Shadow of the Beast Longplay (Amiga) [QHD]
Vložit
- čas přidán 3. 06. 2024
- Follow me on Twitter @ / al82_retro
Get Great Retro Scene News @ www.vintageisthenewold.com
Developed by Reflections and published by Psygnosis in 1989
As one of the most technically advanced (for the time) Amiga games ever made, this was an easy candidate for a QHD remaster.
The gameplay is rather mediocre, but it's a superb showcase for the OCS chipset, featuring multiple layers of parallax scrolling and some of the best music on the system.
Rather than simply convert the original video, I replayed the game through to completion once again. The added benefit here is the audio quality is also improve over the older video.
Be sure to set the video quality to 1440p for the best experience!
Credits
Coding: Martin Edmondson, Paul Howarth
Music: David Whittaker
Box Art: Roger Dean
Time Codes
00:00 - Intro Screens (music by David Whittaker)
01:05 - Artwork by Roger Dean
03:36 - Main Menu (music by David Whittaker)
05:00 - Game Start
05:34 - Welcome
06:10 - Inside the Tree
08:45 - The Power Orb
09:46 - Inside the Tree
15:56 - The Well
16:48 - Aabron's Revenge
18:38 - To the Castle
19:55 - In the Dark Passages
26:19 - Beyond the Mind and Reality
28:46 - The Thing
31:26 - Beastlord Maletoth
31:51 - Ending Screen
32:03 - Game Over
#shadowofthebeast
#amiga
#walkthrough - Hry
![Shadow of the Beast II Longplay (Amiga) [QHD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XEoA6Fq8byA/mqdefault.jpg)
![Shadow of the Beast II Longplay (Amiga) [QHD]](/img/tr.png)
This is the first in a series of 1440p remasters - clarity is certainly improved over the 720p stream!
Is this emulated and if so with what equipment did you get the 1440p?
On a 480 crt tv,
it looked amazing!! I played it on a Sony Trinitron 24". The problem with lcd tvs is that if you don't see pictures with the same native resolution of their displays, they will look ugly and washed out and because the 16:9 thing of course.
@@jorgemartin5093 Not sure I understand... You wrote this is the first in a series of 1440p remasters, but now you say it was on a 480 crt?
@@krunge ah ok. You are right I was talking about my experience with my own Amiga 500 computer at the end of the 80s. It looked amazing on a standard tv. There wasn't any need for remaster in those years of analog tvs. If you wanted a sharper picture, you increased the sharpness adjust a bit but not too much.
They cannot
I dont know if young people can understand just how amazing the sound and graphics were for the time.
So true. This was one of my favourite games and at the time it was streets ahead of other games. For it's day the graphics and sound were unseen and unheard of.
I played this at my cousins house as a little kid and it blew my mind.
Still leaves me speechless..
First game with multiple layers moving in different speeds in the background.
@@DsLmaNiaC It's stunning to watch, always blows me away.
Truly some of the best video game music ever composed for that era.
Black Crypt had a great intro music too, but this game all the way through had great music.
By far and away. I still remember the Genesis version to this day. There is such a sadness and anxiety to this soundtrack that really sets the mood for the game. Reminds me a lot about Dark Souls, which probably was heavily inspired by this.
I came here just for the music. Awesome.
@@samuelviden7412This along with Streets of Rage and Revenge of Shinobi are what planted the seed of doing game music when I grew up. Also helped that Psygnosis were a local studio in Liverpool, it was like having the game-equivalent of Hollywood or Wonka's factory on your doorstep-hard not to be inspired.
I never get tired of listneing to that music.
i wasn't born in the generation when this came out, and i'm blown away by the art and the music. i can't imagine how amazing this must have been for the people who picked it up for the first time
I was 13, and u 100% right it was magic! In my Comodore Amiga 500 the first stereo computer price less
@@piratadelmar Those were the days. I was 14.😃
It was absolutely mesmerizing back then. This game alone probably help sell more Amigas than any other games released in the history of the machine.
The fact younger people still find the game visually and musically valuable nowadays is a testimony to the sheer talent that went into its making.
