucks. It's so boring to look at.
It is very. Yeah. Where it's also boring. It's super busy. There's a bunch of shit that's just, like, there randomly. Like that fucking troll. That's just, like, chilling. Looks like dobby on acid. This is like.
It doesn't have the same cohesive style. Right.
You presented Dobby an eight ball.
Yeah. Some things they do in this just scream of what the first game did. Like that weird, giant dobby thing we just saw, but then just get the most boring and bland tile work.
Yeah.
The tile work you might have ever seen. And it's like, why didn't you put more time into it?
It felt like they spinning cog in the background.
Yeah. The most generic bare belt place. And for some reason. Yeah, it's bizarre.
It's time to go barrel writing.
What the fuck? Yeah. I'm like, with you, Santa star, I gave the first game a good hour and a half, 2 hours to get through, but the second or third one I played, five minutes died, and I'm like, well, that was a game. I'm good. I'm fine.
Although I'll be honest with you, watching these puzzles in the third one, it actually looks entertaining.
It does. You have to figure out how to make that green dude hump the barrel. You're in until he gets down into the pit.
Fucking Shrek is Princess Leia.
Excuse me. That guy's name is barrel horror.
Now I got to see the ending of this game. Does this game end with a toe? Is that what this one ends with? Let me see. I got to look this up.
Does this have foothor again? This better have foothor again.
Fucking mess. I hope you fight cracked out dobby. I really do.
Cracked out dobby.
That's his name from the manual.
Oh, it's a head and hands.
It's Brian Cranston's head and hands.
What was that movie? The jungle? Was it Congo? It's like Congo, but on crack. Oh, that is a head and is.
The one with.
Is.
This is totally like Kid Chameleon, man.
Was it a head in Kid Chameleon as the end boss? Yeah.
You fought a lot of, like. They were like shrunken heads and shit. You fought in kid. It was a weird boss system that.
You fought in Kid Chameleon. Oh, the hands shoot lightning.
Jesus.
Anyways, and then there's fireworks. And then there's fireworks. And then you win.
Does he give you a shirt?
You finally have an extra large shirt. Look at that mullet.
Maybe after defeating his feet so many times. That's his head and hands. You've just destroyed his bottom half.
I'll kill you for the feet you killed in the last two games.
That's right. Wow.
It's a lot of reading.
I don't know the third game by far.
Too bad I ain't reading them.
No.
Well, that's my pet peeve with games, is the games that have their own unique font, and it's too busy to font when they want to do story. Yeah. When there's all these accents on the words and stuff. Just give me a plain font, like, keep that title screen or a q.
What the fuck is that?
But once again, that text that has the metal Sheen to it, that sits in the center and then has the 3d edges, we've got more of that.
This is like somebody got. When they first got Adobe when it first came out and we were using it in our high school, and they were creating their very first website, and they were just like, this is the coolest thought ever.
The look on the guy's face in the end screen is literally him going.
It's Stoke.
That was it.
He's happy to finally have a shirt. It's cold out there, guys.
I don't know. I know. The remake came out in 2016, and from what I watched of the remake, the music is nowhere near as good as the original Amiga version. Nowhere near. There's elements of it, but there's a lot of wind and just bees growl. Not the same thing. And the game, the first game at all. Even the bosses, they didn't pull any of the bosses. There was no toe as the final boss in the remake. And that's very disappointing. That is how can you not do a giant boss?
Where's tow horror?
Come on. Without the toe.
So I never did play the PS four game. I wonder if there's a pc version. There might be.
No, it was published by Sony, so it is a PS four exclusive. Probably never to be seen on any other platform ever again until PS four is successfully emulated.
See, Sony fanboys, you get exclusives too, don't you? Don't you love Shadow of the Beast 2016 Shadow of the Beast game of the year hidden gem. That's why.
Honestly, it's rated about the same as the original, which is kind of funny.
Well, the original was like people liked the original game. It reviewed well from what I could see. I mean, looking back now, people shit all over the shadow of the beast. But I think back then people liked it, appreciate it for what it was.
Sure. This is nice.
There's a reimagining that was surely delight fans quotes of video game magazine I've never read.
Wow.
Yeah.
No, honestly, gorgeous game. I will give it. The art style is absolutely second to none. The music is second to none. Like seriously, I want to just listen to that soundtrack. I want to buy it on vinyl. It's a game with a nice Roger Dean cover.
It's a game where if they gave you extra lives and continues, it'd be fine. This is one. If you play today and you play with save states, I think you're going to enjoy it. I think you're going to have a fun time with it, but you have to use save states. Trying to play this through in one go, one shot, where every death means starting from the beginning is just grueling in a way that just doesn't fly in 2024. It doesn't. But if you play this with safe states, I think it's perfectly fine. I think people would enjoy this one. I like to look at it, the look of it. I like the background. The world is really cool for what it is. The music is banging. There's even a schmup level in the first game for some reason. How can you not like that? It's just the difficulty is stupid, right? It's the same reason why I didn't like battletoads ultimately. Is that limited continues? That was what killed it for me. If that game had a limited continues, it would be looked at a lot more fondly today. And I think it's a similar situation with Shadow of the Beast.
