Super Shadow of the Beast

Super Shadow of the Beast is an action platfomer based on the Amiga game of the same name. Thanks to Thanks to Frank Cifaldi for getting the CES flier scan. By: Evan G Last updated: March 10, 2019

Super Shadow of the Beast was going to be an enhanced port of the action-platform Amiga game, Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis. It has this strange theme that is a mixture of fantasy, horror and science fiction. The SNES version was being made by a company called IGS. Nintendo Power mentioned it being shown at Summer CES 1992 convention, and that it looked better than the computer versions of the game. A scan of the flyer from the CES is below:

CES flier (click here for full sized scan)

I really like the brag "superior to other best selling versions"

The Leak

The prototype of the game that exists was leaked by the scene group Premiere in September 1993, quite a bit after the showing at CES. The copyright on the title screen (1992) probably indicates that this was leaked long after the game was cancelled. I'd assume that the header has been hacked, because the information is correct even though this game is probably not finished.

					     /\ 
					    /  \ 
 ._______________________________ __  /\  _/    \____________________________ 
 |          \          \        //  \/  \ \_____/                  \        / 
 |________   \____     /   ____//        \|     |   __________     /   ____/ 
     /   |    \  /    /   __/ \/          \     |  __/ \|    /    /   __/ \ 
 Mb /    _____/  \    \   |    \   \  /    \    |  |    \    \    \   |    \ 
   /      | |    |\    \        \   \/      \   |        \   |\    \        \ 
  /       | |____| \    \________\__||       \__|_________\__| \    \________ 
-/________|---------\____\-----------|________\-----------------\____\---93-- 
			      - Proudly Presents - 
		 
		  Title ->>  Super ShADOw oF DA BEAsT!                                
		Company ->>  WHO THE FUCK CARES! 
	 Console System ->>  Super Nes / Smc / 8Mbit 
	    Supplied By ->>  iCE CUBE! 
<---------------------------------------------------------------------------> 
 Y0!  i'M BACK WiTH MY REAL FRiENDS!  ENJoY DA SHiT, AND SUPPORT OUR BOARDS! 
<---------------------------------------------------------------------------> 

The Game

The leaked game is incredibly hard. There are many sections where I found that it was essentially impossible to not take damage. The damage meter is pretty liberal on the easiest difficulty, but pretty much everything will hit you before you can hit them. Another frustrating thing is that the character takes damage even from small falls off ledges. There is also a distinct lack of any audible or visual feedback when enemies that take multiple hits are taking damage. For these reasons, I don't think this prototype is the final version of the game.

I watched a video of the game played to completion, and it is possible to beat it if you essentially memorize the patterns of every section of the game. There are only a handful of levels in the game, and if this is close to final, it is a very short game (in the video, it was completed in about 17 minutes). I noticed some graphical glitches at one point, possibly indicating that this is a bad dump or simply that it is a bug.

Glitchy enemy, from the above linked video

The Amiga version of the game has a much slower pace and better enemy and trap placement, and appears to be a much more playable game (although by the accounts I saw, still an extremely hard game). The SNES prototype lacks the final boss that is in the Amiga version, as well as the cinematic sequences before levels. This prototype is not a straight conversion - the level design is definitely changed. All of these also point to this prototype not being the final version of the game.

Cannon guy	For a game made in 1992, the graphics are really good.

These enemies come at you quickly	The first boss in the game, it hits hard.

Game over - you will see this a lot

Download here

Bibliography

• Nintendo Power, Summer CES Special, Publication date: August 1992, Volume: 39, Pages: 58-61
• Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - Gossip Galore, Publication date: October 1992, Volume: 41, Pages: 113