It was ridiculously hard though... even harder than the hardest games at that time. I was 9 when I had it and never passed the first level 😂😂
Just one pixel or a micro-second made the difference.
It was everything you could imagine and more. My kids were small then and grew up on the Amiga. Also, on a side note - the Psygnosis developers would later become Sony Playstation.
As a kid I was too poor to own an Amiga back in the day ... I once saw somebody play this in an amiga store. That little kid that was me was utterly amazed, confounded and excited knowing this kind of game existed and the person showing the game to another were not aware of me in the background. That eerie tune, the sounds , the logo ... only after years now, I was able to remember that game and then found out your long play. Thank you I finally managed to not only play it but see it to the end. The OST stil haunts me though, so I will probably rip it and upload it to my car. It brings me to a time when all my worries were about owning a console and perhaps playing a game everyone else was playing. If I could go back in time to that era I would. This world holds nothing much for me, but that time, when everything was possible , so full of potential. I would gladly go there over and over. Be well man! Thank you for the video and the channel :D
I remember playing this for HOURS. It was so difficult and frustrating.
Not a very good game in terms of gameplay even for a late 80s non-arcade title. The music is amazing though even today. The graphics are interesting but the animations feel very limited, especially with no real death animations for enemies. I think maybe its because of hardware limitations vs bad design though. The parallax scrolling in the outdoor areas looks amazing though and even still looks great now.
It did look great but I never passed the first level. Wayyyy to difficult, even for an era when all games were difficult.
Agreed, phenomenal visuals, shame about the gameplay!
Very unforgiving game. the timing of your strikes ,your jumps and also where you stop has to be spot on or your dead and u only get one life .just not good for the average Joe as your dying within seconds of encountering the enemy, wich
Becomes a kill joy😢
great music though one of the best I've heard and great graphics which were cutting edge at the time
@@gerardmartin4718 exactly!
I always loved the long intros with the great image art etc. it made the loading time go faster....... Amiga was amazing in its time. Remember video toaster on an Amiga 2000
Wow. This is by far the best playthrough of SotB I've ever seen. Getting all those timings down is brutal. Very, very well done!
My father had a Shadow of the Beast t-shirt that he wore until it dissipated into dust.
Psygnosis made some incredibly beautiful games. It's difficult to imagine playing through a game that required so much rote memorization and trial-and-error in an era without playthrough videos, FAQs, and Internet guides, now.
They didn't know any better. Gamers were real gamers back then.
Psygnosis WERE amazing ❤
@@Zellonouspiss off you safekeeping prick
An unusual game, I like its dark and surreal style. And the music is atmospheric and deep.
What I love most about the first SOTB is the fact that the player character is a monster. :) I like to pretend 2 & 3 never happened and Aarbron never became human again because I think he's so much more badass as a beast. :)
@@jeffcotten1081 I agree the games losts of charm and mystery when he turns into a human. Where is the beast? :)
Only contemporary equal can be Dark Souls series.
The music of this game was amazing for the time and added greatly to the atmosphere.
Absolutely! The opening theme makes me think of other nostalgic gems from the same era such as Dune.
Man this brings back some memories. I remember this game being a showcase for the Amiga both in terms of graphics and music.
Cutting edge for the time. The music was an impressive MOD soundtrack composed on a Korg synthesizer. There were a whopping 13 levels of parallax scrolling and full graphics pallete.
And this ran on an Amiga 500 with only 512K or RAM (1/2 a MB)! For you millennials, thats 512 KB, not 512 MB. The music and graphics also played while the disk data was transferring using the custom chip set (blitter and copper), allowing only a small portion to be paged in an out to maintain memory (virtual memory paging).
New and almost unheard of computing in 1989 to 1990. Most IBM / DOS PCs couldn't not even display a single image like this let alone this grade of sound. I also wonder about the art itself (Giger?).
Unfortunately I could never figure the game play out. The awesome music I sometimes recorded for demos and other projects via the stereo outputs from the game.
Giger has nothing to do with it, but another legendary graphic artist who worked for Psygnosis quite a bit, Roger Dean.
