Ah, good ole retrogaming programmers. Where would consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Atari 2600 be without them? Probably not still talked about on as many websites as they are today. Take Legacy of the Beast for example. This is a Shadow of the Beast demake by Aeriform over on Itch.io. This is a Shadow of the Beast demake. For Atari 2600.

Shadow of the Beast was impressive

Anyone that saw Shadow of the Beast in the early 90’s probably remembers the awe it emitted. Considering I didn’t own a Commodore Amiga, I was relegated to following games like this in magazines. Just an amazing looking game. I did eventually get to play Shadow of the Beast on a demo TurboGrafx-16 at a game store years later though. They were using it to show off the CD-ROM attachment.

Over the years I have checked out various versions of Shadow of the Beast. Most recently was a demake, or proof of concept, for the Intellivision console.

Legacy of the Beast enters the battle

The Atari 2600 is a versatile system. Do not believe me? Check out some of the independent homebrew created for it. Legacy of the Beast is just another example of how much this console can do.

Sure, graphically things are different. The Atari 2600 simply cannot compete with the Commodore Amiga graphically. Spiritually though, Legacy of the Beast captures the essence of the Psygnosis classic.

Playing Legacy of the Beast

The controls for Legacy of the Beast are simple. Left and right move that direction, up enters doors. The action button attacks and reset starts the game.

Like Pitfall, you can enter underground levels as well as traverse the overworld. Enemies come onto the screen quickly and are easily dispatched with an attack.

What is here is simple, but it works so well. Check it out on Itch.io and grab your copy. The author is apparently looking into the legality of offering physical carts as well.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams