Shadow Of The Beast III

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Aarbron won against all odds in the previews two games (Shadow Of The Beast 1 and 2) regaining his human nature. But Maletoth is still alive and poses a very powerful and deadly threat to humanity. Now it's Aabron's third chance to destroy the evil entity once and for all and bring back peace to the country, so he must once more fight his way through hostile territories swarmed by evil creatures that will do their best to prevent him from finding Beast Lord. The game is based on a combination of action and puzzle solving elements with a little more emphasis on the latter. Typical puzzles involve switching levers or moving hooks, opening bridges, doors and also trapping large monsters. This time, the world is split into four distinct stages, instead of one extensive area. Shadow Of The Beast III places less of an emphasis on the action department that was so prominent in the first two games and, instead, it follows a more "cerebral" approach. Back in 1992, it seems that this Beast game didn't get as much attention as its predecessors, with the reviewers of the time mostly praising the improvements in gameplay and not the difficulty level or its visuals. Overall, Shadow Of The Beast III plays well (actually slightly better than its predecessors) but it still is one of the most tough games ever to grace the Amiga library!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Shadow Of The Beast III has great graphics and sound but though their quality they were not considered revolutionary in 1992. The level details are great but it's obvious that the color palette has been dramatically reduced (as on Beast II) compared to the original Beast I. The latter showcased 128 colors on-screen and its two sequels, 64 only! Either way, the level design looks so cool (much like Beast II), and the sprites' animation runs as fluid as water plus that the game offers some great parallax scrolling in both foregrounds and backgrounds.
The game's sound follows Reflections' classic quality with impressive in-game music scores and sampled sound effects everywhere (similar to Beast II).