@@GamePlayMetal Giger made Darkseed game graphics....but with Pc graphics in mind. On the Amiga it looked amazing too vs 16 millions of colors of a Pc..
@cdcollura do you know what the breathy sound is called in the intro?
@@jorgemartin5093 I remember having a card in my Amiga 2000 that allowed 24 bit Colours something like the pc of today. I cant remember what the card was now. It had a program that allowed painting in the 24 bit.
You're mostly right - the music was composed and arranged by David Whittaker, and he had his own sound driver and format - he didn't use "standard" MOD trackers. I was lucky enough to have an online chat with Allister Brimble a few years back, and he said that DW's format actually had several advanced features and effects that regular MODs did not.
I can assure you that many jaws dropped to the floor back in 1989 watching this for the first time. And still looks awesome so many years later.
Stiff controls, trial and error, mysterious switches and keys and plenty of gotcha moments made this game legendarily hard in its day. One wrong move could render your game unwinnable and you'd never know. The impenetrable and uncaring world just pulled me in more and more though!
One of the most surreal and immesive arcade /adventure games back then. A masterpiece in its genre, GREAT music, GREAT sceneries. Simply amazing.
Agreed!!!!!!!!
gameplay was trash
Too bad that the actual gameplay was rather mediocre. Truthfully, the only decent game out of this series as far as gameplay is concerned is SOTB3
@@lordevyl8317 eyah, konda hard for me and yes, Beast 3 and 2 where slightly more playable.
@@micheleporcu2287 SotB2 was even worse than Sotb 1, bad graphics and the gameplay was just trash, the only good things were the musics. Sotb 3 had good musics, better gameplay, physic puzzles but the graphic design was worse than the first one. Unfortunately the 3 has been released only on amiga, probably on megadrive or snes it could have had better graphics.
November 2019 : Shadow Of The Beast turns 30 !
Happy birthday to this piece of video games history
Superbly played. Brings back memories. I completed it many times back in the day. The path / waits / avoidance of enemies was exactly as I used to play it. Though I used to despatch the spiders that come on the plains with the big hands coming out of the ground by crouching. That’s the only difference I can remember. Excellent quality of upload too. Bravo
Glad you enjoyed it!
The real dream in 1989! Amazing!!!
I love the fact that he picks up the energy eventho he owns the whole level like a boss. I Had a hard time getting everything that needed to be done even with a trainer back when I was a kid. Awesome memories especially the soundtrack.
This soundtrack is legendary. So many ideas and just an overall amazingly robust sound
To whoever uploaded this to CZcams..... thank you so much!! My eldest brother had this game for the Amiga, I'm 10 years his junior. This game and the music gives me nostalgia and takes me back to when my life and the world really was that much safer or at least seemed safer. Thank you
Graphics/music still looks amazing . So much things are going on every frame . Moon , zepplini clouds, mountains, enemies. Truly a work of art...
I played this as a kid on my Amiga 2k. It was impossible yet memorizing. I couldn't get past the first 2 stages but would fall asleep to the music... Luckily we had games like giganoid, populous, and others that were somewhat comprehensible as a 8+ year old. Sotb was always that set of floppys I viewed as ominous and impressive. Somewhat a mystery and in many ways a myth I viewed sotb as a game I would never understand. This vid is crazy! I'm thankful to have the opportunity to share this with my dad and finally understand the game. Great vid.
the game who gave the fatal blow to the Atari ST :)
indeed i was one of that atari st 520 owner that swapped to an amiga500 after seeing and hearing THIS on a friends house.
That day my friend showed me shadow of the beast, blood money and Xenon2 megablast.
Imagine me on my way back home after that afteroon
@@ananasstudio6221 I used the 520 STF from a school friend. Then, another friend got an Amiga 500 with expansion (512+512), i went to his home, and then he showed me the Amiga, i never saw one, and now, the moment he loaded shadow of the beast, i had to pick up my jaw on the floor. It was incredible !
i rember back then when i first saw this game, i was looking for my jaw on the floor with its graphics... and look how far we are today after 30 years
I am a common Psygnosis game: art and sound are a dream, gameplay a nightmare.
