 Ssssssssssss that's drunk! Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men! Well, Ocean Software sure knows, for one reason or another they were able to obtain tons of movie and TV licenses to make awful Super Nintendo games based on stuff like Robocop 3, Dennis the Menace, Cool World, The Untouchables, I could go on, but hey, not everything they made totally sucked. I mean Jurassic Park may be flawed, but it's a good enough game. Jurassic Park 2 The Chaos Continues is a decent co-op running gun, and The Shadow is actually a decent beat-em-up. The only problem with that one is, well, it was based on the film of the same name starring Alec Baldwin, and that movie was a total flop at the box office, so Ocean outright cancelled the game, even though it was mostly, if not completely, finished. At least as far as I can tell, the game even got reviewed in Nintendo Power where it got a reasonably favorable write-up. The Shadow originates as a series of pulp novels written in the 1930s by Walter B. Gibson, and the movie, to its credit, is pretty faithful to the source material. It's really not that bad of a film, sure it's cheesy as heck and the story isn't much, but hey, it's got Ian McKellen, Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Curry, and if nothing else, it's a cool movie to look at. Similar sentiment could be said about the Super Nintendo game, the presentation here is pretty good, the sprite animation is well done, and as far as beat-em-up goes, it includes all the usual bells and whistles, like weapons, special moves, and change of pace game modes where you, uh, shoot stuff instead of punch stuff. You get three lives and three continues to get through eight levels with no saves or passwords, it's typical beat-em-up stuff here, but with a few extras. To beat a jump, why to punch, X to throw a weapon, or if you don't have a weapon, it does a nifty leg sweep. Y and B at the same time does a special attack like an uppercut or a jump kick, only unlike Final Fight, you don't lose any health from using it. The A button triggers a special ability, which has its own power meter in the upper right. You can either turn invisible, do a dash attack, or a clear screen attack, and you flip between the three with the L and R buttons. The dash attack certainly looks cool, and turning invisible is, uh, neat, I guess. But the clear screen attack can be used four times on a full meter, and it's by far the best of the three abilities. Reviews of this game, at the time, always made sure to lump it in with titles like Final Fight and Double Dragon, but this game is much closer to Final Fight, I don't get the Double Dragon comparison at all, that's an entirely different ball of wax. If I were to pick a beat-em-up the Shadow compares closest to, it would be the Pirates of Dark Water, it's got similar pacing and similar sprite sizes, so if you're familiar with that game, you'll feel right at home with the Shadow. One major difference I should point out, however, is that Pirates of Dark Water is two-player co-op, whereas the Shadow is not, it's single-player only. And that's too bad, because holy crap, this game is long, especially for a beat-em-up. The eight levels feel like an eternity, I mean, the first two levels alone took me nearly 30 minutes. That's a lot of punching and kicking and monotony for what's ultimately only an average game, if you want to call it that. It's almost like Ocean Software was so intense on following the movie's story, which is usually an admirable feat, but in this case it backfired, because this game goes on and on and on. Granted, the settings here are pretty dang nice-looking, even the token elevator stage looks cool as you fight your way up the Empire State Building, and this boss fight looks like something out of Highlander. But the problem here is, this certainly seems like it should be the final boss fight. I mean, this is the final boss right here, you fight the guy twice in two different dimensions or something, but there's even more to slog through after this, where you take on a boss gauntlet and then fight the same guy you just beat again. Ugh. For what it's worth, though, this game does have plenty of style and presentation. Between each level you get some dialogue sequences that feature some sharp pixel art, and the music throughout the game is pretty dang good. This game, however, is dark, and I don't mean dark conceptually, just dark as in not a whole lot of light. It reminds me of spawn for Super Nintendo in that way. There's a couple levels where I wonder if there's something wrong with the game or my TV or something. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I mean this rain level looks cool, this haunted house is well done, and the typical street settings look nice. So, how do you actually play this game? Well, clearly this is one you have to play any way you can, since it never got any kind of official release, and the always helpful website SNESCentral.com has a bunch of information you'll find handy. There's a link in the description, and just scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find the game itself. So, is it worth the time? You know, the shadow really isn't that bad. I was expecting much worse considering it came from the makers of the Flintstones and, you know, a bunch of other licensed crap. But this game is actually decent for what it is. I liken it to a single-player version of Pirates of Darkwater, for better or for worse. It's just that, geez, Louise, this game drags after a while. Sure, they do have one level here where you're on a motorcycle chasing after bad guys. That's kinda neat for, you know, like two or three minutes, but then it's back to beating up the same enemies over and over. It's not exactly a crime that the Shadow has never released, but if you like 16-bit beat-em-ups, then you'll find some enjoyment here. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.