Beyond Shadowgate - Turbografx-16 CD (1993)
American TG-16 Cover
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Beyond Shadowgate
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Beyond Shadowgate
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Despite originating on computers, Shadowgate found most of its success due to its NES incarnation, so it made sense that it would stay in the console realm for its sequel. What didn't quite make sense is how ICOM ended up developing the game for the Turbografx-16, a system with not only low market penetration, but very few non-Japanese developed titles. (ICOM developed a few other games for the system, mostly notably the side-scroller Shape Shifter and the embarassingly 90s skater action game Yo, Bro.)
The intro recounts the ending of the first Shadowgate, wherein the Warlock King is defeated and cast into the depths. It then fast forwards to his descendents, the King Adam and his son Prince Erik. The Prince leaves for a journey, and expects a warm welcome home...only to discover that his father has been murdered, and he is the prime suspect. Erik must escape from his prison, explore the land, and make his way back to Castle Shadowgate to confront the King's true killer, and save the land from darkness.
Since Beyond Shadowgate was developed specifically for the console audience, the first person perspective has been ditched in favor of a more traditional third person perspective. You control Prince Erik directly with the controller, and hit the Select button to bring up icons to examine, use, or talk to various people. While still an adventure game at heart, it also introduces some action elements, once again probably to suit the audience. This means that most enemies are killed by attacking them directly rather than using any items. Prince Erik moves very slowly, and can only punch and duck. It's remarkably clumsy, although most enemies can be beaten by simple exploits, like approaching them from a different angle, putting on the autofire, and smacking them until they die. There is no health bar on screen, but you can only take a few hits before keeling over dead. Thankfully, your health is replenished whenever you leave the screen, and you can save at any point.
After escaping from the dungeon and working your way out of the caverns beneath it, you're free to roam the land, doing good by saving fairy princesses or freeing a burning town from an onslaught of invading demons. Once you reach this point, the structure is relatively non-linear, as you can explore the lands to find gems or find other deeds which can earn you cash to buy important items. Some of these quests or items aren't essential to beat the game, but there are three different minor variations on the ending, depending on which items you've obtained. Although the expansive land and freeform exploration lend a welcome sense of adventure, the world is perhaps a little bit too big and empty...or maybe it's just that Erik walks so damned slow. There's a lot of backtracking to be done, and it's annoying to have him slog so slowly through scene after scene of empty forests. It is also technically possible to screw yourself over by missing certain items, or killing an essential NPC.
At least it's an excellent looking game. The animation is extremely fluid, and the 256-color scanned backgrounds, while dithered, rival the Sierra games of the time, which were only available on computers. It's one of the few titles that makes use of the Turbografx-16's expanded resolution, running in 336x224 rather than 256x224. The CD format is put to use with redbook music, which lacks the dramatic flair of the NES game but is appropriately moody. All of the dialogue is voiced as well, and while it's not particularly noteworthy, it's also not completely embarassing. The intro and ending are all done with painted stills in a standard Western fantasy style, which is a welcome change from the usual anime cinemas found on the system.
While it has its ups and downs, the biggest fault remains - it just doesn't feel much like a successor to Shadowgate. Part of its essense revolved around its inspiration from text games, and without the off kilter descriptions, it feels fairly generic. What little writing there is comes off as static and dull, although there are random scattered bits of humor. The invading demons attack with weapons that look like bagpipes, for some reason or another. And in addition to defeating the final boss with either an enchanted sword or the Staff of Ages - the same item used in the first game - you can also use a simple old paddle ball toy.
There was never much of a backstory to Shadowgate to begin with, and what this game does supply is largely uninventive. Sure, there are a few references, to show that the developers were aware of its source material. In the original Shadowgate, one of the rooms made mention of the bricks being carved by stone in the dwarven mines, which you get to visit in this game. You also meet the wizard Lakmir, the one that's mentioned in the intro text as giving you your mission. There's also a twist on an old scenario - early on, you find a woman chained to a wall in the dungeon. In the original game, this would turn into a demon and kill you if you set it free. In Beyond Shadowgate, it will also turn into a demon...except it will run away and save your butt later on down the line.
