Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 32: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 3

This week on Super Adventures, it's been pretty much nothing but Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. Version 1.1, apparently.

You're reading part 3 of 4, but if you'd prefer to be reading PART 1 or PART 2, then those links will get you where you want to be.

Here's a bit of insight into how bad I am at estimating how much I'll end up writing about a game: I was originally going to cover Eye of the Beholder in one article. I mean the Eye of the Beholder series, all three games, on the same page. I had the layout in place and I figured that 10 screenshots each would be enough. Turns out that 100 would've been a better guess.

Anyway, there's barely any story in the game, but I'll put a SPOILER warning here anyway just to be safe. Maybe I'll end up spoiling a puzzle for you or something.

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Previously, in Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon:

Four adventurers have infiltrated Temple Darkmoon on a mission from Khelben Blackstaff to save his scout, Amber, and discover what the priests have been up to in there. They have a magic coin to communicate with each other, so Khelben's been getting status updates as they go.

After breaking into a hidden chamber the heroes were met by a ghost who explained that they're about to take a test of faith. He was probably an evil ghost, but that doesn't really matter; the team will need to prove that they're worthy children of Darkmoon in order to get the Mark of Darkmoon and continue the investigation.

And now, the continuation:

SILVER TOWER, LEVEL 1

I feel like I've time travelled. I was in a medieval fantasy a moment ago and now I'm in a silent sci-fi disco.

The lights are blinking on and off in a repeated sequence and I'm guessing it's only safe to stand there when they're inactive. So I'm going to head in and try to keep up with the dark tiles as they zig zag across the floor.

Damn, I got zapped! It wasn't even my fault, I was stepping onto the correct tiles as they were deactivated. I just wasn't expecting mantis warriors to be standing there at the end, blocking my way off!

Three zaps are enough to kill my weaker heroes, so I have about 9 seconds to kill the mantis, make a space, and step off the trap. While I'm doing this, the mantis is taking off even more of my health, plus he has a chance to paralyse someone with each hit. I don't want my warriors to be paralysed, I want them to be hitting him!

It's like a puzzle and I'm not sure what the solution is.

I don't think this challenge is very fun. They're paralysing my dudes quicker than I can un-paralyse them!

Persistence isn't my strong suit, but I kept walking through the zap pad maze and fighting the mantises four or five more times before I finally managed to beat them. I have Tahani to thank for that, as she cast all the fireball spells she had and then tossed her entire magic knife collection at them (though Chidi's buffs probably helped a little).

I picked up the key they dropped and then cast all the healing spells I had left. The game's not letting my characters rest here, so it's the best I can do. It can't stop me from resting though, so I'm going to just stay here for a moment and recover from that fight. Maybe I'll look out of the window for a bit.

Oh right, I'm up in a tower now! I'm so used to being stuck in an underground dungeon in these games.

I found a switch to turn off the zap pads, and I'm just going around and exploring right now. Eleanor's still paralysed, but it's fine. It'll wear off eventually, and until then she'll be dragged along with the rest of the group. I'm sure Jason will be able to handle the front row duties on his own while she's out of action.

Hey, I've found a mantis that someone else stabbed! I guess no one likes these guys.

Every mantis warrior I've ran into so far has been hostile, so healing this one would probably be really stupid. Though on the other hand, my healing spells suck, so if he immediately turns on us it won't take too many hits to put him back on the floor. I'm going to give it a shot!

Yep, the dude tried to kill us, so I had to stab him some more. We're not getting a mantis for the team then. On the plus side, I did get a key from him.

I found someone else lying on the floor, but he doesn't seem to be wounded. He's not a prisoner either, he just decided to sleep on the dungeon floor. Who even does that?

Tanglor was ready to join my party, but I told him that he couldn't and he got offended. Did he not notice that there are six of us already? I really wish these games had a place somewhere that I could meet up with the recruitable characters I've met and shuffle my party around. I've been spoiled by Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Anyway, this place seems safe so I'm going to have a nap to get my spells back and let this paralysis wear off.

Here's some useful advice: don't creep through the room of giant mantis eggs to grab the loot at the end. 

The mantis babies were only waiting for their chance to spring out and attack me in unison, and it turns out that they're born holding those knives. So yeah, this went poorly for me very quickly.

What you're supposed to do is smash the eggs one at a time, slaying each occupant when they spring out. I like to use the short sword in Jason's off hand to crack the egg, and then I can use his and Eleanor's main weapons to kill the mantis in two hits before they can fight back. If either of them misses, then Tahani's there to finish the job with a throwing knife.

I got a mantis idol afterwards, so that's one more item to carry around with me everywhere until it's useful.

Seems I can't stop here, this is respawning giant evil wasp territory. It's like the ants in the basement again, except these things take some actual effort to kill, and they can paralyse us, and they can poison us. So there's a lot of dramatic page turning going on as I try to find the one with 'cure poison' or 'remove paralysis' on it. Or 'fireball' (but not 'ice storm', that one's trouble).

