The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review

Assassinating Emperors since 2006!

Release Date: March 20, 2006

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, XBox 360

Genre: Action RPG

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, 2K Games

Following the success that was the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Bethesda immediately began work on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, back in 2002. Bethesda opted for tighter pacing in gameplay and greater plot focus with Oblivion, something that, to me, it looks like, they both succeeded and failed in at the same time. How did they do that, you ask? Well, grab some popcorn and I'll tell you about it.

I've ruled as Tamriel's Emperor for 65 years, but for all
these years, I've never been the ruler of my own
dreams.

The game opens with Emperor Uriel Septim VII (known within the Elder Scrolls fandom as Emperor 'Urethra Scrotum' and no, I'm not making that up) saying that he was born 87 years ago, and that he has ruled as the Emperor of Tamriel for 65 years give or take, and that for all those years, he's never been the ruler of his own dreams. He claims that his dreams show him that terrible things are happening in the plane of Oblivion and that a darkness is about to sweep the land. As he's saying this, you see a cutscene of a daedric siege engine about to exit through a portal, and a giant one at that, with thousands of daedra and dremora serving as its vanguard. The scene then shifts to a beautiful view of the Imperial City from afar, and the camera zooms around it, eventually finding a prison window where, as it happens, your character has been imprisoned for committing some unknown crime. After selecting your name, race, and gender, you get insulted by a Dark Elf in the cell opposite yours, and suddenly, several guards come guiding Emperor Uriel Septim VII through the prisons, where a secret escape route happens to be in YOUR cell! Lucky you! This whole prison escape thing is basically the tutorial for the game, and it's honestly not that bad a way to ease a player into the game. Of course, it does get pretty tedious after you've played through the forced tutorial for the umpteenth time, but it works. After getting seperated from the Emperor and his lackies, you then get thrust into a bit of a sideways part of the dungeon. Here, you can experiment with several things, including combat, spellcasting, stealth, and even ways to open locked doors. Anyways, you eventually meet back up with the Emperor and give him your birthsign, and as you reach a dead end, you find that guarding the Emperor was all for naught and that his death was scripted, like he's in some fantasy world or something. Oh, wait, he is in a fantasy world, my bad. Anyways, you then get to choose your class or create your own. I always choose to create my own, as that's just the way I roll, you know? No pun intended. Anyways, Baurus gives you his key to the Imperial City Sewers and you fight some rats and goblins and make it out into the wide world of Cyrodiil, which is a country, or rather, a province, and you can then do as you like, as your on your own from there, meaning you can pursue the main quest if you want to (i.e., do as you were told and deliver the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre at Weynon Priory) or postpone the main quest or even ignore it entirely, just like you could in the previous games.

They're not the best graphics around, but by God,
they were gorgeous when they first came out,
you know?

Exiting the sewers, you can see the majesty of Cyrodiil immediately, and you have two dungeons not that far from where you exit, or you can travel to one of the many main cities in the game to start doing some side quests or one of the Guild questlines. You also have an arena, where you can bet on matches that are weighted for or against you, depending on how high your Luck attribute is, or you could even enter into arena matches yourself, but if you do that, then you'd better be prepared, because in the arena, every fight is a fight to the death. The Arena basically functions as it's own little questline, similar to the guilds of fighters, mages, thieves, and what-have-you. It even has exactly one sidequest, which involves discovering the origins of the Arena's best fighter, an Orc (Half-Orc, according to himself) named Agronak Gro-Malog, who is so skilled that he's considered to be invincible.

The music was once again composed by Jeremy Soule, and his music is just as beautiful at setting the scenes and adding life to Cyrodiil in the same way that his music managed to do back in Morrowind.

You can actually ride horses in this game, although
most people say that they're utterly useless.

When you speak to people in Oblivion, they actually speak, as opposed to Morrowind, where they only spoke as you approached, no, here every single line in the game is voiced, meaning that now you don't have to read the text to know what you have to do, you can just listen to the person as they bob their head left and right, and move their eyes around as though they've committed some awful crime that, if anyone were to find out about, would land them in some very hot water. Speaking of, the guards in this game are hyper-determined to do their jobs. So much as pick up something that literally has no value to anyone but belongs to someone, be expecting to hear the infamous lines of "STOP! You violated the law! Pay the court a fine or serve your time in jail!" Oh, and regardless of whether you serve your time in jail or pay the fine, you lose all of the stolen goods you've stolen. Anyways, back to the dialogue system, it's similar to the one found in Morrowind, but again, the lines are all voiced, not just the greetings characters give as you approach them. You can also play a mini-game in the form of getting people to like you even more by selecting options in a small circle, with the effect being greater or smaller depending on how full the wedge is when you select that option, with four reactions, Love, Like, Dislike, Hate, and everyone has their own reactions to each option. That is to say, different people will like different things. Makes the game more realistic, you know?

