Shadow of the Beast II

"A caveman an his yo-yo."

What is Shadow of the Beast 2? Is it a fine gaming experience? Is it an enigmatic, overlooked, piece of gaming? Is it one of those brilliant things spitted by Electronic Arts in the early 90’s? (You can laugh now) A better question would be: “What Shadow of the Beast 2 is not?” …it certainly is none of the above.

Infamous now among the Xbox community, Electronic Arts once was a company no action gamer really paid any attention at all. Famous for their thousands of generic sports games, Electronic Arts used to publish the games created by many other such companies like Titus, Bluesky, and Psynosis, who came up with games no one actually wanted to put forth. Back in the 16 bits era, Electronic Arts’ games were so bad, and I mean SO BAD, Sega itself refused to manufacture the little monsters! That’s the history behind those bulky EA cartridges with the yellow plastic label.

So what is Shadow of the Beast 2? Developed by Psygnosis, Shadow of the Beast 2 continues the story of the previous game which, I am told, was far superior and polished than this vegetable. In SOB2 you play the role of some wandering caveman who’s only garment is a loincloth, and your task is to get him through a trippy prehistoric world to gods-know-where, fighting hordes of flesh eating flowers, flying creatures, talking slugs, stone giants, colorful poisonous mushrooms and many other crazy things the developers dreamt up while reading Robert E. Howard and dropping acid.

God and the seven heavens alone know what’s the story behind this dog, but the main character is supposed to be the same cool monster from the previous game. Apparently, the curse on him was deflected and he recovered his man status. The why he went on running semi naked instead of finding some clothing is anyone’s guess, but you are on a mad rage to kill some powerful wizard of sorts. (I got this from the Internet!) I never finished this thing, but apparently at the end, you board a space ship and travel to a distant star system to fight the true cause of your folly! Unfortunately, this crazy new chapter didn’t make it pass the Amiga, so…

…I mean… what he hell?! Think about it; your character is a hippy-looking caveman armed with a yo-yo who travels to the distant stars to fight Lovecraftian horrors! The poor thing looks like a reject from “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai”!

The game is simple. You could even say that the entirety of the game is one huge level, but unfortunately, there are certain parts of the game that require the game to load. Loading in a cartridge, I tell you! And the terrible, monotonous, music doesn’t help much, believe me.

The format is that of plataformer style with “RPG elements”, whatever these elements might be. You find your way through rivers, caves and open fields. You can get inside houses and find information related to the world you inhabit. There is an element of puzzle, but these puzzles are more about timing and precision than using your head.

And your caveman is not the most brilliant bulb. When you want to descend a rope, you not just descend, you fall to your death! This type of dumb mistakes are what make you wonder if this thing ever got through the testing rooms. The animation is well done, but he jumps kind of funny.

The enemies in this game are numerous and actually very well done. Enemy design does get good points from me. Some of the creatures are actually unique, seen or fought just once and encountered never again, giving this game an absolutist perspective that I like in many games. But the problem comes with the difficulty. Some of these creatures are extremely difficult to maim, let alone kill, and some of them are actually indestructible and you need to find alternate ways to pull them off, ways that probably will never become apparent.

For example, one of the enemies is a giant with the body of a man and the head of a bird of sorts. It is carrying a long knife and as soon as you come close, it’ll cut you in half. The only way to get this thing off the road is by getting close to it and let it follow you, until you reach a wooden bridge. Once this thing steps on the bridge, the whole thing collapses, and the creature falls to its death. Mind you, hadn’t I read it on an strategy guide I was fortunate enough to find I would had never thought about that!

And what about combat? How do you dispose of lesser monsters and fellow cavemen? Why, with your yo-yo, of course! The yo-yo is an effective weapon of mass destruction, and it is so cute! The longer you press the action button, the longer the yo-yo expands. It swings forward in a perfectly horizontal line and then swings back in. Not that it will be of much help when the other cavemen are spearing you to death with their sharps sticks, but hey, you also have power points that enable you to throw axes and knives… for just nine seconds!

The music, as noted before, is monotonous. If I remember correctly, there is a change in the music once you reach a river that takes you through a cavern and leads to a mysterious land filled with poisonous mushrooms and reigned by a giant slug, but nothing really exciting.

Whatever happened to the sense of mystery this game gave me? I was a dumb and impressionable kid back then, this game could have been much more! The opening screen is very enigmatic, with a creepy castle on the distant and the guy, apparently, throwing a star to the sky. What happened, Psygnosis? Why cheapen yourself with lousy game design and bad marketing? The previous Shadow of the Beast was a game liked by many people, with many positive qualities to it. None of them are present here, and it is a shame.

2 out of 10. Monsters helped this pesky vegetable.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/03