I'm not having fun on this floor to be honest. The difficulty has spiked and it's made me realise I don't much like the game's combat system. It's not pushing me to come up with new tactical manoeuvres or cunning ideas, I'm just getting good at right-clicking the sword icons and remembering where the spells are.

In fact screw it, I've seen enough of the game, so I'm going to quit here. Maybe I'll finally buy Bridge Constructor if it's still cheap, and make some bridges instead.

HOURS LATER

Bridge Constructor (PC)

Oh come on, that bridge wasn't just perfect, it was art! That train just destroyed art.

Alright, I've completed Bridge Constructor. It's a nice little puzzle game actually, better than I expected. Though you do have to do some trial and error fine-tuning on the tougher challenges. 

Now I feel like loading Eye of the Beholder II up again and having another go at those wasps.

The wasp zone wasn't actually all that bad in the end. The wasps didn't respawn anywhere near as fast as I thought they did, so I was able to clear them out long enough to grab the loot. 

I've also found a key. Though it's the same kind of copper key I used to unlock the wasp chamber in the first place, and the only other keyhole I've seen up here is for a bone key, so I'm confused.

Oh, I had to force a door by clicking on it!

I actually figured this out myself, as I knew I needed to be on the other side of it and I couldn't find any other way to get it open. Those messages at the bottom were a bit discouraging, but I kept trying anyway because I know what these games are like.

Whoa, another creepy mouth.

Alright, this mouth wants bones. Of the bones it wants three. I wish someone had told me this earlier, as I assumed that bones were the one thing the game didn't expect me to haul around with me. Nope! Pick up everything.

So I backtracked all the way to the catacombs, fought skeleton warriors in the prison and ransacked the giant ant lair, until I found three bones. The mouth was so happy with its meal that it gave me the key I need.

I could've skipped all that by just picking up the bones when I first saw them. It wasn't a completely wasted trip though, as I got enough XP from that expedition for my cleric to get a level up.

Unlike mages, clerics don't have to learn spells from scrolls, they get whatever's available for their level, so I have all this magic to play with. I can only memorise one of them though.

'Slay living' would be good in a fight, though I can already hurt things with swords so maybe 'true seeing' would be more useful. On the other hand, 'raise dead' is never a bad spell to have in your back pocket, especially as the giant resurrection ankh only has a couple of charges left. Trouble is that my most death-prone character is a resurrection-resistant dark elf, so my own magic might not be enough to bring him back.

The plaque on the wall here reads "Faith is the key". 

Faith in what though? I'm in a small square room with a lever in each corner. When I flick a lever a door opens up revealing a hallway blocked off by another door, and a pit appears to prevent me reaching one of the other levers. It seems I need to pull all four levers to escape, but that would be impossible.

Oh, obviously I have to have faith that I can pull every lever without falling!

I can pull three of them as long as I open pits in the corners I've already visited, which leaves me with one lever I apparently can't reach. But what if I just walked right over the final pit... 

Nope, I fell down. Never mind.

Aha, Jason's spotted a brick out of place. If I press the brick then... nothing happens.

Alright I can't walk over the pits, I can't tell what the brick did, none of the walls here are illusionary and there's nothing I can force open. Walkthrough, tell me what to do!

"The key to the puzzle is the hidden button past three of the doors (#27). Pressing it will (invisibly) cover the pit at #25d, which will allow you to pull all of the levers, provided you save the lever at #25d for last."

Oh I see! So it's bullshit then.

Oh hey it's this ghost again, the one that met me when I came up the stairs and told me to trust nothing but ourselves. Now he's telling me that the door to the left is safe and the door to the right is almost certain death.

Well, the joke's on him, I can save the game here and try both doors! Though I'll try the certain death door first, because I have a feeling that the point he's trying to make here is that he's a lying bastard.

SILVER TOWER, LEVEL 2

Man, this game is really keen on me picking the correct door all of a sudden.

Another room had a message on the wall saying "The way through three is two not four", and there were three doors in front of it. I assumed it was a riddle, but then I tried door two and it was the right way, so I guess it was just being helpful.

A little further through the maze I found a corridor with eight mouths along the walls, and they've all got a cryptic clue hinting at what they want to eat. It's like they want to go hungry.

Okay some of the clues aren't so bad. I figured out that one wanted the mantis idol, another wanted rotten food and I was able to dispose of a cursed sword in another one (after I'd hiked down to another floor to pick it up). But I've no clue what "Items born of greed" could mean. "One for each year, and one less to fear". Each year of what?

I checked the walkthrough and what it wants is... five rocks. Man, you see what these games are like! I told you that those rocks I've been picking up would be needed at some point. Fortunately players without a rock collection aren't out of luck here, as there's a secret behind an illusionary wall that rewards your greed by turning spare items into extra rocks. Oh, maybe that's what the clue was talking about.

