Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 19: Eye of the Beholder (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Westwood

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, PC-98, Sega CD, SNES

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm returning to an old nemesis of mine, Eye of the Beholder. I've tried this a bunch of times and never gotten anywhere in it.

The text says it's A Legend Series Fantasy Role-Playing Saga, Vol. 1, so that's a little different. Pool of Radiance was a Forgotten Realms Role-Playing Epic, Vol. 1, but this time it's a saga and it's part of the Legend series! A series that only has games called Eye of the Beholder in it, as far as I'm aware. Plus they missed out the 'Forgotten Realms' part, even though that's where this is set.

Oh, this is by Westwood Associates, by the way, the folks who made Hillsfar (bad) and DragonStrike  (awkward), and the internet says it came out in 1991, not 1990 like it says on the title screen. 1991 featured more Dungeons & Dragons games than any year before or since, with Eye of the Beholder being right at the start of them. And also the end of them.

• Eye of the Beholder
• Death Knights of Krynn
• Neverwinter Nights
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier
• Pools of Darkness
• Shadow Sorcerer
• Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon

Two Eye of the Beholder games in one year is a bit much, though I suppose it's not as bad as four Gold Box RPGs!

Alright, this is the second time I've covered this game, if the first time even counts. All I did was wander around the first floor of the SNES game for a bit before getting bored and giving up. This time however I'm not giving up so easily so you can expect to see hours worth of identical-looking plain dungeon walls. So get a drink and make yourself comfortable. That's just good advice in general, really.

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I'm going to be playing the emulated DOS version that came bundled with the Dungeons & Dragons pack I bought on Steam, mostly because I like the pretty launcher. I've gotten a lot of use out of this bundle over the last five months, playing through the games in Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two, the Krynn Series and Silver Box Classic. And now after all those games, I have finally reached Collection One!

That's the original box art in the background, for most of the systems at least. Like pretty much all the classic D&D game covers, it was borrowed from somewhere else. In this case, it had been the cover to Dragon magazine issue 138 (Halloween 1988). 

The SNES box had an illustration of a fighter and a mage taking on the Beholder in combat, which is a little less impressive, but earns points for being representative of something you actually do in the game.

Eye of the Beholder starts with the most impressive intro cutscene I've seen in a D&D game so far. Some of the Gold Box games have a bit of a slideshow if you leave the title screen on, but this has actual animation. Well, a bit of movement at least.

This looks like an ancient evil cult, but I think they're actually the Lords of Waterdeep themselves... which is incidentally the title of a board game. Anyway they've gathered to purge evil and they've got a cunning scheme to do it: they're going to hire a team of adventures. It's pretty unorthodox but it might just work.

There's a map in the manual which shows Waterdeep's location, and it's on the road between Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter, a bit to the south of Icewind Dale. That means I've finally found a Forgotten Realms video game that doesn't take place around the bloody Moonsea! In fact I think this is the first D&D game to be set in the Sword Coast.

I've got nothing against the Moonsea area really, but the Sword Coast is what I'm familiar with from the later games and it's nice to be back. Look, there's the Friendly Arm Inn, and Candlekeep, and Dragonspear Castle!

The manual also has a map of the city in it, so you can see what it looks like from above. This is entirely pointless however, as to my knowledge you never actually go above ground.

The evil forces are also looking down on Waterdeep from above, using a crystal ball to spy on the adventurers as they arrive for work.

The Sega Mega CD version features some Resident Evil 1-tier voice acting, which reveals that the evil observer talking to her evil master is a woman. The cutscene is pretty similar otherwise, in all the ports.

I couldn't resist making a GIF to compare the different versions of the scene, though it only shows VGA graphics for the PC game. I could resist taking screenshots of the CGA, EGA and Tandy modes.

DOS VGA is clearly the winner here, but all of them combined isn't hitting this GIF's 256 colour limit.

You can tell the artists were having fun with this 'lock-and-load' montage, as the wizard dramatically picks up a book while the cleric starts praying to their deity.

I feel like this has to be a reference to something specific though. I'm sure I've seen a scene edited like this in something else, and I don't mean the Magic Pockets intro.

