Review - Shadow of the Beast 3 is the third and final chapter in the Beast trilogy and it is also the most playable of the bunch.

The atmospheric graphics with their evocative landscapes and eye-catching color-shading are back, as well as the multi-layered parallax scrolling and the beautiful music, which perfectly fits the game. In particular, the level of detail and the variety of the backgrounds are truly impressive. During level 4, you'll come across the wreckage of your plane (the same plane you were on when you crash-landed in the intro sequence)…Little details like these do enhance the playing experience and will make you want to see the game from start to finish.

The difficulty of this third chapter has been considerably reduced compared to the prequels although levels tend to be even less linear now, as they include mind-twisting puzzles which will seriously test your brain cells and your patience since they are very unforgiving…

Beast III came out exclusively on the Amiga (no ports on other machines were ever made) and it represents the swan-song of a glorious saga on a glorious computer.

(*) = The NTSC version of Shadow of the Beast III (SOTBIII) is not compatible with the Pal Amiga 500 computer even if using a degrader. Curiously enough, if you load the SOTBIII Pal Disk 1 into your Pal Amiga and then load SOTBIII NTSC Disk 2, the game will load! (I had to try this because my Pal Disk 2 was damaged and I had a spare NTSC disk set)

Bottom line: The most playable of the trilogy but some of the atmosphere of the previous instalments got lost somewhere....7/10

Ports

Shadow of the Beast (Atari ST)

Shadow of the Beast (Mega Drive)

Shadow of the Beast (PCE CD)

Shadow of the Beast (Lynx)

Shadow of the Beast (C64 Cartridge)

Shadow of the Beast (FM Towns - Marty)

Shadow of the Beast II (FM Towns - Marty)