Virtually Overlooked: Shadowgate
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.
While replaying a little Resident Wiivil Evil 4 over the holidays with the man of the house, a great realization came unto me, and I demanded the right to take JC's place on the Virtually Overlooked soapbox this week. The inability to do silly things like jump into the river, shoot the drivers, and stab random people at the beginning of the game really bugged me, even moreso than on my first outing with the title. I need free reign for suicide and a little friendly fire! I need to be able to do all the things you're not supposed to be able to do, and if I have to start over, hey -- that's okay. It's about freedom, baby, yeah. And I was reminded of a game that allowed just that: Shadowgate.
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Like all great things, Shadowgate originated on the Mac as a point-and-click adventure, and that interface carried over to the NES, despite the frustration of trying to point and click with the NES controller. By the third or fourth screen, however, problems with the interface seem to melt away as the player not only gets used to cruising around from menu to screen and back with the D-pad, but also, gets sucked into the weird and wacky world of Castle Shadowgate.
Shadowgate is your typical adventure game: you do a lot of reading, examining, and puzzle-solving, but what makes it really great is the game's sense of humor. Just as with franchises like Sam and Max and Ace Attorney that have captivated gamers in recent years, Shadowgate offered a tongue-in-cheek approach to adventuring that was completely irresistible.
But what gets me, every single time I re-play the classic NES title, is the ability to suicide. As a gamer who epitomizes the idea of curiosity killing the cat, I'm always the one who falls to her death or ends up in the jaws of the big ol' monster, because I just have to try everything -- and a lot of that was born from playing Shadowgate as a kid. When the puzzles are mystifying? Just "use" your "sword" on "self" and see what happens. Not only does the game not prevent you from doing something so monumentally stupid, it laughs at you.
Luckily, you can save any time (though you don't always restart exactly where you saved; be prepared to re-open bags and re-examine objects), so you're free to stab yourself with any number of objects and open all the slime-filled coffins you'd like. Good times.
In an era that has seen the rebirth of the text adventure, it's a real mystery that Shadowgate has not been released for the Virtual Console. The game has appeared on a number of systems, including the Game Boy Color, and a few sequels appeared (though they failed to live up to the original). The game is packed with puzzles that send you trekking all over the castle, moving forward and back as you collect objects -- many of which are red herrings or part of traps. If you know your way around, Shadowgate can be completed in the space of a few hours, but there are a few moments that guarantee hair-tearing frustration for even hardened adventurers.
An additional bonus comes with the fact that, as an NES game, Shadowgate would roll in at only 500 Wii points, which is a small price to pay for a classic adventure -- especially this one. Trust.
And there's always the humor factor when it comes to replayability. Shadowgate may not have a lot of fun, quirky characters, but there's always a joke waiting around the next corner ... and that's kept this adventurer coming back, again and again, for years. Plus, you can stab yourself with abandon (or with a spear, or an arrow ... ), all without that messy clean up. It's a win for gamers of all ages!
