Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 33: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 4

You're reading Super Adventures and I'm playing Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. Not for much longer though.

This is part 4 of this epic 4-part saga, but if you'd rather read PART 1,  PART 2 or PART 3, then click the text.

This is also part 33 of my attempt to play the first 10 years of Dungeons & Dragons video games, spanning 1982 to 1991. Hang on, this is the last game of 1991. That means I've done it, I've played everything on the list! It's over!

It's a bit of an awkward place to end things though, seeing as there's still another Eye of the Beholder game left to play, along with a bunch of Gold Box RPGs. On the plus side, Eye of the Beholder III apparently sucks, so maybe it'll work out for the best if I quit while I'm ahead.

SPOILER WARNING: whatever happens, you're going to know about it.

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

My four adventurers have been sent by Khelben Blackstaff to explore Darkmoon Temple and discover its dark secrets. He was checking in on us from time to time with his magic communication coin, though that got cut off when the villain Dran Draggore put a shield around the place.

It turns out that the temple is full of evil clerics, the basement has giant ants roaming around, and the Silver Tower is guarded by mantis warriors that can paralyse you. Plus there are the infinite wasps. I've been struggling a bit. 

But the team is still making progress, or at least they were until they hit a green crystal wall. If they can't solve this puzzle their journey ends right here.

And now, the conclusion:

DARKMOON TEMPLE, LEVEL 2

So here I am, blocked by a green crystal wall. Fortunately you just hit it with the green crystal hammer and it shatters.

I found the hammer a while ago, decided it probably wasn't as good as what I had equipped, and then brought it with me anyway. Anyone who made it this far had probably learned by now that you never leave anything behind. Okay you only have so many item slots, so you do eventually have to drop something, but you should put it where you can find it again.

Alright, now I can explore the next tower!

AZURE TOWER LEVEL 2

I'm making my way up the Azure Tower this time, which is a lot like the other tower I just did except with fewer wasps. 

Now the game's forcing me to make a choice. Do I help this mysterious old wizard by letting him "release the inherent magic" from his body, or do I not do that? I've seen enough RPGs and fantasy stories to know that letting the old wizard in the evil tower touch you is probably not a smart idea, so I'm going to be a coward and look up what happens. I'm not typically worried about the benevolent choice biting me in the ass, that happens every time I find a wounded monster, but this seems like it could have bigger consequences than just putting me in a fight.

Oh, it gives one character an immediate level up. Alright, that's not so bad, let's do that.

I did a few hallways of regular gameplay and now the game's being tricky again. That's a basilisk over there and it wants to come turn us to stone, however there's a row of pits splitting the room in half so he just roams back and forth. There's a pressure plate in his path but it's not obvious what it does when he steps on it. There's never a cable you can follow to see what a switch is connected to.

My theory is that one of the pits gets filled in so I'm going to go over to the left and wait for the basilisk to step on the plate to see if I'm right. Then I'm going to run for the door before he can catch me!

BUT THEN, DOWN THE NEXT HALLWAY

The picture doesn't do a great job of showing what's going on here, so I'll try to explain. I'm the little green triangle over in the top left corner of the map, and the grey circles surrounding it are pressure plates. 

When I walk on a plate, one of the red dots in the walls shoots me with a medieval rocket launcher turret, so I need to rush forward and find a gap in the wall to hide in. 

Here's a better picture.

I have been hit by so many bloody fireballs trying to get through here. It's hard to get out of the way when I have no idea where they're going to shoot from until I've seen it happen. Oh, also pressure plates can be triggered by enemies too.

Oh no San-raal got blown up! Fortunately I have a 'raise dead' spell ready to go... oh right it doesn't work on elves. I guess I'm loading a save then.

MANY EXPLOSIONS LATER

The game loves its creepy mouths. This one doesn't need feeding though, it's actually relaying a message from someone offering me a challenge! And I have to accept it in order to continue the game.

Before I go face my mysterious challenger I have to drop my spellcasting items, leaving me without offensive magic and healing. This seems like a really dumb thing to do in an evil temple, especially if it's because a bad guy asked me nicely. We're not even leaving anyone behind to guard them! But I don't have a choice.

