Shadowgate

After having played an hour or two of the game I don't have any desire to play more of it. The main issue is that the game lacks character. The storyline thus far is generic in the extreme. The sound effects are basic - every attempt to use items result in a metallic clonk even if neither of the items are metal. The art work aims at retro, but the almost entirely static scenes combined with the sketchy art style feels fairly perfunctory. There's also no consistency in architectural style, high fantasy rivers of lava or floating staircases sit next to humdrum square stone rooms or crumbly caves. None of which would matter if the writing was any good, but the game falls down there too. In short, it's just a by the numbers adventure game with nothing memorable about it. Most adventure games released in the last decade are higher quality.

This video game is a complete remake of the classic shadowgate. Which aims to retell the story through a new user interface, new graphical paintings, new orchestrated soundtrack and even a new hint guide that follows you during your adventure. It comes with 3 difficulty levels to choose from and has extra retro settings for those that feel like classic tunes, transitions and text to spice it up. All of the graphics appear to be painted, which improves the original look of the castle. They do try to animate some of the monsters, but they end up looking like puppets on strings. Which for me wasn't a problem because it's all about the paintings. Since this game is about telling a story while simultaneously going through a dungeon crawl, the art style fits it perfectly. I can compare it to viewing the videos for Lords Of War or The Burdens of Shaohao from recent warcraft media, but with a little more color and detail, especially for the cinematics. The new musical score is an orchestrated version of the classical 8-bit soundtrack. It fits perfectly with the remake's graphical presentation and even comes with the option to toggle Retro Mode : Audio for Hiroyuki Masuno's original 8-bit versions. The story itself is linear with about two mandatory side quests that need to be done in order to advance the plot and the pacing of the game is incremental; you'll see a fair share of Lakmyr and Talimar as you solve large portions of the castle. The game initially comes with 3 difficulty levels to choose from. You may opt to follow the game's starting tutorial as you select the desired difficulty. Choosing one of these will affect the density of your torch power, turn count and puzzle complexity. However, a select few important puzzles will remain the same across all three difficulties. 5/5 I recommend the game as it is, but i also do so because the game has a good possibility of coming out with more features in a future patch. The world needs more Shadowgate.

After playing this old-school type point and click I have to say the developers did a great job. The game is based on calm semi-animated images. The artwork is beautifully made and very atmospheric. All of the riddles are enjoyable, and opposed to what some reviewers have said are absolutely NOT random! Every normal person with a bit of imagination who enjoys playing around with options can solve the puzzles with a bit of perseverance. I got the game discounted, and for about 5€ this is absolutely worth it, about two half days of playtime. If you enjoy puzzles, atmospheric artwork and music, and are not looking for a fast paced dungeon crawler this is for you.

Like others I've found memories of the NES port of Shadowgate. The music, the atmosphere, everything on that game smelled like adventure. This game is a reimagining of the original NES version. I say reimagine insteado of remake because it's obvious to me that while they have strong roots on the NES version, this version isn't held by those roots. Many rooms are similar but almost all puzzles are completely different and even the ones that look like a puzzle found on the NES version will have twists to them. The visuals are gourgeous. They use a handpainted style with very few animations and the whole experience is like playing a painting. They also vastly improved the delivery of puzzles in the sense that this game isn't a pixel hunt at all. Everything you can interact with will glow when you just click it to indicate that. That doesn't mean you SHOULD interact to everything but there is never a moment where you have to interact with some hidden object that you'll only discover by clicking everything on the screen. Some flaws that I did find are for example the interface. Many times you have to use an item you have on the inventory and use it on the scene. The inventory screen takes the whole screen so you have to open the inventory screen, go to the page the item is at, click the item, click "use", close the inventory screen and click where you want to use the item. This becomes a little tedious when you're trying some combinations to solve a puzzle. The NES version kept the inventory open at all times at your side so you could quickly try many items. They could fix this by having a closeable inventory panel that doesn't obstruct the screen so you could keep it open while you try using items. I'm having a blast. The game have three dificulty settings that actually change the puzzles. I went and selected the Master dificulty directly because that's how the NES version where - ruthless. I recomend you do the same.

As a fan of the MacVenture games I was really impressed with this. Updated puzzles, added lore, graphics, and voice acting but it still feels like Shadowgate. On top of that it comes with tutorials/tips and different levels of difficult which makes it more accessible to new gamers. Again, the game is short and linear with a decent amount of "lateral thinking" puzzles, but that was part of the original game experience too which is way I say it's a great example of a remaster. I'm just surprised this flew under the radar for me and I didn't know about it until it was on sale during Halloween. I really hope the creators do Deja Vu and Uninvited.