So the problem back in the day was that games designers were getting increasingly skilled with graphics and animations and they wanted to show them off. They did this by making their characters play out their entire animation after a button-press before a new one could be started (Jordan Mechner games were notorious for this). There were a few states that had animations that were interruptible, but not many.
Essentially, it meant once you hit that button, your character was basically a sitting duck until the game decided it would accept your next input, which made for a really frustrating and stilted gameplay experience.
Sadly, it would take a couple of more years before they figured out that everybody hated this and stopped doing it.
That's true... Sound and graphics were perfect; but the game... even MSX had better games (talking about gameplay)
I think calling the gameplay 'a nightmare' is wayyy too harsh, FOR IT'S TIME i actually don't think there's anything really wrong with the gameplay, sure it's a tad blunt and shallow and has it's obvious problems that a lot of games suffered from at the time but overall it was a very playable title.
@@AJB-mn2bx Japanese game designers were at a level that was absolutely out of reach for most of european and american coders, at least for arcade/action games. And it wasn't a mere matter of hardware. This game shows that game-flow, collision detection and balancing were almost an unknown matter for psy coders.
@@alessandromarani6523 The Japanese arcade games were something very special that's for sure.
This game completely blew us away when it first came out. Me and my Amiga buddies gathered one evening after we got our hands on a copy and fired up the trusty old 500, with the sound hooked up to a large stereo, after turning down the lights for a "cinematic" experience because we had heard rumours about what this game was.
Multi-level parallax scrolling. Tasteful Copper-chip gradient sky. Incredible graphics. And last but not least, an amazing soundtrack. Our brains couldn't fully handle it and there were expletives flying everywhere!! 😂
We had never seen anything like it. It was an absolute watershed moment and forever changed our view of what home computer games can accomplish. A true, all-time classic.
The parallax in this game was incredible for the time. Even most 16-bit games didn't have this level of parallax. It wasn't until the 32-bit systems that it became common.
This is 16-bit, tho 🤔
@@Herodle This level of parallax didn't become common until the 90's. Yes, all 16-bit systems have some level of parallax but not to this extent.
@@StormsparkPegasus I'm not sure I'm following. This is identical to the version I had on my Amiga 500, which is 16-bit. The 8-bit versions of SOTB were lame.
@@Herodle What I'm saying is, the number of separate parallax layers this game has is MUCH more than most 16-bit games did, until much later, and it didn't become super common until the 90's with 32-bit. I'm not saying it's impressive because it's parallax, I'm saying it's impressive for the number of separate layers they did.
So wild this came out in 1989. This and Art of Fighting on the Neo Geo was what made me fall in love with Pixel Art
What a magical experience it was when I first saw this game as a teen, goosebumps! Amiga was leaps ahead of its time and Psygnosis was transforming it in a form of art.
This is the reason why I got an Amiga! The atmosphere was second to none.
Sadly the gameplay was not very good, but as a piece of art this is amazing.
Mythical game,very important for real old-school gamers
As are the 1st two Amiga Turricans.
Glad to be labelled as a real old-school gamer but despite gaming since 1982 at 43 I don't feel that old lol.
What exactly qualifies a "real" old school gamer from a fake one? An echo chamber of similar opinions?
@@nebularain3338 exactly. Everyone just subscribes to the nostalgia that corresponds to them personally. Trying to pin it down to a particular bracket of years is arbitrary. I grew up with Atari 2600, then sega mega drive and amiga later on in my teens, but even I'm not brave enough to pretend that Atari was the first.
@@double-helix-22x22y Turrican is gettin a 30th anniversary release on switch and PS4!
it's amazing this game is from 1989. Graphics looks like more around 1992 with those detailed backgrounds, and music is so good it sounds like it's from the 32 bits generation.
Cost me as a 14 year old $75.00 Australian. Saw it in a shop, asked to play it, then bought it.
ya kidding right?
Amiga Rulez!
@@Roszak5 hmm, hour ago I was in the local computer shop and asked them to show me the ruler, the Amiga beast and they said wtf.
