Dungeons & Dragons - Eye of the Beholder Review by: dhregin - 7.3/10
Eye of The Beholder ReviewI recently played and beat Eye of the Beholder. It took me all day (yesterday now), and was challenging and interesting. The game's deep D&D routes hooked me in, with the ability to create my own characters and see how far they would get together. I felt wrapped up in a classic Dungeons and Dragon's quest, and loved it to the end.
Graphics: 4
The reason I say the graphics is a mere four is because they are older GBA graphics to be sure. The gameboy advanced was capable of better, it just didn't have better. But, it could've been far worse. Everything was a little weak graphically, but in a way, it was alright. The first person camera outside of combat was kind of cool, and allowed for some great immersion.
Sound: 4
The sound in the game leaves much to be desired. With nothing but an intro alarm, and outtro alarm to signify the beginning and end of battles, and some somewhat annoying shrieks during the battles, the game is mostly quiet in battle. You hear the same old sound affects often. However, the quiet eeriness is well placed out side of combat. The occasional footsteps and mysterious laughter, or even the shrieks were unique at first, but by the end of the game it all drowns out into background noise as you meticulously crawl around the sewers.
Addictiveness: 9
This game hooked me hard, I couldn't put it down. Truly, I bothered my girlfriend by not putting it down. I yearned for the feeling of advancement, for the solving of the many unexplained puzzles. Unlike Playing Tabletop D&D, this game was unique in the way it went unexplained. You saw what you saw and nothing more. You could try what you could try, and no one gave you hints, or too detailed explanations that lead you to the answer. There were many spots where I wandered around aimlessly lost, and others where I really had to scratch my head in confusion. But in the end, I bypassed these challenges and it felt good doing so.
Story: 5
The Story of the game had some good hooks and things, but unfortunately the way it was delivered leaves something to be desired.
In the beginning there is a cut scene detailing exactly whats going on, or the gist of it really, and how you get to the start of the game. However, from there on out your story is fully based upon conversations with npcs in the game. You hear someone mention a name here, another enemy screams out "you shall die and never destroy so and so's plans!" and things of that ilk. Unfortunately, this leaves plenty of room for you to miss npcs, miss conversations, and thus miss huge parts of the story. I mean honestly, I'm not even sure what the boss of the game did that was so bad. SPOILER: I just know people worked for him, and they planned to destroy a city. And they kidnapped some dwarves or something.
Depth: 7
The game was deep out of combat. Exploration, Dungeon Delving, side quests! It was truly great! The fact that you could find new companions to replace any that had possibly died (permanently) was really cool, but I felt like the story behind this feature wasn't detailed enough to be believable. At times, it was, at times it wasn't. The Combat gets repetitive after a while, depending on your party make up. If you had two mages like I did, combat was not too bad because they kept getting new spells to use... one of which ended up permanently killing my healer... ha.
With Puzzles, exploration, traps, treasure, and all the key features of Dungeons and dragons present, I would give the Depth a 7, despite being a linear first person dungeon crawl with Turn based Combat.
Difficulty: 6
The game wasn't too easy, but wasn't too difficult either. It didn't hold your hand and tell you how to figure out the puzzles, or the teleporter ridiculousness (oh, you'll see.) and when a party member died, they were gone for good. Items don't explain what they do- there's no way to tell how good your weapon is until tested in combat. Your stats are very limited and some items I never found out what they did- they were just cool sounding so I used them. The easier part of this game is that when a party member dies, its not hard to replace them. The downside is that they are usually replaced by a fresh level 1 character... thus making things difficult. I find that this game is one you can actually fail and have to start the entire thing over.. So there is some risk to your actions.
Overall: 7.3
Despite the slow combat, and the horrible lack of good music or sound, the game was fun and addictive. The difficulty, advancement, puzzles, and hints of story here and there kept me going straight at it for an entire day, unable to put it down. It was classic, and represented a true Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Crawl. Being stuck underground for 7 levels (1 to 7!) without being able to go back to town was a crazy thought to me! Being interrupted during rests, and battling nearly constantly made living life at all a dreadful idea! It was great. With some battle music, and some detailed item and feat descriptions, this game could be a quality product. Fans of Neverwinter Nights, or any other D&D based game, this is an adventure worth playing.
Graphics
4 Sound
4 Addictive
9 Depth
7 Story
5 Difficulty
6