Dragon’s Eye is reminiscent of games we’ve played like Wilderness Campaign and Crown of Arthain although it does sport some original “wrinkles” of it’s own.
The 17 page manual which comes with the game is extremely well done. Epyx thus far has had high production values regarding support materials for their games ( Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai ) and the Dragon’s Eye manual is further evidence of this. The writing, art, and layout are all top notch.
I would not have been able to play Dragon’s Eye if it were not for the manual. It is a must-read as there are many different keyboard commands to become familiar with. The plot or mission is a bit convoluted so I’ll allow you to read for yourself:
I am going to be a bit anti-climatic here and admit that given the manual and how much I enjoyed Wilderness Campaign, I thought that I was really going to enjoy this one. While I did appreciate the original nuances introduced it still felt like a bit of a slog to me and I believe it was the combat that is the culprit. I’ll elaborate further a bit later.
There are seven provinces in Dragon’s Eye known as: Fel City, Ley Land, Deep Chasm, Lofty Mountains, East Plains, and West Plains. You’re awarded a score at the end of the game based on the number of monsters you slay, the special magic items that you find, and ultimately whether or not you succeeded in bringing the Dragon’s Eye back to Fel City (your starting point in the game) within 21 days. Your 21 day time limit is present due to the spell in place which freezes time in order to create a window of opportunity to find the Dragon’s Eye, the source of the necromancer’s power.
Below are the 10 different treasures that you can find for points:
The impressive feature of Dragon’s Eye is that there are 15 different spells which you can cast. These spells are randomly bestowed upon you when your character is generated. But are they really randomly generated?
When you begin play you choose your character’s name and then your character’s title. The manual suggests to treat each title as if it is a character class. I did not notice any differences in combat however I did notice that your spells granted to you seemed to be a specific set based on the title you have chosen. For example, my strategy for winning was to quickly cast the spell Locate Eye so I knew which province to concentrate my search in. You are not always awarded the Locate Eye spell unless you pick certain title numbers. I always went with #3 as it always guaranteed I’d get the Locate Eye spell (at least in the several playthroughs I experienced).
So by choosing a title of Fost the Greek I’d guarantee my chances of procuring the Locate Eye spell.
Each spell provides a special benefit and is evidence of the layers of strategy present in the game. Note that each spell stems from a particular school of magic. For example, the Locate Eye spell comes from the Divination School.
I want to go back to the main map screen for Dragon’s Eye and point out the information found in the upper right hand corner. Notice that in this particular screen capture the Power is locked on Conjuration. The manual describes these as “winds of change” or magical waves or ripples that move through the environment. They change constantly. If you attempt to cast a spell that is not in alignment with the current Power in play, you have a much greater likelihood of spell failure – your spell WILL likely fail. So if you want to cast your Locate Eye spell, you’re going to have to travel until the Power changes to Divination which is the school of magic Locate Eye is derived from. I loved this “wrinkle” in the game and it influences your strategy and when and where you can cast your spells.
There are a lot of things to like about Dragon’s Eye: the beautiful game manual, how the game is relatively short and a single campaign can be played in a little over an hour, choosing a title to accompany your character name and bestowing spells based on your choice is highly original and entertaining, the number of spells available and the different strategies they force into play, the overland map itself of the seven provinces, and lastly how time, schools of magic, and weather all affect how the game is played. What I didn’t like about Dragon’s Eye was the combat.
The combat reminds me of Crown of Arthain. When combat begins the screen changes and you’re suddenly facing your opponent and arcade style fighting suddenly ensues. You cannot cast spells of any kind so there is no strategy to speak of, you’re just exchanging blows. You can Smash, Duck, Parry, Thrust, Chop, Beserk ( a random combination of all of the above) but I found that none of them ( other than providing different animations) really seemed to have a different impact from one another. I would find myself “pushing up daisies” quite often.
I never could defeat the dragon. When you find the Dragon’s Eye the dragon always pops up and you’re forced to battle the dragon.
You have arrows and magic bolts which you can also fire but the dragon closes the distance quite rapidly and then proceeds to eats your face.
So how do you get around the problem of the dragon? I found that what worked best for me was to cast Locate Eye in the very beginning of the game so you know which province you have to travel to. The 21 day time limit sounds like a lot of time but it is actually quite challenging and a race against the clock to make your back to Fel City with the Dragon’s Eye. Once I knew which province the Eye was located in I would make my way there. I solved my combat problem by always choosing to hit E for escape. It would allow me to run away from combat 9 out of 10 times and not have to deal with the arcade sequences. Once I thought I knew where the Eye was located, I could then cast the Eradicate spell within my allotted window, which temporarily eradicates all of the monsters within any given province. The key word there is temporarily. Once I’ve bought myself some time I would try to find the Eye before the dragon made it’s way back.
You can always try to increase your score by finding more treasures and actually slaying some monsters (instead of running away) but I felt that I had my fill of the game. There are harder difficulty levels too which I did experiment with and they are indeed much more difficult so there is certainly some replay value here. I wouldn’t really classify this as a true CRPG but this game is typical of the quasi-RPG hybrid offerings of the time. There are a lot of original ideas here that were implemented that I liked a lot but it was the combat which would cause me to rate the game lower if I used a particular rubric. I encourage you to try it out and if nothing else make sure you take a look at the high quality manual which came with the game.