Hours of my life went into this. Good times
128 colours,13 layers of parallax scrolling,4 channels of sampled sound,hi Res 4096 colour interlaced HAM mode title screen amazing soundtrack by David Whittaker.
LEGENDARY ! Music and Graphic is not from this World.
This game is hypnotic to watch. Lots of good flavor text too
I remember going to the Software Etc in my mall as a kid watching this demo play on the Amiga mesmerized.
I am amazed with your ability to hit the enemies with proper timing. :)
The amiga. Another very important link in the chain of hardware and programming development. An absolutely awesome machine. Ahead of its time with so much personality.
As 12 year old kid I was blown away with a game like this and the capabilities of the Amiga at the time in general.
It was such a massive step forward from the 8bit platforms and really gave a taste of the future of computing.
Love these retro games, nothing ever made sense just mindless fun.
This is the best midi I've ever heard
I just love the touches of civilization within the chaos of a monster-infested land. From the two zeppelins circling the sky in the background, to the lining of broken fences in the foreground, these details give you a lot to think about.
I used to play this game on my Amiga 500, almost non stop and never did make it to the end, lol. Absolutely loved the music and the graphics were some of the best for its time.
This cult video game gives me the shivers every time I see it and hear the soundtrack! That's why I bought an Amiga 500, my best gaming period ever ! Amiga FOREVER :) With Love !
What a great game and great computer Amiga, i would have been 8 years old...
Same as me. I remember how I stood in front of an Amiga 500 in anticipation of what the hardware could offer, and then this game turned on and my jaw literally dropped to the floor. beautiful, nightmarish and haunting at the same time. It's one of those weird childhood memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. :)
used to loved this game..... an absolut legend.
Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share it
That's the first game that gave me nightmares. I can't believe how amazing this soundtrack is. Thanks for uploading mate.
Only had theMegadrive, never an Amiga - just shocked at how good the audio is
it's unbelievable how smoother and less "pixelated" the graphics appeared back then (with the help of a pal television)
Some of the music still holds up today that's pretty amazing I loved the music to this game thank you so much
One of the greatest games ever made. It still amazes me that I once had the patience and reflexes to complete this. This, and Xenon II.
Also, whoever is playing this is a damn machine. Or god. Something.
The Amiga was truly a work of art
In my eyes, a masterpiece. They complained about the playability but i loved it. Granted, the audio and visuals were stunning. Amiga, god you were the best!
Well said.
24:34 the first video game gun to accurately sound like an Aliens pulse rifle! Even the Aliens games themselves would take another decade to get it right!
The music when you leave the well is so epic
The monsters are just amazing. I also love the mix of classic fantasy and technology. It gives me the chills! :)
Genius gameplay , this game is really hard. Love it!
Always have loved the soundtrack on this game .
Easily one of the best 🙂
Lemmings on SNES took and remix the main theme ;)
The Amiga was truly a beast of a machine in its heyday, similar to some degree to the neo geo and pc engine power wise.
Is the guy playing this a Jedi?!
You're reflexing and timing are incredible.
Almost brings a tear, So many good memories Amiga 500 and C64 days.
The music still hold up today, Sounds amazing on home theatre 6.2 surround sound.
The soundtrack is 🔥🔥👌🏼⚡️
Defender of the Crown was the first game which demonstrated that Amiga music and graphics were something truly special to behold and unmatched for the day by any other system, that game convinced me to beg my parents for an Amiga 500, as a kid. This game, Shadow of the Beast only put the cherry on top. No other computer or console could match these graphics and music back then, and even today, decades later, they are still awe-inspiring. The game was so hard and unforgiving that I could only complete it after using the invincibility cheat.
A faithful preservation of an early Amiga classic. Well done!
This was a brilliant gameplay vid. Love the QHD format, suits my 1440p@100Hz monitor perfectly!
Glad you enjoyed it - I'm going to focus on providing as much of my future content at QHD as possible, so stay tuned 🙂
Imagine what Shadow of the Beast could have been if, behind its charming backdrops and musics, there was an actual game.
It was really a glorified tech demo.
