10-year-old me never designed a game, but if I did there's a good chance it would look somewhat like Shadow of the Beast. Plenty of cool ideas, unique enemies, enemy formations and level hazards, but they're all strung together haphazardly with little regard for balance or flow - it really does feel like someone with ADHD just designed a whole lot of unique monsters, strung together a bunch of "wouldn't it be cool if-" moments and called it a day.

Shadow of the Beast's most infamous quality is probably its difficulty, and for good reason. Many handheld games had worse screen crunch, games like Secret of Evermore had worse hit detection, and Strider in its worst moments had far more hazards onscreen at once - but this game put all those frustrating elements together on top of giving the player a grand total of zero continues. I'll admit to using the invincibility cheat, without which I would never have made it past the penultimate level - a shmup stage made way harder than it should be by your vertically-oriented hurtbox.

Perhaps the game's most offputting quirk is how it handles its non-linearity. There are certain items (keys, a wrench, a torch, etc.) you need to pick up in order to make progress, but the game is buggy enough that doing things out of order will glitch the game out and softlock you. This turns dead ends into literal dead ends and leaves basically no room for deviation or exploration.

The game's graphics, cool soundtrack and surprisingly smooth controls save it from a lower score, but it's definitely one of the weaker-designed platformers from the era.

Every review on this site seems to be for the Genesis version. That version is dogshit that runs too fast and is nearly unplayable.
I would heavily rec the PC Engine version on the other hand. It's much more atmospheric, especially with the creepy 3D CGI. The turning is snappier, the player can set extra lives and continues should they need to, the collision is precise, and the built in turbo makes the game much more manageable. It's genuinely a great action platformer, if a bit short. I laughed out loud (LOL'd) when I picked up a powerup that drained my health. SOUL!

Shadow of the Beast does nothing but fascinate me in pretty much every way.

The cover art is incredible and makes it stand out from so many other games it had to share a rack with back in the early 90s, and the art design in general is simply outstanding. There are so many different enemies in this game it'll blow your mind, many of them only show up once in the entire playthrough! My favorite is the dude that just hangs out in a statue of himself who comes out and ambushes you after you destroy it. Who the fuck would do that? It's the most insane tactic I've ever heard of.

The gigantic bosses are absolutely insane, everything here is just "wow, holy fuck this is goddamn cool".

Then you get killed in one hit from the colossal demon sled in the tree level.

That's another thing that baffles me about this, the fact that it's so impenetrable that many Famicom games would be shocked into cardiac arrest at the sheer sadistic cruelty this game will force upon the player. One false step and it's a free one-way trip to the title screen. No lives, no continues, no diddly dick, you know the drill. Fail to grab a key in the tree level at the beginning? Guess you can't complete a stage later in the game! Sucks to be you!

I love this game, but Jesus Mary and fuckin' Joseph is it badly designed. There are many times where you'll be instantly attacked from all angles, you can accidentally softlock if you fail to pick up a wrench earlier in the castle stage, it also later temporarily turns into a shmup with your hitbox being so big that it makes Silver Surfer jealous. The castle stage dims when you first enter it, and you need a torch, but the torch is right next to the door! What was the point?! Why do you need the luck and timing of Buddha to hit things with your punch without taking a hit?! Why is the Psygnosis logo an enemy?! Why did they accidentally make the game faster when putting this on North American hardware?! Why?!

TELL ME THE ANSWER TO THIS RIDDLE GOD DAMMIT.

Uma neurose projetada pra testar o hardware do Amiga e ser difícil, não se importando se é justo ou não.

Se destacava pelas 12 camadas de parallax scrolling e os gráficos absurdos pra época. Não é de se impressionar que o visual carrega o jogo nas costas (algo que até um dos designers admite) porque de resto você tem um level design extremamente podre e sem nexo.

Mas de modo negativo e positivo, conhecer esse jogo foi bem interessante e fez eu me apaixonar pelos trabalhos do Roger Dean.

While the incredible sound and rich graphics immediately excites you when you boot the game, the first punch animation and hard death just as quickly evaporates that elating feeling.

Shadow of the Beast was a showcase for the Amiga's graphical power and its musical capability, but as per the reviews even back then the game design was not the best, veering too much into the bullshit category far too often, not helped by the stiff controls and limited animations. But THAT soundtrack... man it's simply astounding how good it is.

Um jogo realmente mesmerizante. Não é só uma questão dos gráficos serem avançados para a época (de fato eram): toda a estética visual dá à obra uma atmosfera única, que sozinha quase carrega o jogo como um todo.

Quase. Passado o deslumbre inicial, é preciso "lutar" com os controles nada graciosos e o level design feito sob medida para sacanear com o jogador. Não é tão ruim se você sabe o que deve fazer (dica: explore as áreas da esquerda primeiro), mas mesmo conhecendo bem o game e todas suas armadilhas não dá para dizer que é uma experiência agradável.

shoutouts to user C_F for recommending the PC engine version, which is vastly superior from the first version i played.
at first i played the genesis version because i though ''it can't be that bad'' turns out it can and it will be that bad, this is a unfair games, at times you will get hit, you will get bonked out of your mind and there is nothing you can do about, you only have one life and if you die thats it, trial and error at its worst, the saving grace was the art, the weirdness of it all and the music.
but then i heard of the pc engine version and gave it a shot, and i was surprised by it, its still a game that overall really dislikes you and want you and your whole family to choke on a cactus, but now it has remorse and gives you a live system, more fair hitbox (for the most part), but it will still bonk you to your place, it will still let you softlock yourself and it will still hate you.
at least this version have some very nice FMV to come and a even better soundtrack, i was pleasantly surprised.
and the best part, now Aarbron moans like a girl every time you get hit
(btw what are these monsters in the box art ? they aren't even in the game)