Shadow of the Beast 3

Title           Shadow of the Beast 3
Publisher       Psygnosis/Reflections, 1993
Game Type       General Action
Compatibility   Not A1200, but patch available
HD Installable  Yes (With Patch)
Submission      William Payne

Review
By the time Beast 3 was released, the series' appeal had begun to wane,
and this instalment was never as successful as either of its predecessors.
Beast 1 knocked us out with its graphics, Beast 2 revived us by getting
our brains into gear with some pretty tricky puzzles (possibly the only
game ever that was made more playable by inputting an invulnerability
cheat) and Beast 3, well, we glanced at the screenshots, didn't really see
anything new, and pretty much left it at that.

The main character has again evolved, from a proper beast in the first
game, to more human, if slightly Neanderthal appearing guy in the second
one to a proper, clothes-wearing man vaguely reminiscent of Indiana Jones
in the third instalment. The gameplay remains pretty much the same though,
presented as a side-on four-way scrolling graphic adventure which builds
on the puzzle-solving elements introduced in Beast 2. The game doesn't
seem quite as complete, though, and never made as significant a
contribution to the Amiga games scene as either of the others. It already
seemed too passé, way too eighties. Beast 1 seemed pretty dated, gameplay
wise, when it was released, and with no significant advances seen here, it
was never going to do well in the harsh world of Amiga gaming in 1993.
The four quests that needed to be completed could be tackled in any order,
but they were all pretty short in terms of actual number of puzzles. One
improvement over its predecessors was that it did actually seem like a
feasible game to complete without using an infinite life cheat. The
frequency with which the enemies attacked was slightly lowered and you
started the game with more than one life.  These minor tweaks weren't
enough to raise it above the classification of distinctly average, nor to
remove the tired, seen-it-all before sleep from the player's eyes.

Alphabetical list.