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"A piece of art!"

In the northern parts of the world, where I live, we have a star sign called "The three wise men", displayed clearly on the black nightsky shining brightly down on us. Just like these three stars standing united against the darkness for all eternity, the three sisters of the NES do likewise. The three sisters I speak about are the first person-adventure puzzle games Shadowgate, Deja Vu and Uninvited. They share the same blood (interface and functions) and mother (the company Seika), but they all have their own appeal and mind (style and plotline), while sharing the equal beauty and strength (well-made game concepts). This poem will focus solemnly on the wisest of the three sisters: Shadowgate.

Ah, forgive me for my lame attempt of a dramatic fantasy introduction to this review, but I just felt I had to. I bet that everyone that played the old NES console is familiar with these three games. While all being created by the same company, with the same basic construction and engine, they all have their own unique identity. Among adventure fanatics, these three games are often held as the queens of the older adventure games, and it comes without much surprise. The three Seika games succeeded simply due to their fantastic atmosphere and blending aesthetics as well as their crafted puzzles and thrilling plots. They were originally made for the PC, but the truth is that they never got their big glory until they were ported to the NES. These versions spiced up everything, adding music as well. While all three games are wonderful creations recommended to all gamers fond of puzzle and adventure, many of us (but not all) feel somewhere deep inside our hearts that Shadowgate is a little bit higher than the other two.

Shadowgate is a classic fantasy tale with all its ingredients. You are a brave hero, descendant of the legendary wizards, who has been sent out on an important quest. The evil warlock lord is planning to summon one of the most fearful monsters man has ever known: The behemoth! If the lord will succeed, the world will be engulfed forever into darkness. Of course, this mustn't happen, so Lakmir, the last remaining of the once powerful wizards, sends you out to the lair of the warlock lord - Castle Shadowgate! After a long journey over evil mountains, forests and rivers, you stand in front of the giant castle. Open the door, and enter the world of Shadowgate...a world shaped by the most perverted minds of hell, where hope and justice don't exist, and death lurks around every corner.

Shadowgate is a first-person adventure game. The screen is divided in a field of vision, and several command boxes. You operate the game by moving the cursor to a specified command, choosing it, and then point at the vision field to execute the command. You cannot walk around freely. Rather, you visit several set scenes via special paths. Your mission is to collect keys, items and weapons in order to find your way through the castle. You need to fight several beasts and solve many puzzles in order to continue the quest. The game uses a step-by-step method for the player. This means that each time you encounter something, the game waits for you to make a move. You are free to think for as long as you wish, but as soon as you do your command, you face the consequences. This means the battles aren't action based, but rather about finding the correct item or weapon and use it on the opponent. While the clicking command pattern gameplay won't appeal to everyone, I found it highly satisfying and functional.

Still, no matter how much we talk about gameplay, Shadowgate's true strength lies in its atmosphere. The game is creepy and nerve-chilling, but those words don't describe all of it, because there is something else. Shadowgate is so...spiritual, so...magical. The following paragraphs will try to describe this feeling.

The environment...
It is always something special about castles, don't you think? Sure, you can have great scenes in a mansion, a deserted ghost village, a dark forest and the alike. But a castle is truly the purest form of true horror. The many rooms and corridors tied up like a maze, all the different scenery and settings with beautiful libraries and banquet rooms as well as dark dungeons and torture chambers. A castle is like a world in itself, representing all sides of a human's mind and the society's parts. Shadowgate is a castle like this, and truly an inspiring and atmospheric world. It takes use of all types of rooms and locations to give the best impression of your worst nightmare. From the underground caverns and lakes to the stone cold hallways, from the wicked alchemy laboratories and banquet halls to the beautiful gardens and rooftop scenes, from the nerve-piercing cells in the prison towers to the secret underground paths, Shadowgate is a world that keeps fascinating, terrifying and occupying your mind.