I was exploring when I heard a voice telling me to not come any closer. So I ignored it, carried on down the hallway, and found this priest lying next to some loot. It's not even giving me the option to try to save him, he's just doomed, apparently. I think he must be stuck on a pressure plate.

Killing him won't benefit me in the slightest and he's lying on a metaphorical landmine, so I decided to respect his wishes and get away from the trap. He'll be dead soon anyway, because he's not lying about the flying serpents. They keep spawning in from one of the other hallways and I'm sure one will make over here eventually.

Meanwhile I've got other places to be. There are still some corners of this floor I haven't explored yet.

Oh, hello! I wasn't expecting Star Trek's Q to drop by and deliver a random Impossible Mission reference.

This is Dran Draggore, the vampiric main villain, and he loves cycling through three expressions while talking. I chose to show the one where he's showing off the fangs.

Dran just dropped by to express his annoyance that we're roaming around his temple, and to inform us that he's sealed the door behind us so there's no way out. I'm always getting sealed inside deadly labyrinths full of monsters and traps though, so it's fine.

Well that's new, I haven't found a hand sticking out of a wall holding a key before. It's very on-theme for this place though.

The game has switched back to creepy mode for a bit, giving me scary distant noises, empty corridors and teleporter puzzles. Oh hang on, Khelben's on the phone again, asking for a status update.

Hey the heroes actually told him about that floor of the catacombs where they couldn't sleep! It's nice when video game characters actually think about and discuss the weirdness they come across.

Unfortunately this might be the last call we get from Khelben as Dran's put up a magical barrier around Darkmoon Temple. Khelben's working on a way to get a signal through it, but... oh, he got cut off. Well that's a concern.

I found a map a while back showing the fake walls on this floor, so I'm using my 'true seeing' spell to see through them. I'd show you a picture of what the hallway looks like with the illusionary walls removed, but it just looks like a hallway.

It's a really good idea to have a cleric and mage in your party, as certain problems get a lot easier when you've got a spellcaster. Like hunger, for example. I'm not sure the game even has enough food in it for a party without a magic food button to avoid starvation.

Oh hey, there's a ceiling beholder watching us.

Hours ago I ran into a wounded mantis warrior bleeding on the ground and had the choice to help or kill him. I'm an idiot so I chose to help him and it didn't work out for me. But I'm playing a good-aligned party and assisting evil monsters is what we do, so I guess I'm going with the 'help' option again.

Well my choice to show mercy inevitably bit me in the ass once, as I had to face a mighty beholder in combat! Fortunately he was much easier to beat than Xanathar at the end of the first game. Maybe he had weaker stats, maybe I'm just a much higher level, maybe a little bit of both, I don't know.

My four imported heroes are all around level 9 or 10 at this point, but then so are the characters I recruited, so I think I'm at a typical level for this part of the game. Any advantage I got from importing a party has faded away... well aside from all the high-level weapons and magic rings I brought over

LOTS OF EYE OF THE BEHOLDER GAMEPLAY LATER

At the end of all the tests and the fights I found a pedestal inviting visitors to place their hand on it.

I don't think this is going to lead to anything fun, but we gotta do it. Or perhaps one person could do it, maybe that would be enough. I'm voting for Shorn.

Hey they've all got the Mark of Darkmoon on their hands now. That's cool, I like it when a game changes the interface like this due to plot reasons. I wonder if that'll carry over to Eye of the Beholder III. Actually I hope it doesn't, as I don't really want my heroes to be permanently scarred with an evil mark.

Well I'm sure this has helped me somehow, but I don't know what to do next. Hang on, the first mouth in the temple said only people with the mark could pass, so that's where I need to be! Okay cool, I'm done with the Silver Tower and I'm heading back to the temple.

DARKMOON TEMPLE, LEVEL 2

I opened the Mark of Darkmoon barrier... and there was another barrier right behind it. The game has a sense of humour, I'll give it that.

Actually I don't want to leave yet anyway, as I remember the guide mentioning that a recruitable character is nearby. In fact this is where you can finally meet up with Amber, the scout that Khelben sent us here to find! She's a mage/thief, so she wouldn't be as good as a pure mage like San-Raal, plus she's dead, but she's part of the team and I want to resurrect her. Hang on, I need to look up how to get her door open...

... oh.

It turns out that there's no key for her cell, so you need a thief. But she is the thief. If you made a thief for your party then you don't even need her. There is one other thief in the game though...

Insal the Quick! The worst recruitable character in video game history. The guy who bails on you the first time you make camp, swiping some of your precious irreplaceable gear.

But that's fine, all you need to do is recruit him, rush up to Amber's cell without resting, and then dismiss him once you've resurrected her. There's one small problem with that plan: I already released him and told him I didn't want him in the team, so he ran away.

Man, this game really has been expertly engineered to frustrate the hell out of me. In fact, I'm out of enthusiasm now, I'm tired of this game screwing with me. But I'll be back later.

TO BE CONTINUED

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No need to guess what the next game's going to be, it's just this one again. For one last time.

You should still leave a comment though, if you want to.