Magic Pockets (Amiga)

Though it basically is the Magic Pockets intro.

If I'd been able to think of any cutscenes like this in other games I would've edited them all together into one massive 'getting geared up' GIF, but this is all I have. Sorry.

I'm really dragging this intro out, but that's only because it keeps giving me pixel art to show off. And I can never resist stitching together scenes where an image slides across the screen.

This isn't the kind of dungeon entrance I'm used to, to be honest. They're usually a bit more grand and further away from the city centre. Also something about that gate is giving me a craving for waffles.

You know what I don't crave? Sewage. Most games lure the player in with some interesting locations before springing the sewer level on them, but here we're going straight in.

Damn, the villains have totally outplayed us here! They've destroyed the door we came in through, completely foiling all our plans of popping back out later for some lunch. Well, I suppose we'll just have to get on with destroying evil then, now that we have nothing better to do.

But first I have to plan out a team of characters, again.

That's a prettier character generation screen than I'm used to!

Plus I don't think I have to worry about dual-classing and level caps this time. I just need to pick a set of classes that cover all of the bases and make sure they have the ability scores needed to excel. So wisdom for clerics, intelligence for mages, etc.

Hey they're called mages now instead of magic-users! I guess the games have finally reached 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules! Well, this one has at least, the Gold Box games seem to be firmly entrenched in 1st Edition. The two editions aren't wildly different to my knowledge, and I'm not seeing any interesting new classes to pick, but there is one important change: male and female characters have the same strength limits now.

My plan is to make a dwarf fighter and an elf fighter for the front row, and a human mage and cleric for the back.

I've read that intelligence and charisma have zero impact on the game and wisdom only affects clerics, so strength, dexterity (for AC) and constitution (for HP) are what you want. Or I could just give all my heroes maximum everything, if I feel like.

At first I thought it expected me to click 100 times to get the maximum strength of 18(00), but it's actually fine, I just hold the right arrow key or + key down for a bit. Though Sega CD players wouldn't have been so lucky as you actually do have to keep tapping the button in that port. SNES players had it even worse, as all you can do in that version is reroll, and good luck trying to trying to get the prime stat to shift from 15.

It's also asking me to choose portraits for my characters! I haven't been able to do this in a D&D game since the first of the Gold Box RPGs, Pool of Radiance.

I was kind of hoping the Japanese systems would go full anime and there's definitely a bit of that in these faces. It seems like the Sega CD developers were working from the PC-98 art, but they did their own thing from time to time.

Here's a comparison of some of the female portraits, and now they're starting to look more anime! The Sega CD versions (third row) even have slightly bigger eyes.

By my count there are 29 male portraits and 18 female, though there's a little overlap. I've heard that they based some of them on the development team and yeah that seems plausible. Not that there's anything unusual about that.

Well rocks fell, but fortunately no one died. Plus I can grab a couple of the loose ones with the mouse cursor and stick them in my inventory, in case they're useful later. Hang on, weren't we in the middle of a long tunnel in the intro, where'd this side passage come from?

Anyway, I've started off in a sewer like in Elder Scrolls: Arena, but this is old school tile-based 3D like the Gold Box games, and like Treasure of Tarmin from back in 1983. My movement is limited as every step takes me to the next square of the map and turning is always 90 degrees, though I can at least sidestep. They've given me some convenient direction buttons to click on, but I'll be using the numeric keypad instead. 

I don't know if there's supposed to be music, but there isn't any. Not in the DOS version anyway.

The Amiga version looks basically the same as the VGA DOS original, except with blood-red walls because it's all it could manage, but the other ports look pretty different. The GIF's a bit misleading as the SNES game would be stretched to match the others, but I like sharp pixels. Also the PC-98 game is in a higher resolution than the others, just so it can display Japanese text.

If I had to pick one of these sewers to be stuck in, I'd probably go with the PC-98 version, because the water looks a lot healthier. Aside from the dead body lying in it. Meanwhile the Sega CD water looks actually radioactive.

I'd show the Atari ST version but they never made one, so instead I'm going to show this:

Dungeon Master (Atari ST)

Dungeon Master came out about three years earlier in 1987 for the Atari ST and later the Amiga. It eventually came out on PC as well, but that was still a year away at this point.

