Eye of the Beholder (video game)

Eye of the Beholder is a role-playing game for computers and video game consoles developed by Westwood Studios and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. in 1990 for the DOS operating system, later ported to the Amiga, the Sega CD and the SNES. The Sega CD version features an exclusive soundtrack composed by Yuzo Koshiro. The title refers not only to the final adversarial character in the game but also to the 3D presentation view.

It had two sequels, Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, released in 1991, and Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor, released in 1993. The third game, however, was not written by Westwood, who had split with SSI over artistic differences and created the Lands of Lore series.

The game was quite similar to Dungeon Master, released in 1987 by FTL Games, and was one of the early games in its genre. It won a number of awards for its gameplay, difficult puzzles and story line.

There was also a Dungeons & Dragons game for the Game Boy Advance called Eye of the Beholder. However in gameplay terms it was quite different, bearing much more resemblance to the Gold Box games, such as the original Pool of Radiance.

Story
The lords of the city of Waterdeep hire a team of adventurers to investigate an evil coming from beneath the city. The adventurers start in the city's sewer, whose entrance gets blocked by a collapse caused by Xanathar, the eponymous beholder. The team descends further beneath the city, going through Dwarf and Drow communities, to Xanathar's lair, where the final confrontation takes place. Many players felt disappointed with the game ending, which is considered by many to be one of the worst game endings ever. Once the eponymous beholder was killed, the player would be treated to a small blue window describing that the beholder was killed and that the adventurers ventured into the surface where they were treated as heroes. Nothing else is mentioned in the ending and there were no accompanying graphics. This was changed in the later released Amiga version, which featured an animated ending.

Related Games
Several remakes of the original game have been created as modules for Neverwinter Nights.

There were also two official sequels to Eye of the Beholder : Eye of the Beholder II - The Legend of Darkmoon and Eye of the Beholder III - Assault on Myth Drannor.

Two similar games, Legacy and The Quest, have been produced for the Pocket PC and Palm by another company, Redshift. These appear to use some identical wall textures and even map sections.

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon
Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon used a modified version of the first game's engine, added outdoor areas and greatly increased the amount of interaction the player had with their environment, along with substantially more 'roleplaying' aspects to the game. The Legend of Darkmoon is generally considered the crowning success of the trilogy, compared to the (considered by many) disappointing sequel, Assault on Myth Drannor.

The Storyline: After the adventures of the first game, our heroes head to a local inn to rest and enjoy their new found fame but a note gets slipped to them from Khelben Blackstaff (Archmage of Waterdeep) who says that he sent a scout (Amber, a female elven thief/mage of neutral good alignment) to investigate reports of evil brewing in a temple known as Darkmoon but she has not returned. Khelben then transports the heroes to the temple to find Amber and continue the investigation, but it soon becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems....

Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor
Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor was not developed by Westwood Studios, the developer of Eye of the Beholder and The Legend of Darkmoon, but by a different company. Despite employing a brand new game engine, updated graphics, interesting and oft-unique NPC selection and good gameplay tweaks, many felt that the storyline of Eye of the Beholder III: Assault of Myth Drannor was weak and that the game had lost the 'feel' of the previous editions.

The Storyline: After defeating Dran you tell all of the patrons in a tavern about your success over Dran Draggore and how it saved the town. After that, a strange man comes in and asks you to save Myth Drannor who is ruled by a "most foul" Lich named Acwellan. He then says you need to save Myth Drannor by getting an ancient artifact from the Lich. After you accept the quest, The man gathers a magic which teleports you just outside of the city.

Later Release
The Eye of the Beholder trilogy (as did a number of other AD&D DOS Games) later came out in a GameFest Forgotten Realms collection on CD-ROM

Character transferral
It was possible to transfer characters from Eye of the Beholder I to either of its sequels.

Game Boy Advance game


Another game with the title Eye of the Beholder was released for the Game Boy Advance. This game uses a "stripped down version of the 3rd edition D&D rules" with "only four basic character classes".

Super Nintendo game
The version of Eye of the Beholder for the SNES was created by Capcom in 1994.