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Shadow of the Beast

Shadow of the Beast

Hands-on with the surprise resurrection of the iconic 80s adventure.

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The impact of the 2013 Gamescom reveal of Shadow of the Beast, part of Sony's pre-show conference, was largely dependent on your age. For new millennium gamers, we'd guess a raised eyebrow, little more. For those of us in our 30s however, an involuntary increase in heart-rate wouldn't be surprising. Nor the disbelief someone would tamper with a fondly-remembered title.

The original Shadow of the Beast was a 1989 side-scrolling adventure game that was widely popular, more due to its gorgeous and evocative art style than its combat and puzzle-solving mechanics. "It was a very pedestrian platformer," says one ex-critic we spoke to today, who reviewed the game at the time. "It looked great, but really was very simple." Yet its art design inferred a rich, alien world more immersive than most of what was being produced in that era.

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An alien landscape that clearly left an impression on developer Matt Birch, who spent the next 20 plus years trying to explain the mysteries of that world to himself. And why, when he was asked what he'd ideally like to work on during a pitch presentation at Sony a few years ago, Shadow of the Beast was the first thing that sprung to mind. Two decades of dreaming paid off, as his impassioned sell worked. Sony said yes.

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And here we are.

You believe Matt Birch is all-too aware of the worry - and pressure - of two decades of fandom as he introduces the first gameplay demo to the world at Sony's Digital Gaming Showcase. The game's creative director is nervous, fidgety. But clearly immensely proud at what he and his small team ("we're in the single digits," he tells us) at Heavy Spectrum have achieved. A ‘dream come true' sounds apt.

He walks us through initial artwork and their in-game adaptations and touches on the story, which in the broadest pre-alpha strokes has the same beats as the original. The servant Aarbron breaks free from his chains and sets out across the world to seek his revenge on his lord Maletoth. There's some talk of how twisted the story of a child snatched and being forced into labour could be portrayed, but what narrative elements there may be are not in evidence in the demo. What is, is some light 2D platforming and a lot of lopped-off limbs amid desert valleys and ancient tombs.

We get to play a cut from someway through the game, rather than its intro. Aarbon's just pulled himself out of whatever hell he's survived into a dusty, shadow-rich cliffside. As with his 1989 design, the ex-servant's mutated, animalistic form has some benefits. His wrist claws help in combat and climbing cliffs; we're introduced to both in the next few seconds.

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Combat options are robust, use based on the threat level facing you. With singular minions a quick claw swipe is fine, separating head from body. But the game's quick to start stacking multiple attackers against you, then smarter mid-bosses. You can block, you can counter with a correctly-timed button press. Grab and toss enemies into each other. Force fields appear when you're spotted by foes, trapping you in the immediate area. No flight, just fight.

Combat's already fluid, if a little unpolished, the body count stacking high with little effort from us. A blood rage mode, initiated with the two bumper buttons, let's you chain multiple one-strike kills in short order as long as you time taps to on-screen prompts right. Similar is our first mid-boss clash, with counters needing timed onto other counters (we fail, but manage to muddle through the fight regardless). That last clash hopefully suggesting more in-depth battles to come between the glorified berserker barrages.

Shadow of the Beast

Platforming is basic so far, with only a jaunt through a trap-filled temple needing some thought to time runs through spikes. But the world design makes for enjoyable exploration. As we climb over that first cliff face, hot air and a wave of sand slams past us. The desert, pocketed with the rib cages of gigantic skeletons, stretches off into the horizon. Darks of shadow are almost oppressive, direct sunlight almost too bright on the eye. Armed warriors patrol, others chew on meat, the source of which is questionable. Heavy Spectrum do good on making this place feel real, lived in. Dangerous.

With twenty-five years between this and the original game, comparisons will only really be in the minds of the older gamer generation, and Birch himself. It's hard to guess who'll be harder to convince that this resurrection matches what has come before.

Perhaps that's the wrong train of thought. The right one is making sure the gameplay experience matches the lavish care put into the world-building. As long as that happens, what the past offered doesn't matter; this'll be a game everyone can enjoy.

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