Alright, I've dropped my equipment and I'm ready to walk into the teleporter.

The teleporter dropped me off in a room full of bulettes, who immediately surrounded me and kicked my ass. This isn't even the challenge, it's just a pre-challenge warm up! Bloody hell, the difficulty in this game is wild. 

Oh hang on, I forgot to rest and get my health back before going in. Whoops.

After the bulettes I had to punch through a barrier that hurt all my heroes with every hit. Man, it's a good thing I've been hoarding all these health potions, or else I wouldn't have survived it. Though I can still get health back by resting even without my cleric spells, it just takes way longer. Days.

Okay this is it, the epic battle against the Guardian Demon. The winner gets the best item the other possesses, the loser gets death.

Fortunately the guy turned out to be a push over and it took me about 8 seconds to win. He said I couldn't bring my spell books, but he didn't mention anything about wands.

My reward was the Eye of Talon, which looks like an eye and takes up an inventory spot. That's all I currently know about it. Alright, where did I leave my spell books?

LATER

Oh hi Khelben, it's been a while since we talked. I'm glad you figured out how to get a message through Dran's magic shield.

Khelben's got bad news for us: Dran is cooking up some magic so powerful that it'll turn the whole team to ash, no resurrections. But the spell targets life energies, so if its targets were to suddenly die by less permanent means, it would fail. Khelben has sent over a convenient one-use "get out of dying free" talisman so that the heroes can go get killed by monsters, break Dran's spell, and then magically spring back to life right afterwards!

Yeah sorry Dran, I'm not buying it. I'm keeping your talisman though.

AZURE TOWER LEVEL 4

I have to collect six enchanted shields before it's safe to enter the next area? Most of my team doesn't even use them!

Okay, I need to check a guide to figure out which of these shields I'm missing and how to get them, because I've already wasted enough time wandering around places I've already been. Hang on, I just checked my inventory and I already have all the shields! How am I not ready? Well, I suppose equipping them would probably help. 

When the statue was finally satisfied it told me that we're going up against the Medusa. Okay yes, mirror shields for everyone is a very good idea! I don't have a spell to save people who've been turned to stone and I don't think sleeping it off is going to work. I need that cat from Phantasy Star that carries a petrification cure around its neck.

For some reason I've always just accepted seeing monsters attack me in groups of four, though when it's four women in dresses that looks kind of weird. Even if they do have snakes instead of hair.

These Medusas are a real threat as our polished shields only reduce the chances of getting turned to stone. On the plus side there's no way to leap over pits in this, so they can't pull a Castlevania and knock me into a hole while I'm jumping.

I think they're respawning, which is actually a good thing as I need at least four of them to be alive to solve a puzzle.

There are four pressure plates in this area and I need to get Medusas standing on each of them to open the red door. I can close the green doors to try to fence them in, but the 'hold monster' spell is turning out to be my best friend for this bit.

I'm starting to wish they'd respawn faster, as I'm not getting enough of them on the buttons before the spell wears off and it's frustrating. I can't even imagine how difficult this would be without All-Seeing Eye's automap, though I do wish it marked the enemy locations on it. 

Hang on, it can do that!

Wow, it so much easier when I can see what I'm doing! And now that the door's open I can finally move on to the next area.

Actually, I've noticed that I missed filling in some of the hallways along the way. I'm going to have to backtrack in case I've missed a key or something.

FROST GIANT PRISON LEVEL

Man, look at the size of this Viking! He looks really pissed off, and I would be too if I was trapped in corridors the size of an air vent. It doesn't look like talking is going to be an option here.

I found the Hilt of Talon, but Dran dropped us down a pit right afterwards and now we're here. To make things worse we landed in a dead end, so this is the only direction I can go. Trouble is these frost giants don't respect the civilised rule that only front row units get hit, and they can punch my whole party to death in a few good jabs. It's frustrating to have to wait actual real world time to heal up every time I deal with one of these guys.

I've got room to back up a bit and dodge the hit here, but when two come at me it takes so long to kill them that I can end up with my back against the wall. Though the worst thing is when I walk back to where I was and find two more of them have appeared in their place! That's really demoralising, especially as I know how much the game likes respawning enemies.

