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.
The Atari Lynx port of Shadow of the Beast was developed by Digital Developments and first published by Psygnosis in 1992. And it is surprisingly good.
The PC Engine CD version of Shadow of the Beast is – in my opinion – the best version of the game available. For two reasons: it has the most responsive controls of any version of Shadow of the Beast I’ve played (even compared to the Amiga original), and it’s also the best-looking and best-sounding version of the game too. It was developed by DMA Design and first published in 1992. In Japan it was released by Victor Interactive Software as “Mashou no Okite“, and in North America it was released for the TurboGrafx CD by Psygnosis/Turbo Technologies.
***CANNED GAME***
The Super Nintendo version of Shadow of the Beast was prefixed with the word “Super” to differentiate it from other ports, and… it was cancelled before release and never officially made it out. It was developed by IGS (Information Global Service) and an unfinished prototype of the game was leaked in 1993.
The King of Grabs 