Game:

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (1991)

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This is my playthrough of Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon for the PC, played with the MS-DOS version.

Pretty much everything that I said about Eye of the Beholder 1 applies to Eye of the Beholder 2, as well. There are, however, a few notable differences, which I will get to in a moment.

First of all, unlike in the first Eye of the Beholder game, in Eye of the Beholder 2, the player's party is resting in an inn somewhere in Waterdeep, The Yawning Portal, if I had to guess, and then a note was slipped to them from Khelben 'Blackstaff" Arunsun, Archmage of Waterdeep, who tells them that they need to come to his house, pronto. The message was certainly urgent. Upon seeing him, he tells the party that he sense evil stirring from a nearby temple called 'Darkmoon.' He sent a scout there three nights ago, but she hasn't returned, and Khelben begins to worry for her and the safety of Waterdeep. Since your party, you know, the ones he and the other Lords of Waterdeep sent to destroy a Thieves' Guild in the last game with literally next to nothing, he now sends you to desecrate a temple. Got something you'd like to share with us, Khelben?

Anyways, Khelben teleports you into the forest near the temple, and from there, for the most part, the game looks relatively similar to Eye of the Beholder 1, does it not? The interface looks the same, as does most of the rest of the game, but as you explore through Darkmoon, you'll learn that Westwood Studios has learned a few things since Eye of the Beholder 1. For example, the pathing through the game is now much more rigged, forcing the player to go through the game in a very precise way, mostly because Eye of the Beholder II's story is a lot better told than Eye of the Beholder 1. Considering that Eye of the Beholder 1 didn't have all that much of a story to begin with, though, and yeah. Traps are much more deadly and devious, enemies have become smarter, as you'll see with the Thri-kreen in the Silver Tower, and even worse than that, enemies now know how to open doors.

There's actually music in the gameplay portions of the game now, albeit it's more like sound effects, but it does remind me of Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos' Gladstone level, Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos being another game Westwood Studios worked on.

Although some enemies do return from Eye of the Beholder 1, well over 90% of them are fresh and new for this game, being human clerics, human warriors, more human clerics, flying snakes, fake beholders, even a dragon! However, this game ends up being a lot harder because of that.

Honestly, Eye of the Beholder II, I've heard, is basically Eye of the Beholder 1 but bigger and better, but I disagree with that assessment. It's definitely bigger than Eye of the Beholder 1, and the increase in difficulty is somewhat welcome, but I still have a huge soft spot in my heart for the first Eye of the Beholder than Eye of the Beholder 2, but even so, just like with Eye of the Beholder 1, Eye of the Beholder 2: The Legend of Darkmoon is still worth playing today, especially considering that it now has an automap program bundled in with it, well, the Steam version does, anyway.

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