So Eye of the Beholder was able to come in and take its place, with the same real-time dungeon crawler gameplay, the same kind of mouse-driven interface. They've even got the same inventory.

Dungeon Master (Atari ST)

Dungeon Master was apparently the very first video game to feature a paper doll equipment screen, where you drag icons from an inventory grid to the character to equip them. It's a lot friendlier than the lists of items I've been dealing with in the other D&D games and way less of a nightmare than the bag management in Ultima VII, so I'm glad it caught on.

Another feature that Dungeon Master has is those 'Food' and 'Water' bars. You gotta keep your heroes fed and hydrated or else. Fortunately they didn't go full The Sims and add a 'Bladder' bar as there aren't many toilets in a sewer.

Here's Eye of the Beholder's inventory screen for comparison:
 

It's basically the same thing except it only takes up half the screen and they took away the 'water' bar.

Now I'm going to take this nice set of lockpicks I just found next to a corpse. Can I take the corpse too? Yes? Okay there's room for that as well I guess! I didn't bring a thief so I've got no one to pass these to, but I'll hang on to them just in case.

After playing the Gold Box games I am very grateful that they put those two arrows there to let me switch between inventories and move items around, it really speeds things up. The interface feels a generation more advanced in general... even if it doesn't tell me how much damage the weapons do. 1991 and I'm still waiting for damage stats.

Alright, there's a lever just off-screen on the left, so I'm going to click on it to get this door open. And if that's a rat I can see scurrying around behind the bars then I'm going to clear them out of this basement.

Hey they're Kobolds! And they've got daggers! Not much health though.

That map on the right is the All-Seeing Eye automapping tool I've got bolted onto the DOSBox window. It works almost exactly like Gold Box Companion does with the Gold Box games, except the bar at the top shows me the enemy's health instead of my own. I know some people like drawing their own maps, but I really appreciate that this exists. It even shows the doors and switches!

I have to right-click the weapon icons next to the portraits to attack (not left-click, that picks the weapon up with the cursor). Then I just wait for the cooldown to end and click them again, until the enemies are dead. There's no need to aim and no list of attacks to pick from like in Dungeon Master.

Only the pair of heroes in the front row can attack with melee weapons, but I tried clicking Tahani's dagger and she threw it away! Now I have to go find where it landed and pick it up.

Sega CD

The Sega CD version actually came with a map feature, which is cool. It's a bit rubbish compared to All-Seeing Eye though, as it so small you're getting the minimum amount of information about floors and doors. Worse, it shows the whole map, not just the part you've explored yourself.

Though the biggest problem with this map is that you have to find it. Until then you're left to wander around a floor lost, or map it yourself.

I like how the little guys jump up to slash, though I'm not keen on the red splats. Green splats are good, that means I'm doing damage. Red splats are bad, that means we're getting hurt.

Hang on, I just noticed that I clicked Eleanor's empty hand by accident and it counted as an attack. It missed this time, but I could be swinging with the other arm while their sword arms are recharging.

In the Gold Box games enemies drop all the gear they have, but here all I got was daggers and some rations. Well, I didn't really want their tattered red rags anyway. In fact, I don't want these daggers either! It's not my job to clean up the trash in these sewers. I should just drag them back out to the floor and keep some squares free in my inventory.

Oh wow, my cleric Chidi got a level up for... walking through a doorway it seems. In the Gold Box games characters don't get to level up until you can make it back out to visit a trainer, so I'm very glad that's not a rule this time.

Characters start off at level 3 in this and it seems like the cap for clerics is 10, so Chidi is now a third of the way there already! You'd think a low level game like this would make a big deal about levelling up, but nope. You hear a 'ding' sound, some purple text appears in the message box and then it's up to you to figure out how this has improved your life. He's a cleric so I suppose he might have more buffs and healing spells now.

Oh damn, that's a point, I forgot to memorise spells!

Like in the Gold Box games, I can rest anywhere to heal up and recover spells, so there's no need to run back to a healing fountain or whatever I did in Stonekeep.

