"Beat it once, shelve it always."

Once again, I stupidly bought a game on impulse. What do I get? A game that appears stunning on the surface, but gets tedious after a few hours of play. The castle seemed far too small for me after I breezed through the first area. Too bad I lost the reciept; I would have returned that thing the six hours after I beat it. There were some other things that got on my nerves as well, shown below in the review.

Gameplay- 4/10- Sure, the gameplay was fun at first, but what about the horrible difficulty of getting out of the dungeon? The game may have been difficult at first, but got far too easy, and so everyone knows, I DON'T LIKE VARYING DIFFICULTY GAMES! Control was screwed up too; I vow I'll NEVER play another game where you use the C buttons rather than the control stick to move. Oh, I wish you could configure the buttons.

Story- 9/10- If you didn't play the original Shadowgate, then you might stumble a little bit over the plot here. But, after a tower or two, the plot unfolds into something great, possibly the only great thing surrounding the game.

Graphics- 8/10- The world of Castle Shadowgate is beautifully rendered (you can even walk up to a statue and watch a crow fly away!) but when you get to the point where you talk to people, you notice that the programmers really didn't have much thought about anything except the detail of the world. The characters just don't look human! Only the Halfling you play looks real.

Sound- 10/10- The music of the introduction and the better part of the village brought a tear to my eye, while the music in one of the towers made my teeth grind. Any games that have such music, no matter how crappy the game itself is, deserves a ten. In addition to the lovely music is the realistic sound effects: for example, when you start the game, you hear the agonizing screams as you would in a normal dungeon. Talk about realistic!

Replayability- 1/10- This wouldn't deserve a point, but I forgot one thing. I forgot to find a map! Stupid me... Well, this would be a zero aside from that.

Buy or Rent?- Rent. I think you can tell by my griping why you shouldn't buy it.

Overall- 6/10- Normally, I don't care about averages, but I'm tired and don't care less. Average it out. I got 6. It fits, too. The game isn't great, but it isn't terrible either. A perfect fit!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99