The plot of Shadow of the Beast is plain: black magician turned into a monster character named Aarbron freed from the control of their dark lord and sent him to revenge, shredding into pieces all in its path.
Throughout the game is not pronounced any normal cues: the hero is completely silent, while his opponents speak their languages incomprehensible. Such plotless today seems very much out of place: as a rule, try to give the game player a little more motivation for playing.
Few save the situation interesting setting: the action Shadow of the Beast unfolds in an unusual tehnofenteziynom world where magic and swordsmen are combined with ingenious devices and giant flying robots, resembling the
Reapers from Mass Effect. Authors remake thought carefully setting in every detail, but it is no more than a backdrop to the bloody line of action.
The combat system – the flesh and blood of Shadow of the Beast. At first glance, it does not occupy the depth: Aarbron can stun and grabbing enemies, block and parry, roll, shoot magic and use different superpriemy …
But all opponents in the game, except the bosses die from one of his normal attacks, making the whole this range of techniques is sort of like not fit.
Practically all the battles take place in small arenas, bounded on both sides portals. This is the main “zest» Shadow of the Beast: enemies of the rod on both sides, and must always cover your back and calculate the distance to the nearest portal.
Otherwise, at a time when you are perfectly spariruete attack the enemy in front of you, you can easily fly to the back of the head of the enemy, which did not even see properly on the screen.
And, most likely, will arrive: Aarbron can not interrupt their activities, and, unlike many games, Shadow of the Beast does not grant his hero invulnerable during the animation.
In the end, it turns out that parry is not so profitable, and that almost all the battles take place alternately clearing the enemies on both sides using conventional punches and block.
Perhaps the points system should be motivated to play a more beautiful, but for me personally, it is no more than another archaism, which naturally became extinct in the mid-90s.
A platform component of the game manages to be even worse. If the battle due to the zero stock of health enemies supported by some no dynamics, those segments in which Aarbronu have to run through the maze and solve the puzzle, drive in incredible anguish.
It does not help the cause and management. Hero moves very inertia: from a standing start, he is very clumsy, but it is difficult to stop.
Especially in the air, where it is generally not subject to the player, and can not even turn around to cling to the wall, along which the falls. For the game, half of which is platforming, such clumsiness is no good.
And besides the new Shadow of the Beast did not. Well, not counting almost unplayable original 1989 release and primitive social elements: you can send a gift to another player, or vice versa, “beat” him in absentia in QTE-knopkostuchalke stupid. Confused by this, by itself, is not enough.
And, like so many action games of the late 80’s and early 90’s, Shadow of the Beast can not boast of lasting: there are only seven steps, and those that are not inflated terrible platformal segments with the search for conventional keys and other ways to open doors, held for ten minutes.
Shadow of the Beast, perhaps able to please fans of the original, if any remained, but modern gamers simply nothing to offer her.
It feels like not the best indie experiment, and the fact that Sony is nurtured and cherished this game for three or four years, overwhelmingly surprised.
In the end, the original Shadow of the Beast at the time struck graphics and not gameplay, but just a good picture these days – and especially a week after the release of Uncharted 4: A of Thief’s End – one does not impress.
The rest of the new Shadow of the Beast to indecent primitive, and the fact that even in this case it is much better than the original in ’89, is another reminder that nostalgia can not be trusted.