It's also letting me save anywhere, though there's only the one save slot. I'd be concerned, except All-Seeing Eye is also giving me backup saves

Aright I'm going to see if I can take the scrolls I just found lying around and scribe them into my spell book.

The game features the typical AD&D Vancian magic system, where every cast of a spell is chosen in advance and memorised during rest. Then I just choose from a list in my spell book, which is a lot simpler than entering the correct sequence of runes like in Dungeon Master.

There's not much here that my characters can memorise at their level, but having a few shots of 'magic missile' couldn't hurt. Well, it won't hurt me anyway.

It's nice to see some other familiar spells here, like 'bless' and 'cure light wounds'. Sorry, I mean 'cure light wnds; we can't cure a rainy day but we can at least heal a breeze. I can't see 'sleep' though, which is a shame as that would make me unstoppable. And there are no infinite-use cantrips.

Hey, I know this room! This is as far as I got in the SNES game, which is pretty amazing considering it's not far from the entrance and the puzzle's really easy to solve.

That tiny switch on the wall opens the door, but the Dungeon Master pressure plate next to it closes it again. So all you do is drop something on the plate to activate it before pressing the switch. Then you can walk on it all you want and it won't do anything.

I must have been looking for any excuse to quit last time, because the SNES port's controls kind of take the joy out of it. Plus walking around a labyrinth of identical hallways isn't much fun without a map. It's considerably better when you do have the map though, as I like filling in every square like it's a Metroidvania, grabbing all the treasure as I go. Well, there's not actually much loot hidden down the dead end passages, but I did find some rations, so I'm in no danger of people starving to death before I even get anywhere. It's not Akalabeth.  

FLOOR 2

Alright, I made it down to floor 2 and now I'm learning about keys I guess, seeing as I've started off in a room with a key at my feet and a locked door right in front of me.

The twist is that there are actually three doors and three identical locks, so I need to think carefully about... oops I just immediately went and put the key into the lock in front of me. Oh well, can't be helped.

You can tell I've played too many video games as I just assumed the lock would eat the key forever, even though that's not how keys work in real life. And yeah that's exactly what it did. So now I need to go find another one.

Sega CD

I guess having a thief in the party would've taken a lot of the tension out of the situation, seeing as they start with lockpicks and have the skills to use them. 

But if it's possible to get all the keys and open all the doors just by exploring and figuring things out, then the thief class seems a bit redundant. They're less useful than a mage, a healer or someone who knows how to swing a blade at least.

I was a bit stuck here, but then I remembered accidentally throwing Tahani's dagger earlier and decided to see if I could land it on the pressure plate over there. Now I have to go pick it up, being very careful not to drop down any more of these holes.

It's not actually the end of the world if I do fall, I went exploring down a ladder and found the room you end up in. But I don't need the falling damage and I've already grabbed the mysterious potion down there.

Okay, what the hell?

I'm not running around in circles here, I'm only walking half a circle before ending up back where I started. It doesn't matter whether I turn left or right, all roads bring me right back again.

If you look carefully the trick is given away by a sneaky compass change, though I didn't figure out it was teleporting me until I paid attention to the automap. What I have to do is look for the walls with those rune symbols on them, as I can just walk right through them to avoid the trap.

SOON

I eventually found enough keys to get all three locked doors open, and I keep seeing these dagger carvings around. I've also found a stone dagger, so it's pretty obvious what I need to do next.

Nope, didn't work. I'll keep hold of it though.

Aha, I know what this one means. Well okay I don't, but it's pointing to a sparkly teleporter so I'm going to guess that's what it's called. So I did find R.A.T.S. in the basement after all.

The Steam and GOG versions both come with the cluebook and I don't think it'd be cheating to just quickly check what it says about this wall.

Alright, now I know! Rapid Access Teleport System.

The manual is also included and something about it jumped out at me right away. Though in retrospect I probably shouldn't have been surprised....

How did it take me this long to learn that the TV series Stranger Things uses the classic Dungeons & Dragons font for its logo?

Not that it was exclusive to D&D, it also showed up on a lot of novels from the late '70s and '80s, especially in the horror genre.