The good news is that it turns out the frost giants are finite. The bad news is that a pit just opened up here and moments later I found myself on a previous floor. I'm just going to load a save; there's no way I'm walking all the way back up here.

These rows of pits open and close in a pattern, so getting across won't be hard. The tricky part comes when I make it to the other side and find I'm facing a frost giant with only a couple of tiles of space. I feel like it's just not possible to survive this, especially if there's a second one behind him, as the numbers aren't on my side. The game's a pain in the ass man!

Wait, does 'hold monster' work on these guys?

Oh damn it does! Alright giant, you can just stay there while I dance forwards and backwards, smacking you whenever a weapon's cooldown finishes. And I'm getting your friend too. This is going to take a while, but it is working.

HOLY SHIT THIS HALLWAY WAS A DEAD END? What is even wrong with these designers? There wasn't even a reward at the end.

And the next branch was a dead end too. So many frost giants killed for nothing. I'm just going to check a map and find the way out, because this is too tedious.

Oh hang on, maybe talking will be an option after all. At least the frost giant king's got a lot to say to me.

If the king's poetry is accurate, then the frost giants were kidnapped by Dran and they hate it here. I feel like this could lead to a bit of a sidequest perhaps. If I can free them perhaps they can help me fight Dran somehow. At worst it'll get them out of the hallways.

Nope, the frost giant king just died. I didn't even touch him! He dropped the Tongue of Talon (less gross than it sounds), and there's a portal here so I don't have to worry about this place again. I have no idea where to go next though. I've completely lost track of what keyholes I've seen and keys I've picked up.

DARKMOON TEMPLE, LEVEL 2

The walkthrough pointed me towards a locked room back in the priests' quarters. Inside I found a wall with slots that were the right shape for the hilt, eye and tongue of Talon - which turns out to be a sword!

The assembled blade is a +4 long sword, the most powerful weapon in the game. It's not really as good as the +5 Chieftain Halberd I brought over from Eye of the Beholder though, so I'm thinking I'll just drop it in the portal room next door with my other unwanted gear. Or should I drop the two-handed halberd, keep Talon, and equip a +2 short sword in the off-hand? Hmmmmmmmmm.

Okay fine I'll keep the Talon sword. 

The wall melted into jam revealing the exit. So this is it, I'm heading into the last section of the game. The Crimson Tower.

CRIMSON TOWER LEVEL 1

I hate fighting mages, mostly because the game freezes to let the spell animation play every time either of us uses magic. It's even worse when one of them appears behind me as well, that doesn't seem very fair! 
They hit so hard that I have to heal after every fight, which means more waiting. I'm not going to lie, the game's really losing me at this point.

There are sparkly purple teleporters here, but it doesn't seem like anything as complicated as the teleporter mazes I found in the first game. In fact I think the only point of them is to avoid the mage ambush.

I found a bit of sticky paper and a crimson ring. Also an alcove that turns items into fire spheres, but I'll come back to that later.

The crimson ring opened up this hallway, which bridges the two sides of the floor. While you're here you need to drop a bit of sticky paper on the floor to stop a pair of crimson rings from creeping away. I learned this from the walkthrough, because I would have never figured it out by myself. Also I probably would've put the paper in my hand to try to read it, and got it stuck there forever.

There's another crimson ring barrier at the other end of the hallway, but one of these rings will open it.

I made my way to a mess of disappearing walls triggered by invisible pressure plates, and finding a path through it to this miniature frost giant took longer than I would've liked. Not that meeting him helped me at all, as he turned to stone before finishing his rhyme.

There are two other people you can reach in this area, not that a player would have any idea about this without a walkthrough and an automap. You have to reach at least one of them to get the coin that opens a door.

One of them is Insal the Thief, the most disappointing recruitable character in video game history! He's been trapped by Dran, so there's still no way I can use his lockpicking skills to save Amber and that's just made him even more disappointing. Though the biggest disappointment for me is that I need to have a level 12 mage in the party to even get through the forcefield to see him, and I do not. Tahani is level 11, San-Raal is level 10. Screenshot denied.

