Shadow of the Beast on the FM Towns was first published in Japan only by Cross Media Soft – a brand of Victor Musical Industries (a subsidiary of JVC) – in 1991, and came on CD-ROM.

Tim Ansell, who programmed the FM Towns version of Shadow of the Beast (and Shadow of the Beast II), founded the famous British developer The Creative Assembly in 1987 and this was one of a number of contract ports that he did for Psygnosis in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

This port seems to share some art and sound assets from the PC Engine conversion of Shadow of the Beast, which was released later, in 1992, and some of the names in the credits of that version also appear in this port, so there is a connection between the two. That said: graphically, the FM Towns version is much richer, in terms of colour, and all of the background graphics are different to the PC Engine version. The player character (Aarbron), and some of the cut scenes, are the same as the PC Engine version of the game, though.

The graphics are bold and beautiful and the scrolling is silky smooth, but there is some pretty bad sprite flicker at times (usually when there are large bosses or enemies on-screen). The backgrounds are well-drawn, but sometimes a tad too busy for my liking. The Aarbron sprite is very good, though. He seems to have some extra animation frames in this version. Aarbron reacts when hurt, which I don’t remember seeing in other versions, and his animation when getting onto a ladder seems to be extended too.

The controls are reasonably responsive, although Aarbron’s turning and ducking animations are slow and can cause problems when it comes to reacting to the many enemies and projectiles that the game throws at you. And in this port there seem to be more enemies in some places than in the original.

Punching repeatedly doesn’t always work as needed. Like, for example, when the flying skulls zoom toward you just before the second boss. In most other versions of this game you can punch them all to stop them from hurting you, but in this version you can’t do that. You might take out a few, but it doesn’t matter how quickly you mash the fire button, some will get through. Which is a bit unfair. The punching in this port is a bit hit and miss to be honest, and it’s frustrating.

One highlight of the FM Towns version is the enhanced CD audio soundtrack (complete with slap bass) that is provided. It still has the dated ‘pan pipe’ synth voices (that have always bugged me), but overall this is probably the best rendition of David Whittaker‘s Shadow of the Beast soundtrack available.

Shadow of the Beast on the FM Towns is a frustrating game at times – especially if you progress too far and can’t backtrack to find a key or item you missed – but it can become a compelling game when you begin to make progress. It’s a pity that this port suffers from some control issues, otherwise I’d say that it’s great. As it stands: it’s maybe a bit too difficult to give it too much praise.

If you’re going to play the game now I recommend using quicksaves in an emulator as that’ll at least allow you to try again if the game’s being unfair to you. Tsugaru is a good emulator to use for that.

More: Shadow of the Beast on Wikipedia