If there's any major aspect that's actually carried over, it's the obsession with death scenes. In addition to getting killed in combat, there are numerous other insta-death scenarios, including getting devoured by a man-eating plant, skewered by a wyvern, chomped by a poisonous mushrooms, and demolished by falling boulders. Many of these are quite gruesome - when a rock falls on your head, you can visibly see your eyeballs flying out - but without the descriptive text, they lose a bit of flavor.
So, as a successor to Shadowgate, its sequel comes up a bit short. It's too meandering, and its action elements are mostly unwelcome. Still, visually and aurally, it stands well next to PC titles of the time, and is certainly a much better technical achievement than the adventure game ports on the Sega CD, which were plagued with crappy visuals and long loads. It's an incredibly rare title to get ahold of, although it's an interesting curiosity for fans of the old MacVentures.
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Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
Beyond Shadowgate
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Cutscene Screenshots
Shadowgate 64: Shadows of the Four Towers - Nintendo 64 (1999)
American N64 Cover
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Shadowgate 64
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Shadowgate 64
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Released for the Nintendo 64 by Infinite Ventures, the successor to ICOM Simulations, the third and final Shadowgate is in some ways a return to form after the widely ignored Beyond Shadowgate. It brings back the first person perspective, this time rendered fully in 3D, and refocuses on exploring a castle instead of wandering through countrysides. However, that's about where the similarities end, as it completely ditches the point-and-click mechanics in favor of real time movement. Despite initial appearances, it is mostly definitely not a first person shooter. There's no fighting, and barely anything in the way of action. In that manner, it keeps with the adventure feel of Shadowgate.
The story picks up ages after the original games, as the Castle Shadowgate has been largely abandoned by all of the monsters, leaving only a series of unseemly thieves. The hero, Del Cottenwood, is a halfling who's been captured and tossed in their dungeon. During his escape, he stumbles upon a terrible secret - Belzar, whom you may remember as the guy who framed Prince Erik back in Beyond Shadowgate, is working to resurrect the evil Talimar, also known as the Warlock King from the first game. Only by channeling the spirit of the original hero, here named Lord Jair, can our hero prevent darkness from once again ruling the land. There are four towers to conquer - hence the subtitle - as well as a village full of thieves. Like Beyond Shadowgate, the ties to the original game are minimal, outside of some of the names. The ghost of Lakmir the wizard pops up several times to advise you, and you'll once again use the Staff of Ages to defeat the Warlock King, but that's about the extent of the connections.
Indeed, the years have not been kind to Castle Shadowgate. Where it used to hold a mysterious labyrinth filled with monsters and traps and all manner of bizarre happenings, its new incarnation is distressing dull. Its room and corridors have devolved into a generic medieval castle, filled with caves, dungeons, libraries, and dozens of dreary, empty rooms. The color palette is almost remarkably drab, and it's hard to even look at the game without getting vaguely depressed. The general mood of the adventure feels almost like a survival horror game like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, except there's never anything to actually be scared of. There are no real monsters, and the only real danger comes from falling off cliffs or running into the occasional trap. (Some of the death messages are amusing, channeling the spirit of the original games, but they're actually quite scarce. They're also completely devoid of the silliness of Beyond Shadowgate.) The lack of an interface outside your inventory and map screens does a good job of involving you in the environment, but when said environment is as boring as this one, it's hardly a good thing.
Most of your exploration is spent with your head slightly cocked downward, so you don't miss a valuable item. A majority of the stuff you find include books and scrolls, which relate the background story. This isn't just flavor text though, as they provide clues or solutions to many puzzles, and in a couple of cases, you're outright quizzed on your readings. The solutions themselves are rarely difficult, it's more of a matter of getting stuck because you overlooked an item stuck in some dark, dreary corner, and are left trudging around slowly to find it. Expect a few other fairly typical puzzles involving a bit of trial and error, including a musical puzzle and a maze filled with teleportation points.
There is little worthwhile in Shadowgate 64. The pacing is incredibly slow, the castle is far too large and empty, the writing, while occasionally a bit clever, is far too sparse to be interesting. The whole experience is obviously trying to be atmospheric, but it really just comes off as soulless instead.