A woman sleeping in her bed at night.

Another thing about making the game real is Oblivion's Radiant AI. This means that each and every person in Oblivion as a set schedule that they'll follow, such as waking up in the morning and going to breakfast, then opening up their shop, closing for a while and then going on a walk, then coming back to the shop and going to sleep, then lather, rinse, and repeat. Some people even have alternating schedules on different days, meaning that they might follow the above schedule one day, and then have a completely different one the next. Of course, this does lead to some problems, such as someone who is supposed to be at breakfast that one time not doing that and instead staying at home for a while and goofing off there instead of following something else, but the Radiant AI always follows a strict pattern. Oh well, at least it works for most people in the game, anyway.

The lockpicking mini-game.

You know, I actually forgot about the lockpicking mini-game. You have anywhere from one to five tumblers on a lock, and you have to get all five tumblers to stay up, and if you can get them to stay up and click the button fast enough, then you open the chest! However, I find it to be far too tedious, so I always just choose the auto attempt option at the bottom, as I have piss-poor reflexes and not enough time to improve on them, so yeah.

One last thing to mention (of the good bits of Oblivion, anyway) is the modding ability. Just like with Morrowind, the game's engine was shipped, meaning that the ability to mod this game is right at your fingertips, assuming you know how to mod the game. This means that, like Morrowind before it, again, there is limitless potential on how much and how many different ways you can play this game before it gets old.

I feel I should point out that leveling up in this game is, in a word, pointless. You see, unlike in Morrowind, Oblivion uses Level-scaling, that unforgivable of video game sins that nobody out there in their right minds like, as it defeats the purpose of leveling up entirely. Seriously, can someone please tell me why I should ever bother leveling up in an RPG if the enemies are all going to get stronger with me?

Another thing I dislike about this game is the Equipment Fragility™ system. Why should I bother fighting if my equipment gets damaged, especially when the equipment isn't made out of cardboard, spider webs, and/or chocolate? But hey, it's better than the crappy Armament Fragility™ system that was featured in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though, and you can actually repair your equipment in this game, unlike in Breath of the Wild.

I also don't like how a lot of the skills from Morrowind got cut, such as Spears, Staves being wielded like an actual staff, axes being merged into the Blunt weapons category with maces, clubs, and hammers.

Overall, this is an Elder Scrolls game, and being one of my favorite video game franchises of all time, I can recommend this one to people who liked, say, Morrowind, but want an easier version of that game. Even if the crappy level-scaling and removing of several skills are bad game design decisions.

I give this game a 6/10. Try it out and see if you like it!

This review, along with all text and screenshots, is © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams' Magical Tome of Games, and all original characters are ™ and © Jestan Diams, as are the words "Equipment Fragility" and "Armament Fragility". The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion belongs to Bethesda Softworks, a Zenimax Media Company. All rights reserved.

The 7th Saga/ Elnard Differences

U.S. Version title screen

Now, I know exactly what you're all thinking: "Jestan™, didn't you already write a review on The 7th Saga? Why are you writing on this game again?" Well, the answer is simple: it's a well-known fact by now that the Japanese version (Elnard) of the game is much easier than the U.S. version (The 7th Saga), but the differences go so much deeper than that! I thought it'd be fun if we took a look at some of the changes, both major and minor.

Japanese version title screen.

Well, as you can see from these two screenshots, the first major difference is the title screen, although the U.S. version's is actually blocked by a transparency effect. If you disable it, then it looks exactly the same as the Japanese version's title screen.

U.S. version

Japanese version

For one, in the U.S. version, the colors are brighter and more vivid in most locations, in the Japanese version they're washed-out and muted. You can also gather from the above screenshots that Wilme and Lejes (Willme and Lejees in the Japanese version) also had their sprites altered. In the Japanese version, Lejes looks like a demon on the map screens, but in battles, at least from the front, he looks like a male Twi'lek from Star Wars, to quote TCRF.net. Wilme got censored and forced to wear underwear and had his unicorn horn removed, and he also went nude in the Japanese version.

Wilme's Japanese battle sprite.

Lejes' Japanese battle sprite.

Of course, those two weren't the only characters to get overhauls to their sprites in the international versions.

The four screenshots above are the U.S. sprites for certain monsters. In the Japanese version, however...

They were either nude, or in the Sword's case, looking a bit too much like religious symbols. Or at least, that's the theory. You have to remember that this game came out at a time when Nintendo was draconian with its censorship policies. Oh, yeah? Even the final boss' sprite got altered for the U.S. release!

