Shadowgate VR: The Mines of Mythrok

Shadowgate originally 35 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfOIJQAa9Aw Shadowgate today in Virtual Reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elu7xMNrTsk Even before Virtual Reality became a thing, I often imagined the following: 'What would it be like if you were teleported into the game and found yourself in the middle of the game world?' As a fan of retro games in VR, I know that it is not impossible to play some retro games like those of the NES or other classic consoles in VR while keeping the original functions and graphics but with VR perspective and VR functions, this is kind of the experience that completes the imagination I often made about being 'in the game', thank goodness for Virtual Reality!' When looking at the gameplay style of how Shadowgate was originally played on the NES, you can't exactly expect to play it that way with a technology called Virtual Reality. Fortunately, the ambitions of the creators to add a VR game in the franchise were very high to present us the great Shadowgate VR in a classic adventure style with many traps and surprising attacks. Of course you will also have to solve puzzles but often in combination with locating secret passages/locations or invisible items, you can find this by looking around very carefully or by switching to the view of Loki, the crow that always flies with you, who can also call you for tips. But once you have the image of Loki you will also easily see clues that help you further in the game.

Infuriating. The game has a habit of throwing enemies at you immediately after navigating death traps (or in some cases [i]during[/i] death trap navigation). And with your only save being few & far between checkpoints it makes for a miserable experience. I love the original Shadowgate and the 2014 reimagining, but I can't bring myself to play any more of this.

After 50 minutes playing: entertaining, and I like the atmosphere of it. Cute but smart ass raven companion included! - Update after almost 3 hours playing: hmmm... getting more and more frustrated by the very slow progress I'm making... Being blown of a pillar by a plasma ball for the thousandth time makes one loose interest in this game very fast (not sure if it's the sometimes clunky Index controllers or my own clumsiness yet) After a very, very long time finding out that you NEED to use teleport (that I normally never use) to get across a chasm doesn't help... A lot of puzzles and not so much action doesn't help either... Getting more and more annoyed by the raven also doesn't help. Hmmmm... Usually games get better once you progress but this one seems to get worse. But I'll give it another try soon. I think. Maybe. - Update after almost 5 hours of playtime: absolutely NOT enjoying myself! Really got stuck searching for a single key for over an hour and not being able to find it... I stopped playing because there was a serious risk of getting bored to death while searching and searching the same halls again and again! The hints of the Raven aren't any good and I guess solving ' 'puzzles' is not my thing. - Update after 7 hours playtime: made it all the way to the second minecart run... The first one already was difficult, but you'll need super human powers to survive the second one! Gave up for now after 10 unsuccessful runs... sigh... might try again later... - Update after almost 9 hours: ok, just skipped the second minecart run, shame...Way too difficult (at least for me) So not only the puzzles are frustrating to me, so are the action sequences... I wonder why I'm still playing this?

I am not familiar with the Shadowgate universe at all so I cannot judge how good or bad this game blends in to the franchise. I'm just a heavy VR player and enjoyed the game a lot (for the most parts). I had a few frustrating encounters though where it was a bit unclear what to do or it felt overall a bit unfair, like save points where you get attacked immediately or being attacked while solving a puzzle in a short amount of time. I think with a bit less of those passages I would have needed 2 hours less at least - but maybe it was just me being too stupid. So I needed round about 8 hours for this game that would have been with a slower playstyle be solved in like 5-6. Using the teleport on top though the player has decided for locomotion is a bit of an unusual choice. Usually you can either use locomotion or teleport as a choice of movement, so I was not prepared at the beginning that "teleporting" is needed as a "riddle solver". It's an awkward game design decision to rely on teleport to progress, if a player thinks "no, locomotion is my choice of movement". Maybe that could have been announced that some riddles DEPEND on teleport. But all in all I really enjoyed the game, had no bugs and it was well done and I am looking forward to buy and play the next Shadowgate VR game! (Played on Valve Index with Index controllers and a RTX 3080)

The game looks, sounds and feels like a high quality production. Top notch voice acting, convincing graphics and a really awesome magic wand will make you feel like you're actually in the dungeons. I have no prior experience with the old Shadowgate games, and to be honest, I've never been a real fantasy/RPG/D&D player. Nevertheless, I like this game a lot and I can't understand why it didn't get much more attention here on Steam. Excellent performance too on my mid-range gaming laptop, and a whole range of options to set the game just the way you like it -you can even change the creepy spiders to "silly spiders" to make the game more arachnophobe-friendly. My wife and daughter were grateful for that. Definitely recommended, just don't expect a "real" RPG/D&D game.

Full video review: https://youtu.be/tTAaryBHnMM 🔲 Easy ✅ Normal 🔲 Hard 🔲 Extreme 🔲 Gamer ~ GRAPHICS ~ 🔲 MS Paint 🔲 Bad ✅ ok 🔲 Good 🔲 Beautiful 🔲 Masterpiece ~ MUSIC ~ 🔲 Bad 🔲 Not special ✅ Good 🔲 Beautiful ~ STORY ~ 🔲 This game has no story 🔲 Like playing Temple Runners for the story ✅ It's there for the people who want it 🔲 The first part of the first episode was promising. 🔲 Well written 🔲 Epic story ~ PRICE ~ 🔲 Underpriced when on sale (90%) ✅ Perfect Price 🔲 Could be cheaper 🔲 Overpriced ~ REQUIREMENTS ~ ✅ You need minimum VR specs 🔲 Average 🔲 High end 🔲 NASA computer ~ LENGTH ~ 🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours) ✅ Short (2 - 10 hours) 🔲 Average (10-30 hours) 🔲 Long (30-60 hours) 🔲 Extremely long (60+ hours) 🔲 No ending ~ FUN ~ 🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry 🔲 Hard to enjoy ✅ Repetitive ✅ Actually pretty amusing 🔲 The kind of fun you'll remember ~ WORTH BUYING ~ 🔲 No ✅ Wait for sale ✅ Yes (for the ones that really like puzzle games)

Everything that made Shadowgate an outstanding setting was squeezed out and we were left with nothing but generic fantasy world. The puzzles were uninspiring, dying was just going back a bit and listening to a raven attempt to be sarcastic, and constantly being thrown into "combat" immediately after solving a deadly puzzle (or even in the middle of one) becomes far more tiresome than it is rewarding. If you want just another short fantasy adventure shooter go for it. If you want Shadowgate however then go play any of the others.

Dungeons, puzzles, monsters and magic. And more puzzles. And a sarcastic raven. Nice visuals and atmosphere. Dungeon crawlers are great fun in VR.

I played the game for almost 3 hours, everything looked generic graphically (think quest game graphics), the puzzles were boring, and the enemies were uninspiring. The game consists of endless boring tunnels that all look the same.

i would rate this game a 7 out of 10. Completed in 10 hrs, A sometimes frustrating but overall good experience. Update. Have to bump it up to an 8 out of 10 since I liked it enough to play twice. And I was much better the second time around