Yeah, I watched one review where the person basically said, if you try it today, use cheats.
Shadow of the beast design looks like somebody was in a kitchen and said, I need to make something with black beans, cinnamon flour, a loaf of bread, and five different cheeses instead.
And these edible flowers.
For some reason, I get it all into a bowl, said, all right, here we go. We're going to make some french toast with this bullshit. So shadow of the french toast beast.
But they listened to some, but the music was fantastic while they made it.
I like the character design. I think it's funny because before the episode sincear, I was showing you the C 64 footage, and the first thing you said was this, like, was this like a homebrew game or was this a fan version of the game? Because it's hard to translate these graphics from the Amiga on the Commodore 64. But, I mean, they did the best they can.
Absolutely.
This is something else. This was something else.
I don't know, guys.
Yeah. So I just watched the PS four final boss, and for whatever reason, they decided the whole game is this sort of action platformer. That shadow of the beast is right. Then you get to the last boss, and it's like, no space Harrier.
Yes.
It's that you're moving forward the whole time.
Yes.
I'm in.
Sad they didn't stick with a space.
Right, right.
War games need giant toes as bosses. We got to make this happen. We got to bring that back.
That's an episode named Towh.
Yeah, well, not Nintendo.
And we need more bonehorn.
We need a lot more bonehore mouses. Absolutely.
I don't know, guys.
I'm glad we turned back into a person.
No.
Okay. Is anybody else watching tohore?
Yeah. No.
It's been there for a while.
A good chunk of time.
Sorry. There's a lot of visuals. People listening follow us.
But you know what, though? I'm hoping for those who are listening to this episode, I wanted to do this as a game. I'm also doing this game on another person's podcast, I'm guessing on their podcast. And we talk about this game, and I'll advertise it on our twitter and discord when it's live. But I wanted to talk about this game because this is an example of a game where I tried in the past. I could stand it, and I thought it was the worst game. But after actually sitting down and playing it, I kind of like this game again. It was at a hidden gem. I'm not going to go that far. It's no final fancy tactics, but I think it's a decent game, especially with the modern conveniences we have with emulation. So I hope people give this one a shot and try it, because when we look at Genesis titles, as much as I love the Genesis, it's kind of hard to say it's a better system than the sness, but the Genesis has titles like this that are actually really cool and interesting, and they go into an art style that you don't see in this ness. So I think it's a good game.
Yeah, it's a game.
No, I would give it taking all things into account, including when it came out, including the soundtrack, including the art, including the gameplay itself, I would probably give it a solid 6.5 to seven out of ten. I really would.
Yeah, seven is not bad. I think seven works.
Yeah. Now, number three, with the puzzles, I would probably give it a little bit more, although the art aspect comes down.
Yeah.
I don't think I'm sold on two and three. Two, especially. I couldn't stand. Three had these infinite spawning enemies in sections, and I just couldn't figure that out. I was just wailing on the jungle dudes, the drum beating guys, over and over again, until I realized I have to damage myself and go down the ladder and they explode when they touch you. I had to power through that section. That part was very annoying. It's confusing. The first one is a little simpler.
A good way to put this into perspective is to consider some of the other games that came out in 1989, and then I'll let you guys decide.
Yeah.
So we got Ninja Turtles for the NES. We got Fester's quest. We got. What was it? We got DuckTales and Batman River City, ransom, Castlevania three. There was an old prince of Persia, and there was one other in here. Oh, Friday the 13th.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
When you hold graphic style of this game up to those games, I think this one holds its own graphic style, for sure.
Visually. Yeah. This looks far and away better than just about any game that came out in 1989. But gameplay wise, I think it lacks snow DuckTales.
Yeah, it is.
No Ducktails, that is for goddamn sure.
It's funny because there's NES hard, and then there's like, fuck you, hard. And this guy was like, yeah, games aren't hard enough. Fuck you. That's how hard this game is.
Right?
He's like, silver surfer is too easy.
What if you had one life and no bullets? Just go with it.
Just your fists and a loincloth?
And how about we give you a weapon, but once you kill one dude, it's gone.
Can you imagine Ryu and Ken with hadookens and the first time they use it, it goes away. You train your entire life to use the fireball and you only get to use it on one opponent and it's gone forever. Fantastic.
You know what's funny is street Fighter two just came up behind you.
You're like in tune with your fucking mister back there.
Just reads my thoughts. Just way it goes.
Yeah.
I don't know, guys. I hope anybody listening to this episode or watching will give this game a chance. I think it's worth trying out. Just use safe sights. Any final words from you guys on this one?