Right!? Lol, I used to get so aggravated at this game, although by the third one, shadow of the beast 3, the game play was actually really good. That game is great. The first and second one just feel like they were designed to piss me off. Haha
Don't think of it as a game, but rather enjoy it as a piece of interactive art. Play for atmosphere rather than challenge, and with that in mind it's a superb product.
There was a game
Perfect statement 😆 sums it up for me!!I used to get so frustrated when playing this many moons ago, and now I realize this was something these guys probably made one night after getting incredibly high off some potent stuff 😆 🤣 😂 It's like a glorified demo.
Without doubt one of the hardest games I ever played. I always died whenever I ran into that giant skeleton-mouth thing on wheels inside the tree. I was always like "How the hell am I supposed to defeat that"?? Little did I realise that you need the power of fireballs, ugghh to be able to tell my younger self...🤦♂️
I'm glad this was included as an unlockable bonus in the 2016 remake for the PS4.
Imagine growing up with this masterpiece
The legendary music and legendary difficulty. Played this on my friend’s Amiga and I also owned it on my Atari Lynx.
I remember the presentation in the packaging .....it was very luxuriously done, it seemed you purchased something extraordinary. While in essence it was just another boring duck and shoot 'm up . Give me Packman anyday.
This fooled you with the pretty pictures and the parallax scrolling ,yet the enemies looked very one dimensional .
The sample used when hitting an enemy is extremely unimaginative ,it sounds like you're hitting the toilet wall instead of flesh. Can't hold a candle to "Gods".
This games music was stuck on my mind for 10 years
People who are still commenting on this game proves that it's still great and timeless. Unique masterpiece.
@@nuno359 still one of the most iconic games ever!!
Amiga-era games represent the finest game development ever - graphics, gameplay, art and imagery, music. The imagination and realisation of these games was and remains awesome.
Well said 👍
Damn, this music!!! Still blows me away!
Amazing gameplay. This game is insanely hard, well done!
Nostalgia overload at the beginning
Wonderful soundtrack for that time ( 90') as AMC and Lost Patrol.... I remember my childhood
I have that music in my head since I was a kid. David Whittaker delivers
I'm still listening plus the remixes
How did this take you only a half hour to finish?! Back in the early nineties, this was an impossibility! 😂
With 20/20 hindsight, I think the reason it was so bastard-hard was because at this level of graphical and sonic fidelity, the actual gameplay area was quite limited given that even with compression it had to fit onto two 880k floppy disks.
It looks incredible that someone can go trough this game with no unlimited lives!!
Epically well played.
Masterfully played!
Wow, you are really good. I'm amazed. I never made it to the flying part. I've got this game when I was 12 and l was blown away with the graphics and sound. Thank you for the great memories
What memories (I played it on Commodore 64)
I'm in tears, the sound itself was a masterpiece.... glad I still have an amiga running :)
Ok now I am crying remembering my childhood.... THANK YOU for this amazing upload !
Great music composition! thx for the content👊🏻
So boss, got some enemy ideas for ya...
- flying bats?....IN!!
- sunflower snakes? ....IN!!
- dudes with horse heads? ....IN!!
- dudes with wolf heads? ....IN!!
- dudes with bull heads? ....IN!!
- giant hands? ....IN!!
- tusks with blood on them? ....IN!!
- the main character, but bigger and greener? ....IN!!
- our owl logo?! ......fucking IN!!
Exactly 😆 that LSD must of been potent man 😆 hey, don't forget the floating eyeballs 😆
Forgot all about this game. Just saw it referenced in a ‘rise and fall’ video. What a game! nostalgia hits me hard with this game.
Damn, your gameplay is flawless!
19:12 "Hold up, some asshole is firing bottle rockets at me from back there, lemme just PUNCH THAT SHIT"
5:55 Smartly punches giant bats in the forehead.
XD
This game scared me a lot when I was a kid. I used to play the Sega games during the midnights.
The outside side scrolling parts of the gameplay remind me of a spruced up version of Kung Fu on the NES.
Still great memories of this game.
Awesome playthrough! Never managed to complete the game myself back in the day, so it was nice to see how it played out.
Psygnosis games were always like that, with excellent graphics and sound, but subpar gameplay. Still cool though!