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.