In the U.S. version, Gorsia is blue and has a much wider lower-body, while in the Japanese version, he's yellow and has a smaller lower-body.

Probably the most significant difference is the fact that every ten levels you gain in the Japanese version, all of your stat growths will get a +1 to them, so if you have, say, 3-5 points for a stat growth, then levels 1-9 will be 3-5 points gained for that stat, 10-19 will be 4-6, 20-29 will be 5-7, 30-39 will be 6-8, etc. In the U.S. version, however, you keep the same stat growths all throughout. This is what makes The 7th Saga so hard. You see, in Elnard, your main character's stats grow at the same rate the other apprentices do, meaning that everything is mostly fair and square in combat. In the U.S. version, however, your stats grow at a very slowed down pace while the apprentices not under your control retain their Japanese stat growths, and chances are, the one who gets the Sky Rune will obliterate you. They also have access to equipment none of them should have yet. Of course, that goes for both versions of the game, U.S. and Japanese. 

EDIT: Thanks to Reddit user, stripes_by_proxy, I forgot to put this in, but the enemies also got boosts to some of their stats, for example, in Elnard Romus only has about 130 HP. In The 7th Saga, his HP got boosted up to about 300.

The localization team wasn't totally without their mercy, however. Certain items in the U.S. version weren't there in the Japanese version, case in point, the mirror you can find at the beginning of the game near the bed.

You find a mirror here in the U.S. version...

...but in the Japanese version, there's nothing
there at all!

To give you a comparison for how different your stats will be in each version.

U.S. version

U.S. Version

Japanese version

Japanese version

As you can see, in both versions, I had Wilme go it alone. In the U.S. version, he turned out mostly okay, except in Magic, but in the Japanese version, he was a beast! Seriously, compare the stats between the two versions, and I think it's pretty clear which version is the easier version.

EDIT: One last change between the versions that I forgot to mention is that the menu selection sound is different in the Japanese version, and so is the sound doors make when you open them.

If you want to see all of the bosses fighting in-game, then go here.

This article, including all text and screenshots, is © 2019 Jestan Diams. The 7th Saga and Elnard belong to Enix (technically Square Enix now, but whatever) and Gameplan 21. All 7th Saga and Elnard characters © Square Enix and Gameplan 21. All original characters, names, etc., are © and ™ Jestan Diams. All rights reserved.

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos Review

A beautiful screenshot of a monochrome landscape.

Release date: September 1993
Platforms: MS-DOS, NEC PC-9801, FM Towns
Genre: Action RPG, Gridder

Not long after finishing work on Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, Westwood Studios was bought out by Virgin Interactive, who was, according to Wikipedia, “home to renowned developers who went on to create successful franchises such as Command & Conquer (another Westwood Studios franchise) and Earthworm Jim (Shiny Entertainment).”

After the Westwood buyout, the higher-ups at the company decided to drop the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license to focus on a new property, believing that creating a new brand would help to promote the company, and because they wanted to develop their own properties instead of games for other publishers to profit from.

Enter Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, a game that many Eye of the Beholder fans consider to be the true third entry into the trilogy, something that I myself agree with. They knew that creating a new game was going to be difficult. Using the experience they got and the engine they developed while working on Eye of the Beholder I and II, they wanted the game to reach a wide audience, but Brett Sperry was frustrated about creating characters for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, rolling for stats that he knew nothing about, so instead of creating characters, the player selects one main character from four pre-made characters.

The dev team wanted the game to be special, but they knew that Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was also in development at the time and that it would use 3D graphics and Lands of Lore was already too far into development for a change to be made from 2D to 3D, so a blur effect was added when the player's party moves to give off the illusion of 3D instead.

So! With all of that said, does Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos stand up to the test of time?

Scotia has found the Nether Mask...!

The plot of the game starts off simple enough, an evil sorceress named Scotia has discovered something in the Urbish Mines called the Nether Mask, which allows it’s wearer to assume any shape of any power that he or she wishes, and now threatens the Kingdom of Gladstone. King Richard knows truly just how dangerous Scotia and the Nether Mask are, and so he summons four champions of the Kingdom forward. They are as follows:

Ak’shel the Dracoid: The most scary-looking of the group, Ak’shel is the designated Mage of the group, being the most proficient when it comes to magic, and while his defense is nothing to sneeze at, his Might stat leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Michael the Human: One of two Human characters, Michael is the designated Fighter of the group, having the highest Might stat of all the champions. Needless to say, though, that all of that practice that he’s done fighting has left him little time for magical pursuits, and so his Magic stat is the weakest of the lot.

