Lo, humans! I do beseech thine eyes and ears once more!
Today’s jamfest comes from the unknown genius I can only dub “The Guy Who Composed Shadowgate‘s Music.” As that likely gave away, the soundtrack of this entry is Shadowgate which, in this instance, is available on your Nintendo Entertainment System. You may also remember the Virt cover medley of this music that I linked in an earlier post.
What’s so special about this mythical music, though? I should first confess that I was never very into Adventure games as a child. While their concepts are novel, they are also, for all intents and purposes, novels. That wasn’t very appealing to my younger self, to which extensive scrolls of text in a video game never quite sounded more attractive than the Frog and Toad books I so coveted.
Also, the games are written as if there aren’t visuals to accompany them, like some grease-mitted scribe made a couple beans on the side by penning Adventure titles after nightly sessions with his role-playing club and the developers just crammed the vaguely related text into the game. “Before you is a monster, fair knight!” I know! Give me a sword!
Then again, you also end up getting serious gems like the one below.
Shadowgate was a bit different, though. It can be a horrific experience to an impressionable boy, one that’s only heightened by the haunting music. The soundtrack is almost entirely situational; there’s a track that inspires high adventure, one that signals horror, a couple that reek of the spoils hidden deep within the titular castle, and many songs of death. For your convenience, I have personally tagged each track with custom care, forced to forge my own titles for these devious ditties.
Download it here (MegaUpload – 6.24 MB)
Track listing:
1. Song of Trepidation (2:08)
2. A Hopeful Fellow (1:06)
3. Frightened But Curious (1:32)
4. Delirium (0:27)
5. The Adventure is Afoot (0:58)
6. Deeper and Deeper (1:22)
7. Death Surely Awaits (0:54)
8. I Am Stronger Than You Think! (0:39)
9. Skeletons (Trapped) in the Closet (1:02)
10. Thy Game is Over (1:30)
11. A Brief Treatise Upon Wraiths (0:43)
12. Won’t Ye Come Again? (1:26)
subhumanzoids 
