Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon
released on Dec 12, 1991
Eye of the beholder II: The legend of Darkmoon is an all-3D leisure series computer role-playing adventure based on the popular AD&D 2nd edition game rules and on an original story created for this game. THe action takes place in and around the dreaded temple Darkmoon located in TSR's Forgotten Realms gameworld. Everything in Eye of the Beholder II is from your point of view. Watch the trees pass by as you move through the forest around the temple. Pick up items and take them with you. Open door with keys, by pressing buttons or by pulling release levers. See monsters draw nearer to you and close in for battle. Attack with the weapons your characters have in their hands. Cas spells with your Cleric's or Paladin's hoily symbols and your mages' spell books. Those in the front of the party may attack with weapons such as swords and maces, while characters in the rear ranks may attack with spells or ranged weapons such as bows and slings.
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The first Eye of the Beholder has certainly aged but is still a much more interesting game both for its time and now than this one that feels like a step back despite being the sequel. Not doing much to improve mechanically or visually, having a less interesting setting now with more backtracking, even less characterization for your NPC party members, and having issues more common with the higher level side of D&D combat.
There are not too many changes visually or mechanically. You now have access to higher max levels, some new spells both low and high level, and mage books can now be kept open but have a cooldown like weapons instead of needing to be reopened and the spell you need found again and again. The best addition is multiple save slots, which is good to have since you can get yourself trapped in certain areas or accidentally destroy items that you need to progress.
Darkmoon tends to make use of smaller and more streamlined level design and has somewhat more roleplay options with some conversation options but little difference in how things can really play out and actually loses the NPC companion plots with the few NPCs you can find, and the characters that you can find dead in the dungeons and revive to join your party no longer even have any introduction conversation. The early parts of the game makes it look like meeting people with a larger story role or side quests might be a thing but it ends up being just minor set dressing. Higher levels tends to mean enemies make a lot more use of and your spells make a lot more use of status effects like paralysis. While it starts in the woods it almost immediately has you in a dungeon like environment the rest of the game, it would have been nice to have more variety like that. How the opening is handled and the lack of running into groups like the dwarves and drow like you did in the last game make the dungeon itself and character elements even less interesting than the first game.
Much of the game will have you backtracking trying to find every item you need to progress with some hidden behind illusionary walls or other hidden spots. Six mirrored shields, a variety of items that you need to feed to riddle asking walls, items to reforge a sword, etc having you traverse rooms that frequently have constant fireball shooting traps that are likely to one hit kill your mages or rooms with moving pitfalls that drop you into other areas. The more interesting areas you have to traverse through have layouts that change either automatically or as enemies step on certain platforms where the only way you might notice something has changed is if you have your spell books down and see your compass suddenly say you are facing a different direction, more interesting than constant traps but still not fun to navigate through in environments that look the same. The imprisoned enemy Frost Giants are were more of a funny to see inclusion, too large to fit in the area they crawl around still taking up most of the space in front of you and attack with a giant fist coming at your screen.
With the higher level characters you are pretty much in a situation where your frontline fighters are nearly invincible, if you import your characters from the first game, if you know what you are doing. You want to maintain every mage and cleric spell buff you can like haste, improved invisibility, prayer, protection from evil, bless, etc. With a cleric now being high enough level to just have the create food and water spell there are no rations and food to worry about finding and you can rest for a week after every fight to replenish all damage and spells with no penalty. As it tends to be with higher level fights the threats are now primarily getting hit by status or instant death effects, or in this game's case the increasing frequency of enemies with reach attacks that can hit your middle and back rows of the party. The Ranger class is still basically useless but now the thief does a bit more, though you wouldn't want a non multi classed one. If you start a new party you start at likely 1-2 levels lower than you would be at the end of the first game and with terrible equipment with things like plate mail and +3-+5 longswords and daggers replaced with things like +1 chainmail and shortswords as the best armor and weapons you get.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1746610114218557846
There are not too many changes visually or mechanically. You now have access to higher max levels, some new spells both low and high level, and mage books can now be kept open but have a cooldown like weapons instead of needing to be reopened and the spell you need found again and again. The best addition is multiple save slots, which is good to have since you can get yourself trapped in certain areas or accidentally destroy items that you need to progress.
Darkmoon tends to make use of smaller and more streamlined level design and has somewhat more roleplay options with some conversation options but little difference in how things can really play out and actually loses the NPC companion plots with the few NPCs you can find, and the characters that you can find dead in the dungeons and revive to join your party no longer even have any introduction conversation. The early parts of the game makes it look like meeting people with a larger story role or side quests might be a thing but it ends up being just minor set dressing. Higher levels tends to mean enemies make a lot more use of and your spells make a lot more use of status effects like paralysis. While it starts in the woods it almost immediately has you in a dungeon like environment the rest of the game, it would have been nice to have more variety like that. How the opening is handled and the lack of running into groups like the dwarves and drow like you did in the last game make the dungeon itself and character elements even less interesting than the first game.
Much of the game will have you backtracking trying to find every item you need to progress with some hidden behind illusionary walls or other hidden spots. Six mirrored shields, a variety of items that you need to feed to riddle asking walls, items to reforge a sword, etc having you traverse rooms that frequently have constant fireball shooting traps that are likely to one hit kill your mages or rooms with moving pitfalls that drop you into other areas. The more interesting areas you have to traverse through have layouts that change either automatically or as enemies step on certain platforms where the only way you might notice something has changed is if you have your spell books down and see your compass suddenly say you are facing a different direction, more interesting than constant traps but still not fun to navigate through in environments that look the same. The imprisoned enemy Frost Giants are were more of a funny to see inclusion, too large to fit in the area they crawl around still taking up most of the space in front of you and attack with a giant fist coming at your screen.
With the higher level characters you are pretty much in a situation where your frontline fighters are nearly invincible, if you import your characters from the first game, if you know what you are doing. You want to maintain every mage and cleric spell buff you can like haste, improved invisibility, prayer, protection from evil, bless, etc. With a cleric now being high enough level to just have the create food and water spell there are no rations and food to worry about finding and you can rest for a week after every fight to replenish all damage and spells with no penalty. As it tends to be with higher level fights the threats are now primarily getting hit by status or instant death effects, or in this game's case the increasing frequency of enemies with reach attacks that can hit your middle and back rows of the party. The Ranger class is still basically useless but now the thief does a bit more, though you wouldn't want a non multi classed one. If you start a new party you start at likely 1-2 levels lower than you would be at the end of the first game and with terrible equipment with things like plate mail and +3-+5 longswords and daggers replaced with things like +1 chainmail and shortswords as the best armor and weapons you get.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1746610114218557846