The Eye of the Beholder Thread

[KeighnMcDeath]

I take a stab and say the disintegration field area. I think that existed or did I get destroyed by a beholder?

 

[Rincewind]

What do you mean with "Modern Sci-fi" ?

Have you played the second game? All those lasers and stuff in the temple, polished marble (or metal?) everywhere, etc. It just didn't feel very medieval.

Btw, I did transfer my party from 1, and I even dropped the overpowered loot in the foyer of the temple. Some of the fights were challenging, but I did not find them impossibly hard. It was a good challenge to find the correct strategy with the different enemy types. Also, I only had to use a walkthrough maybe two or three times for some of the puzzles.

 

[Eisen]

What do you mean with "Modern Sci-fi" ?

Have you played the second game? All those lasers and stuff in the temple, polished marble (or metal?) everywhere, etc. It just didn't feel very medieval.

Yeah, when i played, i saw these as "Fantasy"

 

[Rincewind]

What do you mean with "Modern Sci-fi" ?

Have you played the second game? All those lasers and stuff in the temple, polished marble (or metal?) everywhere, etc. It just didn't feel very medieval.

Yeah, when i played, i saw these as "Fantasy"

Well yeah, that's true, but I guess I just prefer dark dilapidated temple ruins and dungeons

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Modern sci-fi"?

I've been involved with these games for over 30 years, and no one has ever accused any of the games of having "modern sci-fi" in them... and this is said when the third game literally has robot scorpions in it!

"All those lasers" - it's a late-game puzzle involving putting orbs of fire into slots so that their energy is concentrated onto one point. Once encountered it should only take a few minutes to resolve it, and maybe twice that long for the more dim-witted players to work things out.

Considering Dran's character, it is only sensible that his living quarters would look swank - and they do. They don't look nothing out of sci-fi, though.

EotB2 does exactly what's expected of a sequel - bring in more of the same, but make it more challenging. It actually breaks the mold of the series by forcing players to do things in only the one order, and some of the puzzles they put in there are nasty to figure out. EotB1 has several paths towards victory, and EotB3 has a whole optional dungeon for those looking for a real challenge.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I beat EoB for the GBA about a week after starting this thread. I loved it, but apparently the critics at the time(Yeah, they also sucked back then too) absolutely hated it.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/dungeons-and-dragons-eye-of-the-beholder/

The critic score average is 57%. The user score is 7.7.

The Nintendo Power review is particularly retarded and shows zero understanding of the blobber genre or the original Eye of the Beholder, bitching about how this game didn't use a 3D engine(on the GBA, no less). It's almost as though they didn't bother to look up the game being remade here. Sure, the GBA did have a few 3D games, but what would be the point if you're making Eye of the Beholder for the GameBoy Advance? You're still moving in cardinal directions, one square at a time. Other than being able to do lighting tricks, which you could do in a 2D blobber engine to roughly the same degree given the ARM7 processor, I can't see a legitimate reason to spend the time to make a 3D engine for the GBA for this type of game.

 

[Eisen]

EotB1 has several paths towards victory

I like this design, shame i don't know any game that does it

 

[Rincewind]

I've been involved with these games for over 30 years, and no one has ever accused any of the games of having "modern sci-fi" in them... and this is said when the third game literally has robot scorpions in it!

First time for everything?

To me it's a "sci-fi" feeling.

I just didn't enjoy those polished looking environments is all. Like everything, it's subjective.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

EotB1 has several paths towards victory

I like this design, shame i don't know any game that does it

EotB1's brilliance lies in the fact that once you clear the sewers and move on past the Dwarven encampment, you can literally stumble through the rest of the game, right to Xanathar's doorstep, and miss out on lots of content in the process. There's no intended path to take.

There are a few games can pull off their versions of that. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a good example. You start right at the entrance to the abyss, and all you have to do is kill the evil wizard, gather the eight talismans and use them to avert a catastrophe. Everything else is optional (even saving the princess!) and can be done in any order, save for a few things that can only be done after killing the evil wizard. The only bottleneck in the game's level design is the evil wizard's lair - you have to go through there at some point (and the evil wizard) to reach the endgame content.

Compare this to Ultima Underworld 2. It's on-rails the entire time, with only the illusion of choice being given when you can visit more than one new world as your adventure progresses.

Another example is Ultima 7 (Part 1). You start confined within a town which serves as both a tutorial-section and copy protection, but once you're 'released' you're free to travel the land to your heart's content and resolve the main quest in any order as you see fit, which involves finding the three blackrock pieces, Rudyom's wand and taking them to the Black Gate to destroy it.

Compare that then to Ultima 7 (Part 2), where you're constantly confined to certain parts of the land while forced to resolve what often appear to be banal quests and tasks. IIRC you're done with more than half of the game before you're given real freedom of travel of the land.

 

[BruceVC]

I am playing EoB as the first game since I recently bought all the Gold Box sets on Steam

I played EoB when it was first released for PC back in 1992 and I still remember some of the puzzles like the pressure plates

I am using the All-seeing Eye automap which makes a big difference to exploration and completing levels

But Im enjoying it and Im getting use to the mechanics. Its early days and Im only on level 2

 

[Rincewind]

I am using the All-seeing Eye automap which makes a big difference to exploration and completing levels

Don't do that. Yes it makes a big difference—it trivialises the exploration and mapping aspects of the game...

Map it manually. Better yet, use my tool (check my signature).