Kieran the Huline: A Huline, a humanoid cat, Kieran is the fastest of the group, but he’s also the weakest of the group, as well. Kieran has the lowest stats of all the characters, only beating out Ak’shel in Might and Michael in Magic. He also cannot wear any footwear in the game. However, Kieran has a special ability that no other character in the game has, and that is a much shorter cooldown timer. Just like in Secret of Mana and Eye of the Beholder I and II, after attacking or casting a spell, you have to wait for a hidden timer to countdown until you can attack or cast a spell, and for Kieran, that cooldown timer is shorter, most likely to make up for his rather lacking stats across the board.

Conrad the Human: Last but not least in Conrad, a Human just like Michael. Conrad is the most well-rounded champion that the player can choose as their preferred champion, the main character of their playthrough. He doesn’t hit as hard with weapons as Michael does, but he hits harder than Ak’shel and Kieran, and while his spells aren’t as potent as Ak’shel’s, he has a higher Magic stat than Michael and Kieran.

Basically, what you can gather from the above character bios is that Kieran is basically Lands of Lore’s Hard Mode. He has low stats, and he can’t wear footwear. Everyone else has high stats and can wear footwear, as if wearing footwear ever made a difference.

Anyway, after choosing one of those four characters as your main character, you then get thrust into the game, starting in Gladstone Keep. A guard welcomes you to the Keep, and tells you that King Richard waits for you in his throne room. Along the way, you can click on numerous things and you get to hear your character say something that relates to whatever it is you clicked on. Remember, though, this is a First-Person Action RPG Gridder, so it has elements of Point-n-Click Adventure games in it, so that was bound to be in the game, right? 

You can click on things to get at least two responses
from your character.

After you’ve finished your business in the Keep, you’re told that, because of the threat from Scotia, Richard has an urgent need for the Ruby of Truth, which is with Roland, who lives in the Southland forest. Geron gives you a writ, and you head down there, only to find that Scotia knew that you would try that, so you have to report back to King Richard, who you find was poisoned by Scotia, who is trying to steal Richard’s ring. You’re told to seek out the Draracle, who will surely know a clue to the cure needed for the poison affecting King Richard. After you meet the Draracle, Gladstone Keep has been torched, Timothy telling you what happened just before he succumbs to his wounds. This leads you to travel over Lake Dread and search for the others to help remove Richard’s casket and find the ingredients to the elixir needed to cure him, while also tracking down the Orcs that stole the Ruby of Truth. Of course, needless to say, that things aren’t always going to go according to plan. These first few moments in the game show you that Lands of Lore isn’t messing around. It’s got a more cheerful attitude than that of the Eye of the Beholder games, but it starts off dark and it will stay that way until near the end of the game. Spoilers, I know, but this is a game that came out back in September of 1993, man, forget spoilers! Game came out over 20 years ago, by now. 

Now that we know what the plot is all about, let’s take a look at the gameplay. It plays very similarily to Eye of the Beholder I and II, in that, like I said earlier, is a First-Person Dungeon Crawler Action RPG, or Gridder, whatever you prefer. Anyway, things proceed in almost the exact same way as they did in Eye of the Beholder. When your characters travel around, you do it in first-person, and you travel all over the place, from Gladstone Keep, to the Gray Eagle Inn, to the Ghorka Swamps, and to many other places. However, the Dark Army stands in your way at every turn to make sure that you don’t succeed at your quest. Yes, while this game is similar to the Eye of the Beholder games that came before it, it’s also a lot harder and a lot more unforgiving that the first one, but not nearly as bad at it as the the second one. There’s no moving pits that you have to worry about, at the very least, something that was unneeded in Eye of the Beholder II. The only moving pits to worry about in Lands of Lore is the ones that require the player to press buttons to move, and usually they’ll never appear beneath your characters’ feet, at least, not too often. One last thing that Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos has over the two Eye of the Beholder games is that it has a built-in automap! Something that Eye of the Beholder I needed, and Eye of the Beholder II definitely needed it!

The stats screen. Here, you can see your characters'
attributes, their equipment, their levels, etc.