The foes...
But the actual environment is only one piece of the golden coin. Another great aspect of Shadowgate is all the brilliant ideas and creativity the game developers had when they made the monsters of the game. When I played this game the first time, I didn't think about it, but after replaying it, I found something very cool and artistic from the developers. During your journey through Shadowgate, you will encounter the most mythical and varied beasts and spirits man has ever known. Shadowgate throws in a cocktail of elements from folklore all over the world. You find wyverns, sphinxes, Cerberus (the hellhound), werewolves, trolls, skeletons and gargoyles, to mention just a few. Very nice! A wonderful incorporation of beasts from all cultures and parts of the world! A big step away from all the old cliche fantasy worlds with elves and dwarfs, and likewise a respectful nod against all the small nearly-extinct cultures. And the best thing is that Seika wasn't bragging about it, saying "Hey hey! Look! We do a cool fusion!". No no, they chose the artistic way of putting together a world that could be swallowed in one sweep, or tasted drop for drop, feeling all the different flavours. Brilliant!

The puzzles and deaths...
Coming back to the gameplay, the puzzles you will encounter in Shadowgate are many, difficult and punishing. Death lurks everywhere, and the slightest misstep or incorrect move might send you towards your doom. While this can look annoying in a script like this, Shadowgate is actually giving you a fair chance, since you can save your game anytime and anywhere. As long as you save often, you won't risk of losing your progress. Speaking of dying, Shadowgate holds a lot of interesting and creative deaths. Most of them include the main character getting the most horrible and painful of injuries before he dies. Here, Shadowgate implements another cool tactic, because the game never displays the death graphically. Instead, you get to read a text message describing the whole death with all its gruesome details. This adds a lot of fear to the player, because she will definitely keep painting a picture in her mind with the horrible event. I won't spoil the plot for you, but I can give you a little example of some of the deaths that occur. The ways of losing your life include falling down and breaking your legs, getting burnt away by acid, drowning in lava or oil, getting your head crushed by a monster's jaws and lots more.

The aesthetics...
All this wouldn't have been so lovely if it hadn't been for the outstanding graphics and music. The graphics are very beautiful. The design of the monsters is very nice, and the whole game is very colourful, without looking childish and unfitting, and grainy, without feeling undetailed. However, the true power in the game lies in the music. All the songs you will hear are supreme, and they go right into your heart. The songs are many, and they change depending on the mood of the scene. Standing in front of the fountain in the night in the castle garden produces a soothing innocent song. Wandering deep down in the dark cold chambers lets you hear a song that makes you feel like the walls come closer and your air is slowly disappearing. Standing in the ballrooms makes the game chant a song that makes you think of all the perverted orgies and lusts the guests must have had there. The soundtrack is awesome, definitely one of the best for the NES.

Okay, back to reality again! I guess I make it sound like this game has no flaws at all. Well, it has, but some of them are just painful to certain people. First of all, the game takes a lot of time. It is not so long, but using the commands and scrolling through your item menu take a while. Second, the puzzles are sometimes very craving, and with the vast amount of items you have, you will often be stuck for very long before you solve the mystery and can go on. Third, like I stated in a previous paragraph, the risk of dying is very high. Still, this is okay if you are a person with a lot of patience and creativity (like me), but if you are impatient and dislike puzzles, you will probably not enjoy this game. Another word of warning is that the replay value isn't high at all, unless you rave about the game's ideas like I did in the previous paragraphs of course. There are no secrets, no second run.

For me, it is okay with all of this, but one low-down I just can't accept is the fact that the game is timed. During your journey, you need to have torches to be able to see anything. The amount of torches is limited, and if you run out of them, you die. This means, that if you are stuck on a puzzle for too long, you will eventually waste your torches, and might risk to have to restart your whole quest after a while because of lack of torches. This was a very dumb solution (even though it added a lot of scary atmosphere), and will probably scare away a lot of players.

The very final word:
I will try to be fair here. I like this game so much, but it is quite obvious I like the myth a lot more than the actual binary codes and using the joypad, if you get my point. Many players will probably find this game old, stiff and slow, and unless you like this type of games, you won't have a fun time. It is up to you if you want to play the game or not. But if you love adventure games with lots of challenging puzzles the slightest, and have a soft spot for blending fantasy tales, magical atmosphere and folklore artistry, this is THE game for you. I do want you to try it out once. There are some parts you have just got to see! And you might as well try out the other two games in this category (Deja Vu and Uninvited), especially if you enjoy this game. Enter the world of Shadowgate...I am sure you will stay for a very long time, my friend...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/30/06, Updated 10/31/06