SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - So I was playing Shadowgate last night...

Posted: Jul 08 2009 11:28 am

But I ended up stopping playing it. Not because I got frustrated with the puzzles or anything like, but the music at the earliest parts is so damn freaky! I think the nostalgic value is what caused it the most (in the sense that it scared me as a kid), but it's strange that I can play games such as Resident Evil, Haunting Ground and Silent Hill without getting freaked out. It's hard to explain why a game as old as me freaks me out to this day.

I think I would be laughing a lot at the Grim Reaper for saying the same thing over again if the music that played wasn't creepy. I guess it's just me...

Great game though! Who else wants to reminisce on this great puzzle game that was ahead of its time?

Not all of it's creepy, at least.

Posted: Jul 08 2009 11:30 am

I love Shadowgate. Hardcore.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Yeah it use to scare the shit out of me as a kid as well. Actually, the only NES games that legitimately scared me as a kid was this and Faxanadu.

Posted: Jul 08 2009 12:14 pm

joshwoodzell wrote:

Yeah it use to scare the shit out of me as a kid as well. Actually, the only NES games that legitimately scared me as a kid was this and Faxanadu.

A little off-subject, but have you played Clock Tower for the SNES? It was only released in Japan for the Super Famicon, but you can play online via a SNES emulator (Enlgish-translated versions exist). I played it for the first time about 6 years ago, and all I can say is that I'm glad I didn't play it in my childhood! It's freaky as hell for a game from the 16-bit era.

BTW, it's normally illegal to use an emulator unless you have the cartridge of the original game, but technically it should be different since there has NEVER existed a SNES cartridge of Clock Tower (just the Super Famicon), let alone an officially English-translated version. So feel free to play some Clock Tower for free! Very Happy

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Well there are a few games on SNES that scared me, but I was talking about NES.

Scary games on the SNES:

Um...the cartridge for DOOM was red. That was freaky.

Joined: Aug 26 2007 Posts: 2752

Metroid still freaks me out. And i get what your saying Dii, i think it's because the NES is so limited that we had to use our imagination to fill in the gaps and there is nothing more terrifing that what is cooked up in your own head.

It's kind of like the best porno is in your mind, the scariest horror movie is in your mind too.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Jul 08 2009 03:29 pm

Shadowgate is the abusive spouse of video games. It keeps hurting you, but you love it so much you stay, even though you shouldn't.

(that's a highly inappropriate metaphor, but accurate. I stand by it).

Posted: Jul 08 2009 04:01 pm

Holy shit, Faxandu.

The part where you go inside the tree, and there's all that fog and eerie music. That scared the hell out of me when I was little.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

Does that slime thing completely screws you over in Shadowgate? When you open a coffin, it leaks out, and kills you when you try to cross.
There was an item (can't remember which) I never managed to get because of this, and for some reason I never started a new game.

Posted: Jul 08 2009 06:21 pm

ReeperTheSeeker wrote:

Metroid still freaks me out. And i get what your saying Dii, i think it's because the NES is so limited that we had to use our imagination to fill in the gaps and there is nothing more terrifing that what is cooked up in your own head.

It's kind of like the best porno is in your mind, the scariest horror movie is in your mind too.

Exactly! Playing that game makes me think about what it would be like to be stuck in a trap-filled castle where magical entities threaten your wellbeing. Great premise for a fantasy novel IMO, but when you play a game like that and it's wonderfully executed it is a memorable experience to say the least. The music that plays when you need to light another torch is probably the freakiest to me.

Posted: Jul 10 2009 10:39 pm

That music that plays where you first go into the laboratory with all of the Bottles freaked me the heck out the first time I played it.

Posted: Jul 11 2009 02:55 am

Simon's Quest's Password screen theme used to creep me out.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Yeah pretty much all the music in Simon's Quest use to rub me the wrong way when I was younger. Now it doesn't scare me and I have learned to appreciate how good the tunes are.

But yeah, Faxanadu. That game was so ahead of it's time and just flat out sweet. The first time I got to the dwarf I was all out of magic so I had to try to kill it with my dagger. And the music it played when that winged bastard started flappin' at you use to give me nightmares, for sure.

Posted: Jul 11 2009 09:05 pm

Even though it was a shitty game and a cheap scare, the Friday the 13th game did it to me. It was cheap because it was a loud ass WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO and then you're pretty much fucked if Jason's armed.

