Shadowgate Classic Game Boy Color

~The Circle of Twelve was the name given to a group of powerful sorcerers who maintained peace throughout the land of ~Kal Torin. Yet one such sorcerer decided to break ranks and dabble in the black arts, thereby disrupting the tranquility and harmony throughout the world. His new name became the Warlock Lord, but his dark reign would be short lived. The remaining members of the Circle, led by Lakmir the Timeless, joined together to put a stop to this Warlock Lord and imprisoned him deep below the ~Castle Shadowgate.

After centuries of peace, ~Kal Torin now finds itself once again in a state of emergency; the Warlock Lord has been accidently freed from his cell and now rules over ~Castle Shadowgate with an iron fist. If that wasn't enough to worry about, the evil one is focused on raising a beast to end all beasts -- a creature called the Behemoth. He must be stopped before it is too late As a direct descendant of the lost ~Royal Family, you are the only one who has a shot at doing so.

Shadowgate Classic for the Game Boy Color is a direct port of Shadowgate, a 1989 NES adventure that involved exploring a mysterious castle from a first-person perspective. Like the original, the screen is divided into three main areas: the view window, the movement window and the command list. Up to three games can be saved to battery-backed memory, and a total of five different languages are supported: English, French, Spanish, German and Swedish.

The view window lets you see ~Castle Shadowgate from a first-person perspective, while the movement window is an overhead map of the surrounding area. Movement is accomplished by positioning a cursor over the movement window and then pressing a button. In order to interact with objects, you'll need to move the cursor to the third window, the command list, which is found along the bottom portion of the screen.

The nine commands are as follows: speak, close, hit, leave, move, look, use, open and take. Thus selecting the word "speak" and placing the cursor over a picture of a person will allow you to converse with that character. Likewise, using the command "open" while moving the cursor over a door will (hopefully) cause the door to open. Players can also store items in an inventory screen that scrolls down from the list of commands, and spells will also be available once your character has learned them.

Now that you have learned the tools of the trade it is up to you to solve the riddles and confront the horrors that lurk between the walls of ~Castle Shadowgate. Can you defeat the mighty Behemoth and vanquish the Warlock Lord? Or is ~Kal Torin forever doomed? Only time will tell... ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide