Shadowgate was a point-and-click style game of adventure and exploration originally developed by a small team at ICOM Simulations for the Macintosh. This was the third game in their "MACventure series," as the games have been affectionately dubbed. The original lineup consisted of Deva Vu, Unintived, Shadowgate, and Deja Vu 2. All but the Deja Vu sequel were later ported to the NES by Kemco.
The NES versions featured a fresh coat of paint and some tweaks with the interface. Although Deja Vu was the only MACventure title to receive a sequel during the original development, Shadowgate is the one to have persisted. It's received two sequels done without the original team on the TurboGrafix CD and the Nintendo 64, a followup novel in 1991, a board game, and an official sequel from the original creators set to release later this year.
But enough about all of that extended universe stuff. A sequel to the original game had been planned, and mostly finished, before iCOM decided to scrap the project in favor of developing games for more powerful newer consoles. As part of this effort, the design documents for the planned Beyond Shadowgate were given out to Kemco, who give us Beyond Shadowgate (not to be confused with Beyond Shadowgate). A few years later, Kemco decided to give it another shot and had a game made for the Nintendo 64 using the same Beyond Shadowgate design documents. Which is why we start off in a dungeon at the beginning of both. As well as some other super vague similarities.
With this entry, we enter a fully 3D land of Kal Torlin for the first time. This game was largely panned by critics at the time, who I guess were looking for this to be more action focused for some reason. Which is unfortunate, because this is a pretty fun experience. But it can be easy to get lost, so that's why we're here.
That's plenty of intro text, on with the guide!
