The Forgotten 1994 Drizzt RPG That Destroyed D&D Video Games | Menzoberranzan Review 

Oh no, I seem to have gotten myself into some sort of a 'posting this link here so that you come play Neverwinter Online with me as a community' kind of situation: discord.gg/UpKdTxrB6E

Whenever drizzt isn’t on screen people should be asking where’s drizzt

"If there's a Drizzt game, let us play as Drizzt." Dark Alliance 3 has entered the chat.

Even when this game was first realised, the line, "'Fire' they are shouting, and fire it must be!" struck me as INCREDIBLY silly.

This game is only 4 years away from Baldur's Gate. The difference in quality is astounding.

A youth spent on Dragonlance is NOT wasted! ☝️

Congrats on the only Menzoberranzan review on RU-vid! You didn't mention the twist with the Azarell NPC (yoch)lol.

When I hear "Drizzt", I think "free +3 and +5 scimitars". Sorry, Drizzt.

As someone who played this as a younger person and revisited it about 3 years ago, this is such a weird, but fair review. I feel like this was a game for Drizzt fans, much like how Dragonlance fans wanted games that focused on Dragonlance lore specifically. I could see some of the content being odd for someone with only a passing interest in the drow society of 2E. Hoping you read a couple of quick notes for context and my personal experience: Drizzt joins almost as a tutorial in a way, but I will concede takes too long to leave. (You can also take his weapons off before he leaves and basically rob end game items. In 2E Menzo boxed set, this guy was also a dual classed L18 Fighter into L15 Ranger. Really stupidly strong, but that is just par for the course in the super powerful freak character world of Menzoberranzan.) There was no mention of the disorientation puzzle in the dwarven halls, but maybe this is more common to the games than I knew as a child. I also found the altitude puzzles somewhat frustrating to deal with as well. There were a TON of references to Drizzt related lore. Both the Spider Mage, Jalynfein and the "DnD 5E character", Jarlaxle are House Baenre black sheep and enormous badasses. Matron Baenre and her Illithid advisor (Viddenvelp) are also enormously powerful. I feel like they really pushed to show off these powerful characters for the sake of true fans of the setting and having a credible threat no matter how powerful your party was. All of these drow are Elminster levels of strong at the time of the game's release. The female elf fighter, Azarell, that you mentioned and recruited has a very good reason to be fine in the Underdark, one that becomes apparent if you refuse to take her with you. I am sure you could look up the scene if you were interested.

Funnily enough, in 1994, when Interplay got the rights, they had another studio (Northstar) working on a 3d action RPG that would've involved going down into the Underdark, fighting Drow and so on. I didn't manage to find out any other details, other than Interplay decided to take it off Northstar and bring it in-house, but it was cancelled. Maybe it seemed too similar to Descent to Undermountain.

I love the Dizzt Do'Urden books, and it was really interesting to see how the lore was applied for this game. For one, I think youre on to something that House Do'Urden is under attack. In the second book, before drizzt even starts living on the surface, house Do'Urden is slaughtered by an interhouse alliance led by house Beanre. Also I think the 'dnd 5e character' that helps you out is a chaotic drow mercenary called Jarlaxle who is a major player in the books. Also the matron mother of Beanre was probably fucking with you when she threatened to kill you because she thought you'd end up helping kill house Do'Urden

despite the game being much much less polished than Stone Prophet in terms of Level Design and overall flow, it's still full of memorable moments... one of these moments is when you find a Bracers of Giant Strength which allows you to carry whatever you want without being Encumbered (penalty to Hit Chance, penalty to Evasion Chance and penalty to Attack Damage) and also a Magic Bag, makes things sooooo easier

ACAB = All caves are beautiful

The RA Salvatore books are what first introduced me to literature and reading. I consumed those books as a child and it opened a whole new world to me, I read every single book in that long series, and I eventually branched out to other fantasy series, science fiction, and also nonfiction. I still sometimes go back to read the older books for nostalgias sake, I can’t help but love them. And for as long as I can remember, I have wanted to play a video game set in that world, a GOOD video game. I’ve since given up on that dream though, I doubt I’ll ever see one, not in my lifetime.

When it comes to being attacked despite being "card carrying" and all that, it reminds me of an interview i saw with Richard Garriot (the man behind the Ultima series) where he explained the origin of the hostile children encounter in Ultima 4. It was a long time ago, but if i recall, he said it was originally born out of an oversight in how the engine worked. It was something to do with how it handled Dungeon environments as distinct things from overworld and town environments. These dungeon environments would make all npc tiles become hostile to players. When it was discovered by a playtester who had a viscerally disgusted reaction to it, Richard was like "Hah, awesome. Get gud." And didnt bother reworking the engine _and_ kept the encounter, since the player had a couple nonlethal options even if they were more difficult to progress with... That playtester soon quit. But yeah I wonder if it was an engine limitation, or just a bug that they didnt have or take time to fix. It would certainly line up with what you mentioned about the company's game dev approach.

