Shadowgate ReBorn

Name: Shadowgate Reloaded

Developer: Systemeth

Original creators: The good folks at Nintendo.

Story: You are a great, brave, mighty, incredibly dumb, and accident prone hero who must solve the puzzles and avoid the traps of castle Shadowgate (These traps include open windows. Apparently, you have a tendency to just walk through them.) and kill the evil wizard that's going to...do...something...or other. Whatever. Killing him will save the world. Even though it's never clarified what exactly the evil wizard plans to do, he definitely plans on doing something.



Gameplay: There are no fights...at least none that you will actually participate in. What fights there are, you will simply initiate and they will simply play out. This game attempts to faithfully recreate the original Shadowgate within the limitations of the VX Ace engine, perhaps a bit too faithfully as you can literally grab a walkthrough for the original version and follow it line for line. That's at first glance though. The developer makes some subtle changes, some due to the lack of resources inherent in RTP, and some to make this version somewhat unique. Whereas the original game was a point and click style game, this game actually allows you to walk around and explore. A picture based point and click set up could probably be done easily enough, but this seems to work just fine. The puzzles are all solved by trial and error, and for all of them, failure is death. This can get a bit repetitive, but the multiple deaths of the hero are actually part of what makes this game. You don't just die. You die in style, in a variety of ways, each way with it's own epitaph worthy of Vaudeville. Dying has never been so funny. It gets to the point where you deliberately kill your hero just to see what will be said next.



Graphics: Alas, RTP, and not the best mapping either. It's okay though. The game really does a good job of recreating Shadowgate, and I think we can forgive a bit of inexperienced graphic design. At least nothing is broken in-game. Due to the limitations of RTP, some changes have been made. The sphinx has been replaced with a dragon, unfortunately...this game already has plenty of dragons. The mummy in the coffin room has been replaced with a teddy bear, amusingly. The hellhound has been replaced with an attractive fire elemental, though she may be a bit too hot to handle. Oh well.

Music: Recreations and copies of the original tracks from Shadowgate. Outdated though they are, they're subtle enough that they still nicely match the atmosphere created with the VX Ace tiles.

Glitches: Nothing significant. The troll reappears at the troll bridge while you're going back to get the Staff of Ages. He shouldn't reappear until you're returning with the staff. Using a switch on the staff to reactivate the troll should solve this. As it stands, I try going back after knocking the troll off the first time, so I don't know if it's possible to reactivate the troll before getting the humana spell. That should be looked into. Also, the secret path in the early rooms, with the Ancient Tome? When you clear away the rubble, it reappears after returning and then opens and closes like a door.

Conclusion: It's a nostalgic return to a classic Nintendo game. It's far from perfect, but it's still very well done. If you ever feel like playing Shadowgate but can't find it, this game would be a fine substitute. Just remember to save regularly.