SOON

Alright, this is the last room on this floor. I had a bit of trouble with some ultra-powerful mages on the way here, but they got easier when I remembered I can step out of the way. I've been fighting too many frost giants in narrow hallways where I couldn't move sideways.

"This hole feels lukewarm to the touch," isn't much of a clue, so I checked the walkthrough again and it says it wants a fire sphere. Hey I've got one of them! Trouble is that there are two more holes here, so I need two extra spheres. Fortunately I just happened to pass a fire sphere dispenser when I arrived on this floor, and now that I know how many spheres to make I can quickly pop over there and then come back to finish the level.

Hang on, why are the crimson ring doors locked again? This isn't how doors work in this game; I put the key in and they stay open! I do have one crimson ring left, but there are two doors between here and the other side of the level so I can't win, it's soft locked.

WHY WOULD THEY PUT A POINT OF NO RETURN IN BETWEEN THE ROOM WHICH NEEDS ITEMS AND THE DEVICE WHICH PRODUCES THEM?

Okay, the walkthrough says you can pick up an extra ring by searching one of the banners, and that an enemy that drops a ring may respawn. That doesn't really help me right now though, when I can't get back over there!

I've been saving in multiple slots, so I can just restore from an earlier point. The thing is, there was no hint I'd done anything wrong here, and you only have a few save slots, so I've been saving over my old saves. I'm at save 83 now, and my last save before the crimson ring doors was save 76. Screw it, I'm done for today.

THE NEXT DAY, CRIMSON TOWER LEVEL 2

Placing three fire spheres opened a one-way passage to the final floor, so now I'm right next to the last boss.

Unfortunately this floor is a bit of a nightmare, as it quickly fills up with mind flayers, and being surrounded by these guys is a situation you don't walk away from. Especially the people who've gotten paralysed.

At least the carpet's pretty nice. Also I found a crystal ball!

Visions of the past... or maybe the future! Well I know the first vision it showed me was the past, as it was from the intro to Eye of the Beholder. This one with the dragons could be from any time though.

Anyway there is one trick to getting through this level without ending up in an impossible fight against high-level enemies: just go through the door to the east. You can skip every other room, avoid all the mind flayers, and you won't even miss any loot!

Though you do need to have memorised two casts of 'dispel magic'. Preferably before you came to this floor, as who wants to try to rest next to mind flayers?

Casting 'dispel magic' on the two triangles on either side of the door will open it up, and I have absolutely zero idea how you're supposed to know this. Buy the cluebook, I suppose.

Oh, plus dispelling magic also removes your buffs, so that's funny. It's not an issue though, as once you're through the door you're safe to rest and cast spells all you want.

Okay Dran, you ready for a final boss fight? I've got bless, prayer, protection from evil, aid and haste on, plus the magical protection from this Starfire sceptre thing I picked up, so I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Dran Draggore is a powerful high-level mage with attacks that can destroy my whole party in a few hits. Unfortunately for him, I just got a lot of practice fighting powerful mages on the floor below, so I know the routine now.

I have to hit him with everything and then immediately step to the side. If he appears on screen I step right back again so he can't attack me, if he doesn't I turn around to see what he's up to. When my weapons have cooled down I hit him again. Repeat until he's dead.

Hey that wasn't so hard! I took a few hits myself, but he didn't do anything tricky I wasn't expecting.

Wait, Dran Draggore's a dragon? They put a dragon in my Dungeons & Dragons game! I thought he was a vampire, or maybe a member of the Q continuum.

Turning into his dragon form hasn't just healed him, it's given him more health than he started with. But this isn't exactly the first time I've fought a boss which has a second form. We've got this.

Damn, he just obliterated my whole team the instant it went back to gameplay! I didn't even get a moment to step out of the way. I'm going to have to check the video of that, I want to see just how many milliseconds the game gave me to react.

Wait, where's the video? Oh no, it wasn't recording? Man, I'm glad I habitually tap the screenshot key or else I wouldn't have had any pictures of this floor. I'm also glad I lost the fight, as winning the game and not getting footage of it would've been... irritating.

EVENTUALLY

His final form is a lot like his other form, except it takes longer to kill and he can obliterate you faster. I just have to hang in there and keep moving.