I haven't actually seen Stranger Things to be honest, but it's hard to avoid seeing the logo text when there are meme generators for it.

It turns out that the R.A.T.S. isn't the only way to get around this floor, as there's a room here which works like a lift, taking me to the prison cells when I press the button.

Hey aren't you the guy on the box art?

I'm getting a lot of use out of my cleric's automatic turn undead power here, as it makes the skeletons run, making it easier for me to chop them up without taking damage. 

Hang on, were they keeping prisoners locked up in sewage-filled cells? Wow, this is more like the start of Elder Scrolls: Arena than I thought. They must have locked these guys up with their weapons and armour and then left them to die. Shame I'm mostly only picking up the occasional helmet here, and I don't even know if they do anything in this game. Hey there's a bow back there! I haven't got one of them yet.

Here's one more difference between the PC and Sega CD versions. The PC version looks less cartoony, but the Sega CD version has more frames. As far as I know it's the only system with the improved animation.

I need to rest and do some healing after that, and it takes a ridiculous number of in-game hours to get everyone to full heath. At least my cleric casts healing spells automatically when resting, so I don't have to memorise them myself each time (I'm looking at you Pool of Radiance).

But where can I rest in this place? I know, I'll go lie down in one of these sewage-filled cells, they look comfy. Or at least they would if there was a bed in any of them. Not a lot of furniture in this game.

Oh look what this guy had in his cell and never noticed, it's a secret switch! I clicked it and it opened a secret passage... back to that room below the pits from ages ago. So the shortcut didn't actually benefit me in anyway, but I do get to feel smug for spotting it. Plus it got Tahani a level up!

Okay I'm about ready to leave floor 2 now, but I really need to know what these dagger carvings are about first. Fortunately the clue book has the answer! It's just being really cryptic about it.

It seems like every floor has a Beholder Special Quest Bonus to solve for a reward, for players looking for an extra challenge. 

I just wanted to know what the answer was though, so I looked it up and it turns out the four dagger carvings require four regular daggers. Not the stone one I tried. I was kind of hoping that wasn't the answer to be honest, seeing as I left all the daggers behind on floor 1 and I don't even know if I can go back up. Man, I hope the items I dropped didn't vanish.

Well I went back to floor 1, got the daggers, went down to floor 2, eventually found the carvings again (I really should've put notes on the map), and my reward was... rations! Honestly, they're kind of needed right now, so I'm grateful. Apparently running around trying to solve carving puzzles gives heroes an appetite. 

Oh, I also found Tahani a better dagger while I was up there, seeing as she likes throwing them so much. It looks like a banana, it's great.

FLOOR 3

Floor 3 is more of the same. Red brick walls, locked doors, corridors with spinner tiles that spin you around, and the occasional roaming enemy. Though this mysterious hole is new. I'm going to guess I need to put something in there to open the door, though it's not doing a great job of indicating what.

The game does have messages on the walls sometimes to give me hints. Like this other door I just found has 'Museum' written on it. I've always wanted to visit a sewer museum!
 

This is kind of weird, the enemies are just standing there and not attacking. It's like a museum of enemy sprites.

Honestly I get it, this game has some fantastic looking art. Though it's a Westwood title so that goes without saying. Their secret weapon was apparently a guy called Rick Parks, who joined the company in time to work on DragonStrike, and was lead artist on games like Lands of Lore and Legend of Kyrandia. Sadly he died of leukaemia at the end of 1996.

Well it seems like I could just pull the lever and walk out of the other door without bothering any of them. Though I'm just going to grab the loot from the floor first.
 

Nope, taking the loot was not the correct move!

I think pulling the lever and getting the hell out of here would be the smartest move, but I'm not making smart moves at the moment. I just tried casting a spell with a left-click and accidentally picked up my spell book instead. Why are there keyboard shortcuts for everything except using the weapons and items? C'mon game, Ultima I had this figured out ten years ago! 

Oh, it turns out that I can use the keyboard, but only if I start the game with the mouse turned off entirely. It's fine, I'll just keep chopping away with them with the axes instead, keep it simple.