The two Drow with mustaches from 25:50 are by far the two manliest Drow to have ever existed.

1:50 Dev to the animator: so, you know how spiders walk, right? Animator: y.. yeah, sure!

Man, there is something about the early DreamForge RPGs character art style that tingles my nostalgia. Be it Veil of Darkness, Ravenloft and Menzoberranzan or Anvil of Dawn. You don't get such feelings nowadays when everything is just "we need more polygons to look more realistic" what most games go for.

I’m surprised this game doesn’t have much, if any actual reviews on RU-vid, something about the graphics of these 90s dungeon crawlers has a lot of charm to it

I enjoyed this game, but always felt it weird that the game gave your low level characters a level 15 npc to adventure with. Also, the young elf you find is actually a yochol (monster you couldn't damage) who changes and attacks you if you reject her.

22:15 😂😂😂 I hate that I went "ohmygod why's the spider dude hot" right before this. Why is everyone hot in these games though!? I love it.

I didnt realize how many RPG games i missed back then, well until i found your channel that is. I started with Zork and moved on to Diablo 1 / Hellfire. Played that game so much i was buying a new mouse almost monthly... wore the clicks right out of them . Had so much fun hosting multiplayer hellfire servers .. I still go back and play once and a while. I may have to try out some of these older ones for shits and giggles. Still have the retro rig to play them on :)

It has been a long time since I played this game. I think the idea with the monsters in the Drow houses is they are the slaves they use as battle fodder in the wars between houses. You are being attacked because you may be a Drow, but you aren't marked with any sort of house insignia or sigils, so you are assumed to be an intruder bent on assassination. I might be off base there however.

31:00 Not D&D, but one of SSI's most interesting experiments around this time is a totally forgotten one called Renegade: Battle For Jacob's Star, based on the FASA Renegade Legion license. It was a full-on 3D space-sim shooter, a'la Wing Commander. It was actually pretty good too. But I don't think it sold well, since AFAIK they never did another one.

I have nostalgia for Everquest and that's a game I didn't start playing until 2019 so I know the feeling. Another great video, I love checking out these old dungeon crawlers without actually having to play them 😅

Menzoberranzan is an giant S&M dungeons in Dungeons & Dragons, completed with dominatrixes clad in black skimpy skintight leathers and the social events are usually orgies, cool place but outsider visit only as a sacrificial slaves. The funniest thing is that WoTC cant change it because of the legal agreement they have with Ed Greenwood in regards to the Forgotten Realms lore, its hilarious.

Drizzt Do'Urden has to be one of the most quintessential Mary Sue characters in all of fiction. Who wins, all the gods and most powerful beings in Faerun in an unholy Legion of Doom-esque alliance... or Drizzt? My money's on Mr Twinkle and Icingdeath....

I was a huge Drizzt fan at the time and I remember being absolutely blown away. By how terrible literally everyone agreed this game was. It made no sense how SSI had gone seemingly overnight from putting out era- and virtually genre-defining CRPGs to whatever this was (though granted they did not develop it themselves). Edit: I totally believe it was not that bad, if there is one thing I have learned in my decades of computer gaming fandom it is that sometimes hyperbolic hatred of games means the game is more mediocre than terrible, and people are just trying to one-up each other to bash it

I would have forgiven all of this game's flaws if thumbnail centaur had been a permanent party member.

I thought that elf chick you picked up after they kidnap Drizzt was actually a monster that would attack you shortly after you recruit her. Or maybe she just turns into a monster and attacks you if you don't let her join the party.

Do you plan to cover other CRPG games/series like Lands of Lore, Eye of the Beholder, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Anvil of Dawn, Might & Magick, Stonekeep, Dungeon Hack, Betrayal at Krondor, Krynn series, Pool of Radiance series, Ultima, Ultima Underworld, Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, Realms of Arkania or perhaps more modern ones like Aeon of Sands, The Quest, Legend of Grimrock, Legends of Amberland or Islands of the Caliph? I feel like there's definetely a largely unfullfilled niche for this sorta content on youtube, taking a look and doing some background or broader research into older CRPGs, especially stuff that's either not isometric or before the advent of Baldur's Gate, Fallout, etc. Names like those above I feel are rarely looked at beyond the occasional gameplay channels or odd review that's short and between like 4-10 minutes. Especially given the success of your Ravenloft and Undermountain videos I feel like you already got the audience primed for it. Esp for stuff people don't look at often, people know Ultima and Wizardry for example but fewer know maybe Lands of Lore or Anvil of Dawn.

