Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One

I was 20 when I first played this game {Eye of the Beholder} back in 1992.Today I turn 54 and as much into games as I was all my life. What a gem to find and takes me back to a simpler time in life. Its just as I remembered and maybe better. NOW if someone can remake PHANTASIE Series, not the current one on steam it looks terrible , Then I'd think im already in Heaven....Any who Thanks for This one !

Nostalgic memories. Hint: Conserve you Dwarven keys on level 5, you will need one for level 6.

[h3]Eye of the Beholder[/h3] A charming, first-person, grid-based, dungeon-crawler RPG. Graphics are really well-made, the little music that exists is very good. The combat starts off fun by feeling more interactive than other games at the time, and it's especially fun being able throw basically everything you own at the face of the enemies, however, it gets really tiresome in the long run to keep hitting the attack buttons and evading never stops feeling awkward. Exploring the levels are fun and thanks to the auto-mapper mod included you don't have to draw on graph paper to have an idea where you're going. On the downside, the game feels very obtuse with key items hidden beyond secret walls that's nearly impossible to find. It doesn't feel balanced at all: unless you have a specific party composition, you're making the game much harder for yourself. Having no cleric is basically super duper hard difficulty, for instance. I would have a similar complaint with some of the enemy types. Some enemies can poison you, leading you to a practical softlock if you don't have some kind of anti-poison prepared. [h3]Eye of the Beholder II[/h3] The intro cinematic has extremely good pixelart and that's pretty much where my list of positives end. EOB2 leans heavily towards making things so frustrating and nonsensical you'll want to buy a physical copy of the game just so you can throw it out the window and then set fire to your lawn while you curse the creators of this video game. There is a maze with fireballs you have to avoid and the solution includes... [spoiler]walking straight into one of the fireballs and hope you don't die[/spoiler]. There is a maze with lightning traps where the solution includes... [spoiler]walking into one of the lightning traps and hoping you don't die just before fighting a group of powerful enemies[/spoiler]. The game is filled with frustrating nonsense like the above which is a huge shame as the first one had a lot of promise. I was hoping the sequel would fix what was broken (like the occasionally obtuse level design, difficulty imbalance, and wonky UI), but the sequel fixed none of that and instead made the bad parts way worse. [h3]Eye of the Beholder III[/h3] Skipped as I heard the game wasn't very good and I wanted to run away screaming after my experience with Eye of the Beholder II.

How can I NOT recommend this game? It was one of the first pc D&D games when I was young and it took me a while to beat it. Yes, games have come a long way, but a classic is still fun.

I had never heard of this series back in the day and this was my first time playing through. It is what it is, a classic dungeon crawler. I found it charming and fun, and i'm glad there is the automapper! Don't listen to any of the nay sayers about EotB 3 because it's more of the exact same gameplay from 1 and 2. Yes, it's on a different engine and the automapper is a bit more basic, but just take your characters you created in 1 all the way through and be the heroes of the realm! If you liked the first game, you will like all of them.

These have aged really well

Never played the original. This game is light and fun. I enjoyed the power-creep in the party. I did get stumped at one point in the game and wandered aimlessly in the dungeon for a few hours, but the All-Seeing Eye finally helped me figure out where to go. I love being able to import my characters from one game to the next.