Fortunately it was only the fish men that turned hostile and they're fairly easy to kill, so I actually got away with with my museum theft! Now I just need to find where Tahani lobbed her special banana dagger. Also there's a nice looking shield over by the wall...

Crap, I should've seen this coming!

No, Jason, I don't want to open your bloody inventory screen, I want you to hit them with your axe! Chidi put that ankh down and use it to cast some spells.

Damn this interface is awkward! Plus it's a lot harder to cast magic when you're doing it in real time, while also commanding three other people. At least cure light wounds is still just as useless as ever, so that hasn't changed. I've got health potions but without a quickbar for my items they ain't getting used in combat. And out of combat I can just rest.

Funny thing is, I've got an above average team here with my stats, but that's not gonna save you from being a dumbass. It's okay though, I know what I'm going to do next time. I'm going to heal first and then start a fight.

LATER

Aha, I suspected that placing something in these eyes would get a door open! It doesn't matter what gems I put in there, as long as they're blue (I used a red gem to open a different door).

It's like how I'm finding multiple identical keys and I have to decide which locked door I want to open first.
 

Hey I found the exit ladder! Seems a bit soon though, as there's still a lot of map left to explore. Also there's another ladder behind me, what the hell?

Okay I'll just fill in the rest of the map before I go, because I don't want to miss out on any good treasure. I just found some chainmail for one of my fighters, bringing their armour class down from 4 to 1 (which is good). I also acquired my fourth arrow! These things are rare, but they're also reusable, as long as I pick them all up again after the fight.

I whined about the huge levels in Secret of the Silver Blades and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, but they're a lot less awkward in this for me. The Gold Box games used tricks to expand maps past the 16x16 tile limit, so the larger maps ended up repetitive and boring, plus they broke the automap! Eye of the Beholder's floors don't have those problems. Another thing that helps is that I can race around explored areas without being hassled by random encounters and forgetting where I was going. It seems like extra fish men spawn in sometimes, but they're not an issue.

Chidi got another level up! Now he can cast the spell 'create food', so that's the game's hunger mechanic broken. I'm on floor 3 out of 12 and rations are already unnecessary. I'll get over it.

A BIT LATER

 

This room's a bit different. I'm very carefully making my way through a maze of pits and pressure plates to see what kind of reward is at the end of it.

Crap, what happened to Tahani's banana dagger? I must have thrown it at an enemy in one of the hallways earlier and then forgot to pick it up. Damn, now I need to backtrack everywhere and look for it. See, this is why I like axes: they stay in your bloody hand when you use them! Though I suppose that's not much use for the folks out of melee range in the back row.

Actually, forget axes, I just found a long sword! That's a proper D&D weapon. Speaking of proper D&D, I also found a fireball scroll. That's one of my all-time favourite spells! No idea how it's going to translate to a first-person game though.

FLOOR 4

Whoa, there's a tileset change for floor 4. I've escaped the sewers!

I've also found another person here, someone I can actually talk to. Though I think I'd better tend to his wounds first in case he dies while we're talking.

The game didn't give me any RPG dialogue options, but Taghor explained to us that he was wounded in a battle with the drow (dark elves). His king was also badly injured and his prince was kidnapped, so that seems like something that'll become my problem. Especially as Taghor wants to join the team so he can get back to his people on the floor below. Sounds good to me!

Wait a minute, Taghor's a fighter with an axe, so what use is he going to be to me? I can only have two frontline melee characters! I suppose I can at least take his chainmail off and give it to someone who's going to get hit.

Personally I think it would've been better for gameplay if the left column of characters were the front row and I had three people with melee attacks. Sure the corridors are a bit narrow for that, but it's a better formation.

Anyway, I've just found a bloody massive spider web and I can hear weird creaking sounds from the massive spider shuffling around behind it. I'd record a GIF of it for you, but I don't think arachnophobes would thank me, so I'm going to take a break instead. The spider can be a problem for another day.

TO BE CONTINUED

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If you've got thoughts on Eye of the Beholder, you can share them below! 

Actually, forget that, I want to know if there are any other examples of that Magic Pockets gearing up montage you can think of. I'm sure there's something obvious I'm forgetting.