CZCD 031: Shadow of the Beast

[Rimo]

While not being absolutely certain, I believe this album is a bootleg. There was also a similar album for "Novastorm" that was sold on eBay a few months ago (for over $100 :eek:), and the tracklist looked quite suspicious, with track names taken from another Psygnosis game, "Microcosm".

On the other hand, Psygnosis published a number of official albums back in the days, so it might not be impossible that these CDs are legit releases. Still, they look fishy to me.

If it was a custom made bootleg soundtrack, should it still be listed on VGMdb?

[LuxKiller65]

I jumped on the occasion and put all the information this afternoon. I should contact the seller and ask for a higher resolution scan of the disc, that might help check if it's a legit item. Looks pretty high quality to me though.

[LuxKiller65]

M'kay so is the info in the notes section confirmed? No boot?

[Miles]

Why does the tracklist language say German? That sure doesn't look German to me. =P

[pepak]

The Shadow of the Beast is definitely a bootleg, though I can't discount the possibility that the composers actually allowed it to be produced. It is being sold by Binary Zone here: here (http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=407)

[Secret Squirrel]

Cool, that link contains a catalog number. It looks like Binary Zone has quite a large catalog, and we've got many of the albums indexed here. I think this is still shrouded in mystery, so I don't whether or not the Binary Zone albums should be called bootlegs or not.

[pepak]

Well, they are all CDRs, and all of them are self-produced (recorded from either a C64 or Amiga). It is possible that BZ do have a permission to publish them, since many 8-bit-era composers are quite free about allowing their work to be published, but I find it odd that BZ don't publish any recommendations or praise by the composer himself - which is quite common with the "really legal" releases such as Back in Time (C64) or Immortal (Amiga). Also - I fail to see how could BZ produce their line of "select your favorite 25 tracks and we will create your custom CD of them" - surely at least one of the composers wouldn't have given his permission...
(Not to mention that the copyright often belongs to the publisher, not the composer, so the composer would have little say in the matter in any case).

On the other hand - the Shadow of the Beast is beautifully produced, the sound quality is excellent and I can only recommend it.

[LuxKiller65]

Yeah I was wondering if it made sense to buy one on Binary Zone or not. I tried sending them a mail, hope they can give more info. If it's a boot then all the Shadow of the Beast CDs I saw on eBay and on forums come from there. I even saw one factory sealed going for over 100EUR, what the hell.

[Gigablah]

Updated the album info according to the BZI page. The question now is whether the information in the notes section is accurate.

[LuxKiller65]

If it is, the site either bootlegs it or is indeed the only distributor.

[pepak]

As far as I know, they made the CD, not a third party.

[LuxKiller65]

I think this might be of interest to some of you. I managed to find a "prototype" version of this canceled album.

http://d.imagehost.org/0317/beast_02.jpg

Back appears to have minor differences, while disc appears to be the same. So basically the first version was replaced by a version with a different front cover, the obi removed, and then the whole project got buried deep underground. Exactly 100 of these were produced, and as for the other "normal" release, between 200 and 300. Unless this was a test for the Japanese market, in which case please read "prototype" as "test for Japanese market". Still need to dig some info before editing the album info.

Would be great if someone could translate the obi.

[Xenofan 29A]

That text is in Chinese. I'm sorry, but I can't translate it.

[pepak]

My bet is it's a bootleg much like those made by Ever Anime and co.

[LuxKiller65]

You're right, it's Chinese! Very very very general translation is something like this: Animal Fight Something / Half Human Half Monster / Famous Computer Game.

I got this directly from Kenz. Chinese doesn't necessarily mean bootleg btw. :O)

[Xenofan 29A]

I see the word for music (音樂) as well. I was under the impression that bootlegs generally didn't have the game company logo on them, and this one seems to.

[LuxKiller65]

I got this from one of the project's leaders, really, I think it's safe to assume what he told me is true: this was a first test that got dumped, and they did a new cover which was going to be the final one. Kenz then recently found the 4 boxes that were produced (4x25 units).

: )

Thanks for the help in translating too ; )

[LuxKiller65]

For those who care, Binary Zone is doing/has done more than one release featuring Chinese descriptions on the obi.

http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=245

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/213/wotes.jpg/