Now, when fighting, your characters only have about four stats, similar to the original Dragon Warrior on NES. You have Health, Magic, Attack, and Defense. Yeah, the Magic Stat shown in the beginning just shows you how much MP that character will start with, roughly. You also have three levels instead of just one: those levels are Fighter, Rogue, and Mage. Obviously, to build them up, you need to take actions that pertain to how that character would fight. To increase your Fighter level, you have to fight with Melee weapons. To increase your Rogue level, you must shoot arrows with bows, bolts with crossbows, throw throwing weapons, or simply throw things at opponents. Notice that I didn’t say ‘fight’ with ranged weapons, I said ‘use’them. You can stand in place and fire a bow or crossbow or throwing weapon, and your Rogue level will increase, although not as fast as actually shooting someone with a bow, crossbow, or throwing weapon, but it still increases it. Lastly, to increase your Mage level, you have to cast spells on enemies a lot. Now, I’ve hacked the game so that I would level up to max in the past for all three levels, and apparently, throwing stuff will increase your Rogue level even if you don’t hit anything with the stuff that you throw, and casting spells supposedly increases your Mage level, but neither of those worked for me without editing my save files. Of course, the dev team just couldn’t be bothered to increase your attack and defense stats with level ups, only weapons and armor will do that. Your Health and Magic pools, however, will increase as you level up, depending on which level increased for that character. Fighter gives the most Health at level ups, Rogue gives a moderate amount of Health at level ups, and Mage gives the least amount of Health, but it’s also the only class that will give a character extra Magic whenever you level it up.

There are three levels of difficulty that are available to play on which determines how strong the monsters you face are. On Wimpy, they’re all pushovers, or at least, most of them are. On normal, you get a fair but challenging experience, and on Ferocious the game takes the gloves off and lays into you like crazy. The characters, as I said with Kieran being the hard mode, also determine how easy or difficult a time you’ll have with Lands of Lore. In my opinion, and this is only from what I’ve played of Lands of Lore, and I have beaten it a few times, is that Ak’shel is the easiest to beat the game with, Conrad is fairly easy, Michael is normal, and Kieran is hard, like I said. Speaking of the characters having a difficulty level of their own reminds me of two things: one, the difficulty not only determines how hard monsters hit, but also how many HP they have, and how much experience they give for being hit with attacks. For example, whenever I play Ak’shel on Wimpy difficulty, he only ever seems to reach halfway to level 3 Mage, but on Ferocious I had him reach level 3 Mage by the time he reached the boss in Roland’s Manor. Of course, that’s probably just me, but it wouldn’t be the first time I saw something like that in an RPG.

The music in this game is so good! Composed by Frank Klepacki, the music ranges from the Northland Forest’s curious but somewhat primitive-in-nature sound, and the Southland Forest sounding cheerful, like everything is going to work out in the end. Of course, if you actually read the earlier part of the review that talks about the plot, you’ll know this part of the game won’t end well, but it still sounds cheerful. You have a cavern theme that shows that this is not a fun place to be, but that you’ll need to explore it and brave the darkness to reach your goals, whether it be the tutorial cave, which is called the Thug’s Cave, or the mandatory cave that comes along at the tail-end of the game, the Catwalk Caverns. I would honestly argue that this game is Frank Klepacki’s crowing achievement in video game music, although I’m not sure he would say that.

The graphics are top-notch, too. I don’t know who drew them and, to be honest about it, I really don’t care because I’m not a graphics-whore, but for the most part, for an MS-DOS game, the graphics are amazing. Well, not at modern-day standards, they’re not, but for the time the game was made, they were gorgeous and I still think they hold up well today.

You can expect to see quite a few cutscenes like this
throughout the game.

Of course, I have been praising the game quite a bit, I mean just gushing over it, so of course this raises the question of “what does the game do wrong? What is it that gets under Jestan’s skin?” Well, to me at least, the game feels unfinished. It’s not a bad game, don’t get me wrong, it just feels like it’s missing something, you know? There are areas in almost every map of the game that goes unused, the biggest surprise coming in from Yvel Woods, the later parts of the game throwing traps that are clearly designed to waste your time and pad out the game, making Lands of Lore seem longer than it actually is, and one part of the game, where you’re forced to commit genocide of an entire race of monsters which feels like a gigantic ass-pull (and I’m sorry I swore).

Overall, I think the game holds up well, and if it sounds interesting to you--it is--then you can buy it on gog.com right now, for just $5.99, and it comes with Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny, the sequel to Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos! Two games from the 90s with the price of one on gog.com? What are you waiting for, Christmas!? Go get ‘em! I promise you, you won’t regret it! Well, the first game, you won’t, but I can’t say the same for Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny.

I give this game a 7/10. Give it a whirl!

You can buy the game(s) here.

This review, including all text and screenshots, are © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams’ Magical Tome of Games, and all original characters mentioned within this review are © and ™ Jestan Diams. Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos belongs to Electronic Arts, unfortunately. All rights reserved.

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon Review

Bigger doesn't always mean better, you know!?

Release date: December 12, 1991 (DOS), Spring 1992 (Amiga), 1993 (Japanese Computers)
Developer: Westwood Studios
Publisher: SSI

It’s been some time since the death of Xanathar at the hands of the your party, and now a new evil threatens the City of Splendors. Do you have it in you to muster up the strength and courage to defeat it.

