Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder

"Giant Spiders from this game will scare the crap outta' you!"

First let me start by saying that I've never won this game. Now, I've gotten VERY far into it, I just think that my game was bugged or something because I couldn't get the secret wall on level 10 to open for me, even though every walkthrough says it should work. Now that THAT'S out of the way, let's get busy in the catacombs of Waterdeep!

STORY: 8/10

Basically your party of four adventurers are summoned by the Lords of the city of Waterdeep to investigate and kill an evil beholder. If you've never played a Dungeons and Dragons game before, a beholder is basically a large armored floating eye surrounded by tentacles, each with their own eye. Oh yeah, and it has huge razor-sharp teeth and can basically cast every death spell imaginable at you as well! Hooray! Well, you agree to look for it and enter the city's upper sewer system loaded with some very basic supplies. You make it about 25 feet from the entrance grate and the whole ceiling caves in on you! My, what an unfortunate accident! Or IS it?? Anyway, now you're trapped inside the dungeon with no other way out, so with utmost haste your party descends into the shadowy depths below..

GRAPHICS: 10/10

I was actually very impressed with the graphics of this game. Sure, it does suffer from "Wall-similaritis" -where every wall has the same texture, only a different color- but so does every other 1st-person game like this NOW, let alone 12 years ago! Each character has his or her own portrait and there are many to choose from too. You can see your enemies walking about in the maze, and even things like spell effects and arrows are shown flying through the air. Some of the item icons look good, and of course the stone warping portal sequence is very nice!

SOUND: 8/10

There are not too many musical pieces in the game, but there IS a very awesome piece that starts playing when you reach level 3 or 4. It sounds very creepy and mysterious and really fits the mood of the dungeon well. This is also around the time where the game starts getting hard too, as you're thrust into a creepy-sounding level adorned with giant cobwebs and huge black spiders will try to bite and poison you! Sound effects are slightly less than stellar, yet hold their own. Plus, the 'BOING!' of an arrow getting fired is pretty funny.

CONTROL: 7/10

Although the game is primarily menu-driven in areas, it just kind of felt a bit sluggish to me. Fortunately, the game mimics the point-and-click features of the PC version and it works well in that aspect. To equip your guys, just drag and drop the item over your character's "paper doll" picture and you're golden. One thing that should be mentioned is that you fight in real-time, so if you're not paying attention a wandering monster might start attacking your rear party members.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

Hey, it's Dungeons and Dragons, how can it go wrong? Well, there WAS Heroes of the Lance, so maybe I should strike that first question. Anyways, you begin as most RPGs of this type do with your character creation screen. First, pick your characters picture, race, and sex. Then you have your 6 attributes you can decide to keep or re-roll. One important thing to note in this game is the Charisma stat. I can't think of more than maybe THREE times in the span of the entire game where you have to actually talk to an NPC, and who's to say that Charisma even plays a part in these parlays? So forget Charisma! Instead, focus on much more important stats like Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity (if you're a fighter-type), or Intelligence and Wisdom (if you're a magic user or cleric).

So now you have your party of 4 adventurers! From here, you navigate different floors of the dungeon, hacking and slashing your way down to the next level. You will find many items all over the place for you to pick up if you want. Even basic things like rocks can be thrown at your enemies, so pick up anything you want. Remember, if you have a spell caster you'll need to rest up in order to memorize / pray for your spells. And don't forget to actually equip your caster with a cross or magic book or they won't be able to use their spells.

Most of the enemies you face won't be terribly tough, but there are some stinkers out there waiting for you to find them. Skeletons are pretty weak, for example, but there's this one place where you open the door and 2 or 3 skeletal knights immediately assault your party and can kill them pretty easily. Even Kenkus (large bird-like enemies) can be hard because there are just so MANY of them in areas, plus they have some range spells at their disposal. Maybe they're mad because your main source of food in the maze are their eggs! Deeper down in the maze, you'll run into poisonous spiders, drow warriors, displacer beasts, hell hounds, and the dreaded mind-flayers!

Lucky for you, there are some excellent magical weapons and armor out there for your party. Almost all of them are pretty well-hidden though, so make sure you look for secret passages wherever you go. This is even one of those cool games that feature cursed items! Yay! Actually, for some weird reason I'm a big fan of cursed items in my RPGs. The only drawback about cursed items in D&D though is that their are hardly any that have any redeeming qualities about them. I mean in Dragon Warrior 2, the Sword of Destruction was cursed, but it also had the highest attack power of any sword in the game. Here, if you decide to use a cursed item it's all BAD. Therefore, I suggest you don't use any!

And you won't find just swords and rocks in the maze. Nope, sometimes you'll find a pile of bones that you can take with you. Then, later on in the game you'll meet up with a dwarf cleric that can resurrect the bones into party members that you can decide to take with you or not! This is a great idea to be sure. You can add two of these characters to your party to really help you out during your dangerous journey. Just remember that only the first two characters can attack with melee weapons like maces and axes, so don't load up on a ton of fighters.

And I have to mention, there is one sword lying out in the open in a field of teleporters near the beginning of the game that I CANNOT GET!! I must have seriously tried to obtain this thing for days on end- if you add all the time up. I have tried every teleporter possibility and dead-end secret passageway combo there is, and I can't get it. It might be there solely for the "Nyah Nyah can't get me!!" factor, which I don't doubt. And speaking of transporters, there are some very cool and essential ancient drow portals that can be opened by using various stone objects that act like keys. Some of the stone objects can be very hard to find too.

CHALLENGE: 8/10

There are pitfalls, traps, teleporters, cursed items, and a boatload of vicious enemies waiting for you in the dungeon beneath Waterdeep. There is also no auto-map feature, so you may want to grab some graph paper and make your own. Be wary of spots where the maze changes your direction without your knowledge, haha!

PROS:

+It's a Non-Heroes of the Lance D&D game!
+Great graphics and sound
+The game really picks up a lot after you meet the spiders
+Good character creation system
+Lots of enemies that you fight in real-time
+A great big dungeon full of magical items and scrolls
+You can resurrect piles of bones you find into other party members to join you!
+The ancient stone portals help a ton.

CONS:

-No auto map, or ANY map to speak of!
-Charisma is useless because..
-There aren't enough other people to talk to in the maze
-You may run out of food if you don't constantly find more
-Cursed items are all bad, unfortunately
-That sword! How do you get that sword!?

OVERALL: 8/10

A very good RPG for the Super Nintendo, Eye of the Beholder is well worth a try if you're a fan of these dungeon crawling types of games. It may be easy to get lost without a map, and the items are pretty hard to find, but if you persevere the rewards are worth it. Now if only I had gotten myself a version I could finish!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06