Shadow Of The Beast

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Shadow of the Beast takes place in a fantasy world where an Evil Lord called Maletoth kills Aabron's (our hero's) father and casts a spell to transform the young boy into a wild, strong and ugly beast (Aabron actually looks much like the ancient Greek god, Pan). Now Aabron must avenge his father's death and break the curse, gaining back his human nature. On his task, he must fight armed enemies, bloodthirsty monsters, magician lords, skeletons, avoid traps and finally confront the menacing Maletoth. The journey is hard and Aabron needs ample energy in order to survive. His only weapons are his bare hands plus some rare tools that he can use on the way. In terms of gameplay, Shadow of the Beast is one of the most difficult games ever created so it takes patience and some good skills to survive. And the Lynx port is no exception. The whole action is pretty fast and the enemies are fiercely attacking to kill Aabron. But, apart from the enemy hordes there are also deadly traps, maze-like stages (like the underground ones) and gigantic level bosses to kill.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Atari Lynx port has wonderful visuals, featuring most of the original (Amiga) background details and having around 45 colors on-screen! Everything moves fast, the sprites are well animated while the backgrounds are among the best we've seen on this handheld console! There is a smooth enough four-levels parallax scrolling, that really adds to the great visuals of the title. The game's sound is also great, featuring most of the original tunes while there are several in-game sound effects (not sampled) that add a lot to the otherwise tough gameplay.