In 1987, a point’n’click adventure game was released on the Apple Macintosh Shadowgate, in which the player was asked to explore an extremely hazardous castle, the residence of a powerful evil warlock, from a first-person perspective. Two years later the game was ported to the NES, where it gained enormous popularity at the time. Shadowgate was distinguished by a particularly gloomy atmosphere and was a real dangerous adventure, where traps and monsters awaited at every turn, and every wrong move led to the premature death of the hero.
After Shadowgate ported to many more platforms, there were also sequels and prequels, and in 2012 the creators of the original, gathered under the guise Zojoi, raised almost $140 thousand through Kickstarter for a modern, updated and expanded remake. More recently, it was finally released on Steam, and, as it turned out, people die here even more often than in the 1987 game.
Simple movements
Increased hardcore is the first thing that catches your eye when meeting a new Shadowgate. Nowadays, in remakes or continuations of some ancient quests, they usually try to simplify everything and everyone, but here it seems that the authors are deliberately doing everything to scare away the modern audience. First of all – interface and management.
As in the original, the action unfolds from the eyes, and on the screen you see a huge number of commands necessary to interact with active points and objects – “take”, “examine”, “use”, “talk”, “hit”, “open”, “go forward”. As a result, in order to cut a bush with a dagger, you need to perform several actions: open your inventory, select the dagger, then click on the “use” command, close the inventory and, finally, click on the bush. And to get through the door, it’s not enough to find the key and use it on the lock – then you also need to select the door itself, click “open”, select it again and, finally, click “go forward”.
Thank God the authors turned out to be not completely sadists. If you delve into the game settings, it turns out that if you wish, you can remove this entire cumbersome interface from the screen in order to activate commands through the keyboard, and assign the desired items or spells (more on them a little later) to “hot keys”. This, of course, simplifies the situation, but still, even in this form you will have to make quite a lot of unnecessary movements.
Dark Souls with puzzles
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In the gameplay itself, the authors also made some concessions. Three difficulty levels have appeared. The intensity and number of puzzles, as well as the content and even the presence/absence of some scenes depend on which one you choose. For example, on the easiest level you will need to find only one missing skull to solve the puzzle, and on the hardest level you will need to find all three. A hint system has also appeared – the talking skull Yorick acts as an assistant (this is such an author’s joke).
But even on easy difficulty Shadowgate looks like this Dark Souls in the world of modern quests. More than once or twice you will have to rack your brains on how to correctly turn levers or torches on pedestals so that something somewhere opens or, conversely, closes. Moreover, it is not yet entirely clear what exactly and where – you will have to re-examine the locations, and there is no provision for quick movement between them. Of course, there are clues that force you to carefully read the notes found and examine the walls of the catacombs in search of some symbols. But neither they nor the advice of the capricious Yorick ever give a comprehensive answer to what to do next and which of the many items in the inventory is needed for what.
In addition to solving puzzles and “hunting for pixels” (active points, by the way, cannot be highlighted here) in Shadowgate still have to survive naturally. The dark castle of the same name, which we are exploring, is known for the fact that it is almost impossible for an ordinary mortal to survive here – in almost every second location there are corpses, bones and skulls, as well as monsters, traps and obstacles that threaten quick and painful death.
For example, we came across the lair of a local dragon, tried to take something from under its nose, and it immediately turned you into a kebab. They saw something clearly important in the water, stuck their nose in there, and a sea serpent would eat you! You also have to constantly make sure that the torch does not go out – if this happens, then the hero, as in the original, will find himself in complete darkness and break his neck. Therefore, it is better not to set fire to torches hanging on the walls (they will also go out sooner or later), but to take them with you. You also need to save constantly – there are no restrictions on “saves”.
An orchestral soundtrack was recorded for the game, but in the settings you can turn on original music from almost 30 years ago.
Armed and dangerous
Properly selected equipment will help you cope with some monsters or simply survive after their attack – this is the role-playing elements in Shadowgate. From time to time we find different types of weapons and armor that need to be attached to a kind of hero doll. If, for example, you take a wooden shield, then the same dragon with its fiery breath will still incinerate it first, and then you. But if there is an iron shield in his hands, then the hero will be saved. And this is important, because in the lizard’s lair there are many useful items.
There are no actual battles in the usual sense of the word, but from time to time the path is blocked by dangerous enemies, for example goblins or a werewolf. If the hero is properly armed, then you need to click on the enemy, then press “hit” – and you will deal fatal damage.
In addition, from time to time we learn spells. Some of them will be needed to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, with the help of others you can resist the same monsters – for example, temporarily blind the goblins standing in your way, so that you can quickly deal with them later.
Shadowgate really evokes about the same emotions as Dark Souls: at first it’s scary, unpleasant, uncomfortable and you want to run away, but then what’s happening drags you in. Here there is the same gloomy, thick atmosphere, brutal voice acting and a feeling of danger that constantly tickles your nerves. The game challenges you and you accept it. I want to overcome everything and find out how the adventure will end. Moreover, the updated, supplemented and expanded plot offers more interesting situations, unexpected encounters and dangerous acquaintances.
Pros: the game looks and sounds very atmospheric; what is happening constantly challenges you; a rare combination of quest and RPG elements; many interesting situations, riddles and enemies; there is some nonlinearity in solving emerging problems.
Cons: management overloaded by today’s standards; frequent runs in the same locations.