Eye of the Beholder II sees the player take their party, either one trasnferred from Eye of the Beholder 1, or created anew from scratch, through the Temple Darkmoon to discover just what’s going on, and to locate Khelben ‘Blackstaff’ Arunsun’s scout, Amber. Afterwards, they are to find the nature of the evil and destroy it, just as they have done with Xanathar.

As you can see, your party starts off much stronger and
better equipped in this game that they did in the first
one.

Gameplay-wise, it’s the same thing as Eye of the Beholder 1, just with more locations to go to and fight new enemies that weren’t in the original game, and some old ones that were! Several of these include Thri-kreen, Mind Flayers, and even Beholders! That’s right, remember Xanathar from Eye of the Beholder 1? Well, there’s basically an entire level filled not just with him, but also with Will-o’-Wisps. Beholders hit hard, they can take a pounding, and even hit the party with spells, including instant death spells! The Will-o’-Wisps are just a pain to hit, and they too hit hard. Well, that’s entirely true, mind you. You do have secret passages and, unlike in the first game, Eye of the Beholder II will have your party members tell you when something smells fishy, such as discovering a secret passage or a hidden button. They also included a few new traps, such as moving pits, fireball-trap-mazes, floors with moving walls (!), and a few others that I'm forgetting, I'm sure.

More of an RPG-feel to it.

The graphics are exactly the same as in the original Eye of the Beholder, but they did include new tilesets, including tilesets for outdoor areas! They even have wolves and dire wolves running around outside Darkmoon! They also included some artwork for conversational scenes when you talk with other people, which also gives Eye of the Beholder II more of a RPG-feel to it.

There are a few new sound effects in the game, but there’s still no music for when you’re exploring Darkmoon, save for the conversations with other characters and the intro, character creation, and ending. Stuff like that.

I don't recall there being any human enemies in Eye of
the Beholder I, right? Well, except for that hooded
mage...

Overall, though Eye of the Beholder II does some cool things, like raising the level cap of Eye of the Beholder I, it proves a point to me, that point being that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. The game feels like you’re just running errands, for the most part. Remember how in Eye of the Beholder I that you started on the top floor of the dungeon, level 1, and you worked your way down to level 2 and lower in any way you choose? Well, in Eye of the Beholder II, there’s none of that. You start off just outside the Temple Darkmoon, and when you get in, it seems like you have two paths to choose from, but you really only have one because the game is railroading you into going where it wants you to go. Now, I don’t have a problem with being railroaded in an RPG like this, but why show me two seperate paths in the temple when I can only take one of them? It just feels counterintuitive to me. Oh, Thieves actually have doors that only they can open now, but what if you played Eye of the Beholder I, where Thieves could only open doors on levels 1-5 but after that, they were basically just really crappy fighters? Chances are that unless you specifically knew about this ahead of time, then you wouldn’t create a Thief in this game, just like how you wouldn’t in Eye of the Beholder I! And this is before I mention the game’s insane level of difficulty, which is, to me, the game’s biggest flaw. Adding to the aforementioned railroading that I mentioned previously, there’s still no automap! Why!? Did you just not know how to program one in? I find that hard to believe, as there are parchments scattered around the game that have small pieces of the map to the area that they’re relevant to, but they still don’t help! Argh!!

It’s rough, but I give this game a 4/10. The difficulty is higher than it has any right to be, there’s still no music during actual gameplay nor is there an automap, save for unhelpful pieces of parchment, and above all else, the game is just a chore to get through. Yeah, it starts simple enough, but it quickly proves to be anything but.

This review is © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams’ Magical Tome of Games, and any original characters mentioned are © and ™ Jestan Diams. Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon belongs to... I honestly don’t know who it belongs to, Electronic Arts, I think? Shock of all shocks, that. Anyway, all rights reserved.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Review

A land ripe with opportunity and adventure!

Morrowind is widely considered to be the best Elder Scrolls game by the fandom, and it's an opinion that I couldn't agree with more. Now, this may shock you to know, but Morrowind was the very first Elder Scrolls game I played, and I'm glad I did. One of my childhood friends showed it to me way back in, oh, 2001 I think it was when the game was released? Anyway, when my friend showed it to me then, my jaw hit the floor, as it was unlike any other game that I had seen up to that point. Mind you, when I was a child, all I had in terms of video games were Nintendo consoles and the games released on them, but this was a new beast all together.

One of the quotes that the player will see upon
starting a new game.

