The Temple of Elemental Evil

I still enjoy this game many years later

I have been hoping for more actual turn-based D&D games for a long time; much as I love the BG and IWD series, and Torment. And while this does have that, the game is terribly glitchy. Not just out of combat either. More than once I would take the full-attack action, click just a split second too quickly after the last attack, and it would completely skip the next one (even though the voice would achnowledge the command): wasted attack. ***early encounter-spoilers*** Even more so however, as a long-time DM, this game upsets me. It is not balanced, at all, in its encounters. I was figuring that if they were using proper 3.5 rules, that the encounters would work similarly. But no. For instance, 2 zombies (CR 1/2 each) would be a good standard encounter for a party of 4. Given you can get a party of 5 in this, upwards of 3 would make a solid encounter, a couple more if it's supposed to be a noticeable challenge. But, going down one flight of stairs can leave you facing something like a dozen (12) zombies... AND two green slimes. At probably about level 2... maybe. Further, the in-town quests are horrible. Rarely is much context or direction given, so I spent hours wandering around trying to figure out what to do, before just finally looking up a walkthrough. Terrible story flow there, any good DM would at least give you some clue (or an NPC to talk to to get one) of what to do. Likewise, several of the NPCs (especially the clerics) are stupidly overpowered (tried fighting one as a level 7 chaotic evil fighter... could never pull it off, even getting the drop on them), the old "why aren't THEY taking care of it?" problem of overpowered NPCs in an area. If this were a tabletop game, it would have a terribly DM. Anyway... I'm rambling. Crappy game that is crappily coded.

I have been playing this game since it was released. Even though it is dated, it is still a ton of fun to play.

Loved this game from the original release. Wish GOG would put the update in where characters can go to higher levels.

This is a fun dungeon crawl. These days, I would say it has an OSR vibe to it. Check it out!