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Shadowgate 64
Shadowgate 64
Shadowgate 64
Shadowgate 64
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Novelization - Before Shadowgate
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The Worlds of Power books were junior novelizations of popular Nintendo games, including Mega Man 2, Castlevania II, Ninja Gaiden, and a number of others. Unlike most of them, which tried their best to translate an 8-bit video game into an actual book, Before Shadowgate, as the title implies, actually acts a prequel to the NES game.
This may not have been the best idea. The original game had very little back story, which in turn makes this story feel extremely disconnected. It focuses on a young boy named Jairen, as he teams up with a "fenling" (elf) named Fezlyn Quickfoot and a brutal fighter named Hawk to travel across the land to Castle Shadowgate, encountering trolls and other baddies along the way. It really just feels like any old young adult fantasy novel which happens to feature some of the names in the game, like the good wizard Lakmir and the evil Warlock King. It's all rather childish, which makes sense given the audience, but without the kitsch that made all of the other titles amusing, this one just comes across as really boring.
What is somewhat interesting is that Before Shadowgate, along with the novelization of Blaster Master, are the only two Worlds of Power books whose storylines were eventually canonized to some extent. The hero's name, Jairen, later slightly changed to Lord Jair for Shadowgate 64. The name of the land where the games take place, Kal Torlin, was first introduced here, and later also reused in Shadowgate 64. Infinite Ventures even put the whole story up on their website, which has been preserved here.
While the Worlds of Power books all featured the same covers as the games they were based off of, they had the nasty tendency of airbrushing out anything remotely offensive, like getting rid of the guns in the artwork of Mega Man 2, Bionic Commando and Metal Gear. With Before Shadowgate, they fixed the gargoyle's tail to look more rounded, and got rid of the horns, perhaps to make the image look less like a devil.
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Book Cover
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Cancelled Games - Shadowgate Rising - Nintendo 64
N64 Cover Mockup
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Comic Cover
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Beyond Shadowgate
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Infinite Ventures clearly had great plans for the Shadowgate license. After publishing Shadowgate 64 and Shadowgate Classic, they began work on two other games: Shadowgate Rising Lands of Shadowgate. Shadowgate Rising was to be a sequel to Shadowgate 64, starring a red-haired heroine named Raven. From the web page:
Infinite Ventures is proud to present stories from the world of Shadowgate. Our first offering follows the adventures of Raven - a young woman with remarkable powers in a world that has forgotten the ancient magics of yesterday. Set in the far future, the story of Raven begins in a time when the Dreamers have risen to prominence. These Dreamers oppose anything having to do with magic and will stop at nothing to eradicate the last vestige of the druids and the legacy of Castle Shadowgate.
Their official website went so far as to produce a twenty page comic based on Raven, which can be found here, but other than a handful of screenshots, little is known about the actual game. By the looks of it, it was most likely going to play just like Shadowgate 64, which is strange given the generally negative to reaction to that game. Shadowgate Rising was said to be cancelled due to the impending release of the Gamecube. Infinite Ventures had plans to release the game on the PC, but that also fell through.
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Shadowgate Rising
Shadowgate Rising
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Cancelled Games - Lands of Shadowgate - Mobile
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During this same time period, Infinite Ventures was actively promoting the ports of its games to mobile platforms, including PCs and phones. One of their titles was a completely new game called Lands of Shadowgate, which appeared to be some kind of strategy game. From the web page:
The Lands of Shadowgate are in turmoil. Kingdom rises against kingdom. Princes fight with pretenders to the throne. Alliances are forged and quickly broken as leaders of men vie for dominance over one another. Lands of Shadowgate is a turn-based strategy game where players create units, deploy troops, and attempt to conquer the castles of other players. In order to do this, players need the use of special buildings. These structures allow counselors to create and train different types of troops. Careful consideration concerning strategies needs to be taken before choosing counselors and creating the buildings they use. Additional building projects allow players to upgrade the defenses of their castles. It utilizes Infinite Venture's unique proprietary Play-by-Sync technology allowing PDA and Smartphone owners, including Pocket PC and PalmOS 5, to compete against each other.
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Lands of Shadowgate
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Comic Wallpapers
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Shadowgate Classic
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Shadowgate 64
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Shadowgate Rising
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