Format: Super CD-ROM²
Genre: Adventure
Developer: ICOM Simulations
Publisher: Turbo Technologies

Every gamer is familiar with those hand-drawn, colored pencil concept art drawings that come out of many game projects, usually in the form of easter eggs or unlockables. Beyond Shadowgate's actual art is seemingly made up of such concept drawings, and the effect is pleasantly unusual, especially when paired with the large and superbly animated characters that populate the game's shadowy, troubled world.

The game's music was contracted out to a fellow named Michael Cihak, who also interestingly did the audio programming for the SNES version of Bubsy. Cihak's all-original score for this game gets high marks for atmosphere, with several of the tunes delivering massive goosebumps to this reviewer's arms. Others, such as the town song, are somewhat grating and banal. The game's voice acting is fabulous however, striking just the right balance between sounding like "a guy in his basement" and "this is obnoxiously Hollywood-ish".

Beyond Shadowgate is a point-and-click adventure game, in the same vein as the King's Quest or Monkey Island titles. Unlike those games though, this title throws some very simplistic combat into the mix-- simplistic being a good thing in this case, since it adds just enough action flare to spice things up, while simulatenously not distracting from the game's adventure roots. The control scheme works surprisingly well, making use of all four of the controller's buttons. Best of all, the puzzles aren't completely esoteric like many other adventure games of this vintage.

There must be an interesting story behind how this wound up being a Turbo Duo title, because every single thing about the game's design screams "Windows 3.1-era multimedia adventure game." And yet, here it is, a Turbo Duo title that essentially serves as the PC Engine's equivalent to the Mega Drive's "The Immortal"; creepy atmosphere, lots of hugely entertaining and gruesome death animations, and numerous puzzles to solve. Unlike "The Immortal" however, Beyond Shadowgate is actually a well-designed game.