Shadowgate

I was pretty excited to see a classic adventure game that I never played being remastered. I relish every opportunity to fill out the blanks in my knowledge of gaming history: sometimes you find true gems that have aged well this way. Unfortunately Shadowgate isn't one of them. I have a high tolerance for old games and old mechanics: for instance I loved playing the text-based original Zork, which features a somewhat similar setting of a huge abandoned place to explore. This game however didn't elicit the same feelings of wonder, discovery and mystery. Here's what I dislike: - The game is very, very linear. While it might offer the occasional alternate path to reach a location, after solving a puzzle and exploring a few rooms you very rapidly are confronted with only locked doors. Contrast that to Zork where you could explore a huge initial chunk of the world. - The puzzles are hard and not exactly obvious to solve. Combined with the aforementioned linearity, this means you'll often have a single puzzle you need to crack to get anywhere, without the alternative to tackle something else if stuck. - You'll backtrack a lot trying to find answers, and screen transitions are slow with (if my memory's good) no keyboard shortcuts. Clicking repeatedly gets old fast. - Despite the magical story the universe is kind of bland. Typical adventure games have interesting NPCs and a lot objects to look at that will elicit interesting or whimsical comments from the protagonist. Here there are no NPCs (so far) besides your mysterious guide, and the rooms and objects you see don't really open up questions in your mind about what this place might be or what mysteries it might contain. - Frequent cheap deaths with a slow die-retry cycle. You wanna kill the player often? You need fast respawns like Super Meat Boy. All in all the game is sadly an exercise in boredom, even with a walkthrough at hand to avoid getting stuck for too long.

Old school gaming lovers rejoice! Shadowgate is back! I am a HUGE fan of the NES version. I have logged over 100 hours into this new version so far and I think it is pretty awesome! I'm excited to see what Zojoi's has in store next! (I know, but no spoilers for you! Beat this game and find out for yourself :) The game takes a bit of getting used to, it plays a lot different than pretty much everything on the market today, so give it a chance to let the atmosphere soak in and the colorful descriptions can make your imagination go wild. Really fun and old school goodness that is relatively short, but sweet. First time through will take you probably 8-14hrs and likely a restart or two, and once you know where everything is you can speed run through it in about an hour or less if you don't read anything and skip all the cut scenes. (But why do that? The cut scenes and colorful descriptions are awesome!) I recommend you start on easy or normal mode and work your way up to hard to get more replay value from the added layers for the puzzles as the difficulty ramps up. Not only that, but if you start on hard mode you may want to throw your brain at wall from the immediate high level of difficulty if you aren't used to it, so honestly.... build up to hard mode! Its a tough game that will give your brain a work out instead of your twitch gaming reflexes and its soooooo nice to play something different than another generic shooter. Great job Team Z! 8 / 10

A key point to emphasize with regards to the new Shadowgate game is that it is not simply a port/remake of the original Shadowgate. While it is based off of the original Shadowgate, and shares similarities with it, there is a significant amount of new content - rooms, items, descriptions, everything that goes into making the game. So, anyone who has played the original who is expecting to simply blow through this game in short order is in for a big surprise. That said, the new Shadowgate shares much in common with the original, where it is a near certainty that anyone who enjoyed the original will enjoy the new Shadowgate as well. All of the core aspects of a good Adventure game are here. In your journey through the castle Shadowgate and surrounding areas, you will be exploring through a wide variety of locations, gathering hints, clues and information, discovering items and putting them to use, solving puzzles, uncovering mysteries, all while working toward your end goal. The challenge and adventure of Shadowgate is alive and well, and fans of the series will be thrilled to see all of this brought into a new game so well. It's not very often that a game like the new Shadowgate comes along. A beautiful blend of old and new, a game which will appeal to fans of the series, fans of the genre, and people new to both of them. A game in a series which for so long had seemed lost and without hope, brought back to life, not in just a simple port or in a cheap use of the name, but in a lovingly-crafted game, both a tribute to what has come before, and a promise of what is to come. Dave Marsh, Karl Roelofs, and everyone at Zojoi, have created a masterpiece with Shadowgate. The series is once more in good hands, and the future is brighter than it has ever been. Journey once more into the castle Shadowgate!

This is less of a remake and more of a reconstruction from the ground up. For old fans wondering if it recaptures the old shadowgate experience, yes it does, but don't expect to be faced with the same old puzzles we've seen again and again in the previous shadowgate ports. The essence of what makes shadowgate what it once was is still there, but puzzles, map even the story have been rewritten and expanded to make this revival a grander new experience to recapture the attention of old fans and delight the new. As you can see from the screen shots many iconic rooms from the original are back touched up and modernised in a striking art style. Don't expect them to serve the same purpose they once did though or you will probably get stuck. While the new puzzles are quite challenging the game now has many new modes to curb the difficulty for new players and still provide the hardcore experience for old fans. Achievements unique to different modes and the new unlockable hidden deaths mode which will have you searching for old a new creative ways to kill your character (a homage to old adventure games like kings quest and the original shadowgate) provide an modicum of replayability this genre usually lacks. Race against the clock as each mode gives you only a limited amount of time and resources to reach the end before the world ends or your life is snuffed out, also note the attention given to the new narrative. The plot is much the same as the original but now told in much more detail with written lore, voice acting and stylised cutscenes to give a sense of epicness to your quest to save the world from the dark wizard. Whether you are a fan of the original or just point and click adventure games in general you owe it to yourself to experience this lovingly crafted remake of this much adored classic. The industry needs more remakes like this and the monkey island special editions to offset the influx of shovel ware hidden object games polluting the genre.