Reply To: Final Thoughts
If I can distance myself from my nostalgia, then I’d have to say EOB 1 is … fine. If all you’re after is a straightforward first person dungeon crawler then this should tick most of your boxes. I think it looked and still looks great, what with everything being hand painted and no ugly scaling. A few more frames of animation for the enemies would have made a massive difference, but whatever.
The game loop is not too bad either. A few unnecessarily tedious aspects aside (picking up all your daggers, darts and arrows after a big fight!), the controls and interface are a lot smoother and more intuitive than many games of the era.
But for me the levels and story are just so-so. I will say there is (slightly) more story and interaction with NPCs than you might expect of a simple dungeon crawler, but it’s all pretty perfunctory. The levels also feel mostly abstract and soulless to me, but that could just be me.
Long story short, I’d agree the first title isn’t some kind of standout gem (different story for number 2!), but it’s enjoyable enough if you don’t set your expectations too high.