Morrowind opens with a cutscene showing a quote by who I think was the king who got assassinated prior to the events of Daggerfall, and then it shows the quote you'll see in the screenshot to the left by... I don't know who, the game never tells us. Moving on, we then get to see several landscapes from the game, and an unknown voice speaks to us, the Daedric Prince, Azura, who tells the player that they are chosen. You then hear another voice telling you that you're shaking and that you need to wake up, and after you've woken up he says that the guards say that they've finally reached Morrowind and they're sure to let you both go. The guard captain comes and says that this is where the player gets off, and you then get told how to move around. Basically, the first few things in the game that you do aren't just the tutorials, but also the character creation of the game. Anyway, after setting your character up and leaving Seyda Neen's Census and Excise Office, you are then free to do whatever you please.

The basic stats, or some of them, at least, showing how
skilled your character is with each, well, skill.

Speaking of Morrowind's character creation, this was the very first game I've ever played where the player could literally create their own custom class. Of course, you don't have to create your own class if you don't want to, you can resort to the old-school Ultima style of character class creation and let the game generate it for you based on the answers you give for each of the ten questions you get asked, or you could choose your class from the list of classes available. For those just starting out adventuring through Morrowind, I would recommend starting with one of the pre-made classes so that you can get a feel for what Morrowind expects from the player, but if you want to squeeze every little thing from Morrowind, then you're going to have to create a custom class whether you like it or not. Of course, Morrowind is a bit harsher than Oblivion and Skyrim, in that your starting class and associated skills are very important, as you are forced to stay within those skills, at least early on, until you've saved up some cash to get trained in those skills, and training in this game ain't cheap, and the cost only increases every skill level you gain. Well, for the skill you want to train, anyway, and certain people can only train your skill level so much before you either have to start teaching yourself how to use the skill, or seek out someone better than the person who was training you before. This leads to one of my main complaints about Morrowind is that the grinding takes way too long, and the cost for training is so steep. You can do quests early on for money and the game isn't nearly as unforgiving as, say, Daggerfall in terms of training, but it still takes a lot of time, and I, for one, don't like to spend too long grinding.

Quite the impressive menu system, eh?

Morrowind has an... interesting menu system. You have a menu for your stats, you have a menu showing your spells, you have a menu for showing your inventory, and you also have a map in the menu. You can reorganize and readjust these four menus (more like three menus and a map) in any way you choose, but the way I show you in the screenshot to the left is my preferred way of doing it. One minor problem I have with this menu, the map, is that the map starts off totally blank. You have no terrain shown on the world map, you have no map markers on the world map, none of that. You either have to speak to people to get certain map markers to show up, or you have to go out and explore on your own. This, to me, at least, isn't so much of a complain as it is a minor nitpick, but in Morrowind, if you want to find something, if you want to find anything, then you're going to have to spend some time looking for whatever it is that you're after. You see, unlike in Oblivion and Skyrim, (as if those games came out before Morrowind) your compass doesn't function like a GPS here. You are given, at best, directions to your destination, and at worst, you're only given a very vague description of the location and you're going to have to not only explore to find, but even do some guesswork as to where you're destination is.

A sidequest with two possible outcomes.

Morrowind doesn't just have a main story to follow. There are sidequests galore in this game, baby! You have miscellaneous sidequests, you have guild questlines, you have escort quests (the worst kind of quest, main or otherwise) and you even have an anti-slavery questline to do. Oh, yes, slavery runs deep in Morrowind, and if you feel sorry for the many Argonians and Khajiit that you'll come across, then you can kill their captors (provided that the captors are bandits and outlaws) and find the key to the slave bracers that they're equipped with, then you can free them, although to actually start the Anti-Slavery questline, you'll have to free 30 slaves or so.

The music of Morrowind was Jeremy Soule's first contribution to the Elder Scrolls series of games, and they are so beautiful, in how they help to convey just how alien a land Morrowind is. Morrowind is often considered to be alien and inhospitable to most people of Tamriel (the main continent of the Elder Scrolls) even by Non-native Dunmer of Vvardenfell.

The graphics for the game are dated and showing their age, yes, but they're not totally bad. In fact, if you're playing the PC version of Morrowind, there are graphic overhaul mods out there that give the graphics a, well, overhaul that makes the game look so much better! Now, I don't care for most mods, but if you're a graphics-whore, then you're going to need one of them.

The journal of Morrowind, handy for keeping track of
quests and what other people have told you throughout
your journey.

If you need a game to last you a good little while, and you don't have an awful lot of money on you, then you need look no further than Morrowind. Remember how I said that the way the skills you choose at the beginning of the game are important? Well, you could play purely as a warrior-type character and outright ignore magic and stealth options, preferring to use strength to solve everything. After that, why not roll (another term for creating a character in an RPG like Morrowind is to 'roll' them, a reference to Dungeons & Dragons character creation, where you roll dice to get your attributes) another character and make this one purely a mage? Then after that, roll yet another character and play them purely as stealth. The options in this game are truly endless, and that means that it's very replayable. Oh, and if the numerous races and classes aren't enough for you, why not try your hand at modding the game, to try and squeeze even more gameplay and potential replay value from it? Morrowind shipped with it's game engine, a heavily-modified version of the Gamebryo engine, where you can create your own NPCs, classes, weapons, armor, spells, enchantments, scripts, the list goes on. You can even put MP3 files in the game's music folders to listen to while you play, jamming out to the tunes you love the most instead of Jeremy Soule's music.