I concur. Listen to the soundtrack if nothing else. Yeah, if nothing else. Or watch a long play just so you understand the concept because the art is high value, too. The parallax is second to none.
Yeah, you want to see a lot.
Of interesting backgrounds and things that just don't seem to make sense, but they're in there anyways. Give us a shot. It's a good laugh. I was playing it going, what in the fuck is this thing? And just watching the videos just now, I was like, what is. It's different. It's very kick chameleon. It's very mega drive. It's very amiga. But it's got a banger soundtrack. I'm not going to lie about that. And it does look really good.
And some of the worst foot maintenance ever.
Very bad.
Okay. All right, guys. Anybody want to shout out anything they've been working on? Chard, how about you?
I am almost sorry chipping through Horizon Zero. Dawn upgraded the video card last weekend. It's running smoothly. It's running nicely. So you might start seeing some Alan wake two being streamed here in the near future because my system can actually handle it now. But Horizon Zero, done. We are still kicking and tearing through that. It's a great game. It's been phenomenal. Very excited. Forbidden west afterwards. And then I don't know what I'm going to do. So come and check out the end of Horizon Zero down here real soon. Where twitch charredmunk twitch tv.
And here with my friends, sinister. How about you?
Chipping away on my sisphian game. I am almost done, I think, with the main story quest on Witcher three. I have done a lot of side questing, but I've done it in a way that I haven't just side quested myself into oblivion like oblivion like I did with oblivion, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I'm not streaming that for anybody. But we will, I'm sure, do a witcher episode at some point. Yeah, pal. World is still great. Although I haven't been into it for about a week now because I've been working on other things. Oh, and my wife, go check her out. Twitch tv sinstress. Seventy seven S-I-N-S. Follow and enjoy ress on Mondays, Mondays, Mondays and Thursdays. And sometimes she'll take a little bit break, but most Mondays, very chill, very fun.
Drop her a follow.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wolf, you got to make me feel better. Have you started your sisyphean game? What have you been doing?
Your growl voicing.
We can't actually understand you growling.
That was the idea. We're doing a shadow of the beast episode. My God.
But literally, I'm not kidding. It was like, raw.
It was worse than that.
Yeah, there was no comprehension.
Why? It just roars.
It's just a roar.
No, I'm not making any promises. Set myself up for failure. So I don't really have anything going on at the moment.
Okay.
But no, I have not started my sisyphian game yet. Probably not for a while. Mostly because I learned that I don't have it on steam. I have it on the PS four, and the PS four is currently hooked up upstairs, and I have not felt like moving it yet.
Yeah. So for me, I've installed my sissy and game, and I will turn it on at least once this coming week. But it's installed, and that considers Casta's progress. I don't even know what you're going to pick, guys. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. And I still owe buck bumble stream, so, yeah, there is a creative fighter. But if I want to do the ranked, to get that rank, I have to play one of the stock characters. You can't do custom in rank, so I have to pick one. I don't know. I have to pick one out. Maybe if I wait long enough, Akuma will come out and I can just cheese my way up to. Well, we'll see. Hey, I'll take it.
Hey, if it's in the game, it's.
Do they have.
Screw it. Yeah.
Do they have Dan? Do they have Dan?
Actually, don't have Dan. I wonder if he'll come out as a DLC character. They seem to be taking their time with the DLC characters. It's only for a year. It's not as many as I thought there might be.
God.
Dan.
I want you to get diamond rake with Dan.
I'm not good at these games. I've already set a tough goal.
Dan is particularly.
Yeah, but you want to talk? Useless to Dokins. Dan is. Dan is your guy. Dan might actually be the shadow of the beast. We don't know. There might go.
He has a shirt.
Well, that's true. Yeah. Okay. Disqualified.
And no fedora.
All right, guys, we are presspy to cancel, please, if you don't mind, drop us a follow on Twitch. I'm sorry we didn't stream there this week. We're working on it. Otherwise, drop us a subscribe. Subscribe to us on YouTube. We are trying to grow our numbers there. You can of course, watch us live on YouTube on Fridays, 830 Eastern, 530 Pacific. Or catch our vods, of course, there. We're also an audio podcast. Every Monday we drop the audio version of our podcast. You can listen to us on Google podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and anywhere else you can find us. You don't find us, you let me know and I'll get us there. Yes, we're on Spotify, of course, as and I think Santa Star has been uploading the video on Spotify. So if you like Spotify video or audio most times. So otherwise, just check us out on pressby to cancel. There's also a link to our discord. Please do join us on Discord. We try to chat about the episodes and do some callback and some memes and all that good stuff. So I guess that's it for Shadow the Beast episode, guys. Good episode, everybody. Have a great and wonderful weekend.
Don't be a foothore. Get yourself a pedicure.
Power up shadow of the beast.