I'm trying to decide whether to use one party for World of Xeen or two. What I mean by that is play Clouds of Xeen with one party, then after I beat it, go to Darkside of Xeen but use a completely new party. I'm worried that Darkside will be too easy if you use your game-ending characters from Clouds. Then of course after I beat Darkside with my Darkside party then I can play the end game missions with either party. Anyone have any experiences with playing Darkside with a party from Clouds? Or should I just use one party and constantly switch back and forth from Clouds and Darkside?

Great thread, this is exactly my question I have before doing a fresh run of WoX. The last time I played, I never even set foot on the Darkside before finishing Cloudside first. When I moved on, I found Darkside to be extremely easy. Granted, I only made it to the Temple of Bark before I lost my savegames in a hard disk failure. Now I'm planning to start again, and I have the same dilemma. I might alternate between the two worlds, but that's not exactly my thing. I like focusing on one plot before moving on to the next one.

If you want a challenge (and let's face it, MM 4 and 5 are amongst the easist of the old school CRPGs) I think that's a good idea.

One upside of this approach is that you could experiment with different party compositions as well.

On the other hand, there are some optional dungeons (in both worlds) that are legitimately difficult even for a party that's played through both storylines. The main plot isn't terribly hard, but some of those optional dungeons are.

Well I just started Clouds so I have a while to go until Darkside. Would there ever be a point where if you played Darkside and Clouds with 2 different parties that you would get stuck due to lack of experience to tangle the post-game quests? I'm pretty sure the monsters in these games don't respawn so if you divy up the EXP too much then one party might be too weak.

My party is Paladin, Barbarian, Archer, Ninja, Cleric, Sorcerer. Right now the main weakness is that everyone's armor, except the paladin is pretty weak. Though I'm not sure if this gets remedied by the time everyone has obsidian cloaks, boots, rings, etc. I'm also playing on the "warrior" difficulty. The regular monsters aren't so bad but the bosses are tough, like the Dwarf King (or whatever he's called) and the Head Witch.

For me the game was challenging up to the Dwarf King. Afterwards, some overland encounters with dozens of creatures were tough, but nothing I couldn't handle. The later dungeons' weren't too difficult at all, and after the first third, the game just kept getting easier and easier. All in all, I had the most difficult time in the Red Dwarf Range -- frequent backtracking for healing, save scumming to get past traps and defeat the tiger moles, and finally the dungeon boss that kept putting my party members to sleep.

Starting darkside with a fresh party (don't handle equipment) will definitely offer a more interesting challenge. The darkside only party will definitely be strong enough to handle the WoX quests too while the clouds party will have trouble (but it looks like a beatable challenge to me if you are crazy enough).

I played World of Xeen when I was much younger... I played Clouds first, then got Darkside and took the same party through that. While the first town in Darkside was very easy for my experienced party, I felt that things quickly escalated in difficulty and I didn't feel too overpowered. But, it was a long time ago, and I'd probably have an easier time now. Still, I think it's worth considering taking a single party through because you can switch back and forth to tackle different quests. And there are optional quests later on that involve switching between Clouds and Darkside.

Doing two parties would definitely provide a tighter challenge, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for a first playthrough, since the fact that the two games are merged together is one of the coolest features.

Yeah the first time I fought the Dwarf King I saved in a bad place and couldn't run away so I had to use Mr Wizard to escape. I'm a bit further in the game, level 11 and I cleared out 4 of the 5 towns so far. I think I will try with a new party on Darkside. If it gets too tough I can always give up an use my Clouds party.