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December 15th, 2015 
Carl Williams 
Shadowgate for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is a point and click adventure. Formerly a computer game, fans were treated to quite a unique story here. The NES was not known for its long drawn out thought provoking titles. Rather, the NES was known for its quick reflex action titles that younger gamers enjoyed more. For the aging crowd of gamers there was not a lot of gaming options. Kemco was able to see the light. Koei saw it A LOT sooner. Neither were able to quite capitalize like their counterparts did with the younger gamers.
One series of games that Kemco were known for was the whole “digital ” style game. Shadowgate was not quite straight adventure games like Space Quest or King’s Quest. Instead it is a first person affair. This made the game feel like those classic books that children of the 70’s and 80’s enjoyed so much. You really don’t have to grow up.
Shadowgate features twists
Your actions in these games had real consequences to the outcome. Much like the action games, you could die and completely lose your game and have to start over. Or at least go back to an early save file. You had to use your brain to solve problems within the game made Shadowgate quite the visceral experience. This potentially turned off a lot of gamers that tried dipping their toes into the adventure waters.
The story so far
Shadowgate tasks you as a recent amnesia sufferer, thanks to the powers of the evil wizard known as Lakmir. You are apparently the last of a line of kings. This is interestingly foreboding that you are destined to regain great power and prestige. If you can survive the events that lay in front of you just passed that ominous door.
Changes between platforms
The computer version of Shadowgate used books and subtle descriptions in, or of, each room. In the Nintendo Entertainment System version though, those books are gone and replaced with a more console friendly hint system. There are a few things that were changed for the NES version. Such as various graphic deaths and on screen, and description based things, that were changed slightly.
Shadowgate on computers reached many platforms from the original Macintosh version to the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and IBM platforms. For consoles we saw it hit the NES and Game Boy Color. Sequels on the Turbo Grafx-16 Super CD-ROM and the Nintendo 64 also appeared. More recently there was a successful Kickstarter campaign for a new Shadowgate game.
Want to enjoy this classic? Check out Ebay or get it with Prime via Amazon and have it in a couple days.
This article is archived in the Hive Gaming section of the Hive.Blog Blockchain. Check it out for more great entertainment.
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EEEEEEEPIC!!!!!!! Man this is truly one for the history books here. I will have my children play this game when they get older (2-4yrs now) and I guarantee they will get the socks scared off of them still.
I still can not remember if I have ever made it up the stairs near the end… I either was forgetting something and kept going back and my torches kept dying out, or something….. Man I love the throwbacks on this site…..keep’em coming guys!!!
Great work as always Retro!!
This is why we do what we do. Thank you.
[…] I have covered the original Shadowgate on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the buildup and launch on Windows of the remake and now, I am covering that remake releasing on […]