It's funny how at the very end, it all comes down to sidestepping around an enemy. When I started Eye of the Beholder 1 this felt like an exploit, like I was cheating by taking advantage of a quirk of the game mechanics, but for this battle it's what you do to win. It's Eye of the Beholder combat in its purest form.

That took me a few tries but I got him! I've done it, the game is over. And this time even the DOS version gets a cutscene at the end!

It looks like Khelben's giving us a thumbs up for a job well done, but he's actually beckoning us over so we can get out of here. They're about to nuke the site from orbit, to make sure Dran's skeleton army and all the other evils within can't bother anyone else.

Aww, that's disappointing. I thought the mages were going to send the temple crashing down as rubble, but it just disappears in a total failure of existence.

Man, I'm glad I rescued all the prisoners. Well, except for poor Amber. She's definitely not coming back now.

And that's it. I got the end credits, Xanathar the Beholder and Sparky the Cat were given special thanks, and then it left me with this screen. We're not just the Heroes of Waterdeep, we're the Heroes of the Realm now!

I tried pressing a button to get back to the menu, but the game just closed down! Fortunately it had autosaved a final.sav file for me to import into the third game. So someday they may continue their adventures and become the Heroes of the Disappointing Sequel.


CONCLUSION

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I think the first question I have to answer is: how did I let this drag on for four parts?

The thing about Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon is that it always gave me some new bullshit that I felt like I had to document. It's always got something different up its sleeve that's frustrating in a whole new way to all the other frustrations you've already dealt with. I have no regrets about checking the walkthrough from time to time, in fact I wish I'd looked up how to save Amber earlier. But I couldn't just turn the game off after I got the portal in the nightmare zone working, or after I collected the four winds, or after I got the Mark of Darkmoon etc., because I wanted to see what I'd unlocked after all my hard work! So it suckered me into one more challenge. And so on.

Though really this is a very similar game to the original Eye of the Beholder, almost like an expansion pack. That's nothing new for Dungeons & Dragons games, the Gold Box RPGs are all very similar, but aside from higher level spells and extra save slots there really isn't much that sets this apart from its predecessor. The combat definitely hasn't evolved at all, it's still about clicking the weapon icons when the cooldowns finish, and stepping out of the way before the enemies hit back. I've seen better battle systems to be honest.

One thing that has been (slightly) upgraded is the way it uses characters. The amazing-looking intro sets the scene right from the start, as you're working for an actual person this time. Plus you've been sent to look for a person, and you meet and talk to people in the first area. Even your party members are more like people, as they chime in with their observations. Sometimes objections too, if you're about to do something like desecrate a grave. Their dialogue is mostly along the lines of 'this wall looks suspicious', there's no attempt to give them characterisation or banter, but it helps. Together it all makes the game feel more like a proper RPG than its predecessor, even if your role-playing choices are generally limited to 'help' and 'kill'.

Did I actually like the game though? Honestly... kind of. In fact I think this would've been my favourite Dungeons & Dragons game so far if it hadn't been for the last stretch. It's also the newest D&D game so far, so that helps. It's clearly a generation ahead of the Gold Box titles when it comes to its presentation and general slickness. The game has A+ artwork for 1991, and the music... well if it had any I'm sure it would've been great. Okay there is a little bit of music for special occasions, and it's by Command & Conquer composer Frank Klepacki! 

But what version is better? Personally for me the only contenders are the ones with an automap, so that's the DOS version with All-Seeing Eye running and the unofficial Amiga AGA port. Actually there's a third option, as ScummVM has support for the game and actually fixes some of the bugs. 

ScummVM

The next release will even include an automap! It's a bit awkward having to switch to it though, instead of it being in a separate window.

Personally I'd say DOSBox with All-Seeing Eye is still my preferred way to play. Plus on this version you get to export your characters into Eye of the Beholder III! Yay.

• To see the list of the other D&D games I've played so far, click HERE.

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Okay that's the end of 1991, which also means it's the end of the first decade of Dungeons & Dragons games. That's it, I did it, I made it to the finish line! I think I've done enough now to earn a break from elves and THAC0 and stinking clouds. And Gold Box games.

If you want to leave a comment, then I reckon you should go for it. You can share your opinions or even take a guess at what the next game will be.