Overall, I love this game, and after having written this review, I'll have to go back and replay it from start to finish with my new Morrowind character, a Dunmer (Dark Elf) Mage named Gadvyn Telnyn™.

Purchase the game from here. Or buy it from Steam!

This review is © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams' Magical Tome of Games, and any original characters listed in this review are © and ™ Jestan Diams. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind belongs to Bethesda Softworks, a Zenimax Media company. All rights reserved.

Duke Nukem 3D Review

It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all
outta gum.

I think the above screenshot and the caption I've put along with it pretty much says all that needs to be said about Duke Nukem 3D, but then that wouldn't be enough information, would it? Especially not if you plan on buying the game yourself.

A building getting blown up!

Duke Nukem 3D is another FPS game in a sea of the things, and it has the usual formulaic FPS stuff from the era. You run around a level, finding your standard Blue, Yellow, and Red key cards to open doors, you shoot at things from a First-Person perspective, you have numerous weapons at your disposal to choose from (after you find them, of course.), etc, etc. The whole Yellow, Red, and Blue key card thing was so overused back in those days that it's become somewhat of a joke nowadays, but hey, back then, you got any video game that was good and you lived with it, unlike today. Speaking of weapons, in addition to the standard pistol, shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher, and whatnot, you also get some sci-fi weapons, such as a shrink ray, a freezethrower, a weapon called "the devestator", and more. You also get a melee attack called the "mighty foot," which can help you conserve your ammo in a pinch, especially if you're low on ammo.

Duke is a bit of a narcissist.

The story of the game is simple, if a bit clichéd. Aliens have invaded the earth and, according to the text that appears at the start during an opening demo of the original version, "without so much as paying a security deposit." Also, after the events of the previous game, Duke Nukem II, as Duke was heading back to earth in his spaceship, it gets destroyed and Duke parachuted away and landed on a roof. As he sees his ship go up in flames, he mutters "Damn. Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride." And thus begins Duke's newest adventure.

Ready for action!

Duke Nukem 3D is a gorgeous game, in case you couldn't tell by the screenshots, and this is playing through the 20th anniversary release, too. On the DOS version, things are a bit blurrier, I think, but overall, the graphics are still pretty cool, and as for the music, it's great! It seems to have a good bit of Rock music in it, although not to the extent that Doom had, and Doom, for the most part, just ripped off of Heavy Metal bands of the time.

Looks like Doomguy didn't make it!

Of course, the thing that truly sets Duke Nukem 3D apart from the crowd is it's crude humor and tendency to poke fun at almost everything at the time that was the current generation's pop culture. For example, in the third level of the game, you can find the corpse of the space marine, A.K.A. Doomguy, from Doom, and Duke will say "Hmm. That's one Doomed space marine." And that isn't the only thing Duke will reference. You find references to not just other games at the time, you can find movie references, a music reference or two, voice clips from other characters that reference pop culture.

Now, I don't actually have a screenshot that shows this next part, but similar to Doom, Duke Nukem 3D also had, at the time, a rather large modding community, as the game shipped with the level editor that the dev team used to create the game, not only that, but you can actually go into the game's data files (labeled "GAME" and "USER") and edit those to your hearts content, which I had to do for some levels, and this leads me to my biggest gripe of this game, is that it is HARD! It's certainly a lot harder than Doom ever was. Well, Doom 1, anyways. Bosses of each episode come back in the next episode as miniature versions of themselves and they're fairly strong and you could be underpowered without knowing they're coming up. Then again, maybe I just suck at the game.

At the end of each level, you're told
how well you did.

The game, just like every other FPS game, also tells you how well you did during the level, in terms of how many aliens you killed, how many secrets you found, and how long it took you to complete the level.

Overall, if you're a fan of FPS games and crude humor, and you don't mind a fairly steep bit of difficulty, this is a game that I can easily recommend. I can also recommend it if you're looking for yet another FPS game from the 90s that's moddable. Just be aware of the game's difficulty!

I rate this game a 7/10. Check it out!

This review is © 2019 Jestan Diams. Jestan Diams, Jestan Diams Magical Tome of Games, and any other original characters are © and ™ Jestan Diams. Duke Nukem 3D belongs to Gearbox Software. All rights reserved.