Shadowgate and Uninvited freaked me out for reasons mentioned above related to imagination, but also the deaths in both games were incredibly descriptive. Being 8 years old and being told "you died" isn't too bad, but being told you could no longer scream because you no longer have a throat... spooky,

Posted: Jul 11 2009 09:08 pm

Undeath wrote:

Even though it was a shitty game and a cheap scare, the Friday the 13th game did it to me. It was cheap because it was a loud ass WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO and then you're pretty much fucked if Jason's armed.

i agree. when i was younger and i was playing this game, if it was dark outside, and it got dark in the game, i would just reset it. i was such a little wuss Embarrassed

Posted: Jul 12 2009 10:34 pm

I remember renting Monster Party when I was younger, and the part half way into the first level where the scenery starts to melt and such terrified me so much I shut it off and asked my parents if I could bring it back to rent a new game, I wasn't gonna ever touch that again.

Posted: Jul 13 2009 01:00 am

Great thread, I am with Syd and am eternally enthralled by this game.

This game used to really scare me at points as a child. I would watch my brothers play and actually have to leave every time they would die because the screen with the grim reaper with the glowing red eyes used to make me shit myself too hard.

Title: Famicomaniac Joined: Jul 11 2009 Posts: 23

When I was younger, I REFUSED to play this, though my morbid curiosity led me to watch my mom play it. I'd run out of the room every time she died because the Grim Reaper freaked me out... but man, I love the game now. Ah, memories...!

Posted: Jul 14 2009 05:55 am

shadowgate is THE most cryptic fuckin game ive ever played and im CONVINCED that nintendo had some sort of conspiracy with the nintendo hotline, and nintendo power with this game....

i mean i was stuck on the first fuckin screen for like ten minutes... and if not for the internet it NEVER would have been beaten, and i still rage extremely hard, everytime i play it, because so far just about the only obstacle in the whole game that i had no problem getting past was that room with the sphinx, where you had to solve a riddle

as a side note, and im being VERY serious here, there is a room where theres this sexy chick chained to the floor, and as it turnes out (after i read it online years later), i was supposed to shoot her with an arrow? wtf? and then she turns into a fuckin wolf? like what the hell is that... there was no clues or anything! did they expect me to know by instinct to stab a hot women chained to the ground with a fuckin arrow? maybe with my penis!

asshole developers, this game stole a large chunk of my childhood, and if i could id sue them to get it back!

fuckers Evil

Posted: Jul 14 2009 10:50 am

Um, the instruction booklet told you where to find the key to open the front door.

But I do understand what you're saying. The game forced you to rely on trial and error, and it wasn't always clear what you had to do. You had to not only test BOTTLE1, BOTTLE2, etc., to see what they did, you also had to remember what they did so you could use them at the right moments. I remember there was a room with a little metal link on the floor that something had been shackled to. And you had to pull on it to reveal an item underneath. Why the hell would I have ever thought to try to that!?

Also, for a new player, running out of torches was a very real possibility. Once you had played it a few times though, you could run through the early parts quickly enough that that would never ever be a problem.

Posted: Jul 14 2009 11:08 am

I've never played Shadowgate (always wanted to), but I enjoyed Deja Vu.

Deja Vu didn't seem to have quite so many "trial and error" death traps, though. There were a few, such as the screen where if you go to the right, you fall down a hole and die, or the part where the woman accosts you and you have to punch her in the face before she shoots you. But other than that you generally could figure things out without killing yourself. It did require you to think and be pretty perceptive, though......at least for a 10 year-old kid.

Posted: Jul 14 2009 11:43 am

If any kid managed to beat this game without using a strategy guide, asking friends for help, or using the Nintendo tip hotline, then that person is to video games as Babe Ruth was to baseball. Less than a god, but more than a man! (I heard something like that in The Sandlot, great film.)

Posted: Jul 15 2009 02:41 pm

Undeath wrote:

Even though it was a shitty game and a cheap scare, the Friday the 13th game did it to me. It was cheap because it was a loud ass WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO and then you're pretty much fucked if Jason's armed.

I would nearly shit bricks when ever Jason showed up in that game. That and when I was younger and more Naive, I would believe that Jason killed all my friends and family... didn't help I was playing in the dark.

I never played shadowgate when I was a child, but I did play Uninvited. That ghost woman/skeleton scared me everytime I fucked up...