I was stuck for months in the dwarven temple, unable to find a simple single button that was just a few ways away from the door it opened.

30:15 I had the NES port of Pool of Radiance as a child. I wasn't even aware that DnD was a thing until my late teens when BG 1 got big. Pool of Radiance taught me so much about RPGs that took years to kick in but I was so much better prepared for complex systems, not just in gaming, because of that game. I used to come up with characters and dynamics between them, little stories they'd tell before camping. It taught me how to PnP years before I found myself doing it. What a game.

This game was impossible to figure out as a 14 year old back in the day.

I always felt like their D&D stuff was some of SSI's weaker offerings. I spent ages being buried by their original game Dark Legions when I got it, that was super fascinating.

Part of me wants to recommend Grimoire: Heralds of the Wing Exemplars. It's a modern game made by an industry veteran that is positively seeped in all the 80's and 90's RPG filigree, at times both wonderfully customizable and frustratingly obtuse. The developers something of an infamous, especially in the jagged alliance scene, basically made the game by himself over the course of 15 plus years. It's for all these reasons I fear you might not want to play it, but I would also like comprehensive playthrough for my own sanity.

27:28 The monsters have those enchantment sparkles around them. So they seem to be intended to be mindslaves, maybe sent by another house attacking Do'Urden, maybe they are Do'Urden guard beasts but the spell on them had a side effect that lets them see you're transmuted.

Another banger! Loved the call with Crowe. Real dnd youtuber conversations right there

Your videos on the SSI games have made me want to go back and play them again. Love your work keep it up!

In regards to the ending... honestly that's how the editions themselves tend to work. Make a new engine, takes a little time getting their footing, make some banger shit, and then they start to coast.

These games, along with Origin, Sierra and LucasArts (Microprose & Spectrum HoloByte too) made up my late elementary school, junior high and early high school years. Such memories of avoiding homework to sneak in one more hour...

MENZEBERNEBALINE! MENZERBENZANINE! TRAMBAMPOLINE!

Drizzt is like the Wolverine of D&D

Maybe the creatures in Do Urden house only attack people with mustache.

I would really love to see you handle the the other Masterpiece Collection games from this era - The hilariously batshit insane Dark sun games, the vastly different games of the World of Aden games and my favourite of the bunch - Al Qadim's The Genie's Curse. I mean, there is the Eye of the Beholder series which had a similar sort of interface to Menzo and the 'Lofts but didn't seem as charming and had required hidden walls in their first area which pretty much made me "M'kay, not for me!" as a kid and I haven't yet returned to that series. Most recently went through the Dark Sun games on stream and I had forgotten what sheer joy the writers had with that game. Every single storylet of that game is bizarre and wonderful. Second game was a bit of a diappointment in terms of tone compared to the first game, but the was enough craziness to the plot to keep me going. Entomorph, the 2nd of the World of Adven games is also a trip - It's in the same engine as Genie's Curse so I was excited to try it and I did not see the storyline coming one bit. I tried Thunderscape which had a surprisingly banging techno-ish soundtrack compared to what I was expecting, but the scenes are just all soo.... brown... I managed 4 hours of wanding around shit covered walls with enemies that sounded like broken radar machines before I called it quits.

The Underdark theme is really something weirdly romantic. That otherworldliness combined with mystery... I too remember that I always wanted to try this game, but it was either unavailable or I was not able to get it running (I think it had some weird glitchiness that never was attended or sth) The first books from Salvatore where fun to read, but Iremember we stopped reading because it became cartoonish and much worse, loaded with morally/political statement-monologues that went on for paragraphs... And I have no idea what "underdark radiation" is supposed to be :D

That description at the end really makes SSI sound like their era’s equivalent of Ubisoft.

Forget about this big haired Drizzt, I want an entire game about the centaur dude 😳 (I'll leave it to you to decide the genre)

"a d&d 5e character-" i damn near choked laughing at that, thanks

Every time William says Drizzt or Drow, take a shot!

Should be noted. Ultima Underworld was 1992.

I found this one from kikoskia's play through. Fascinating piece of dev history.

I really enjoyed this game as a kid. I still have a handful of these old SSI DnD games on floppy/CD, collecting dust in my closet.

Man, I read a bunch of Dragonlance as a kid in the early 90s. That weird Mormon trash I loved had NO effect on me. _none_

I never played the old SSI D&D games, but damn if these vids aren't making me curious to try them sometime.

Love it! Been sitting in my game library for awhile, need to give it a play. BTW, got to love your presentation. Reminds me a lot of early youtube game reviews. A nostalgia type video already full of nostalgia. You got a good hook haha

You know I wish there were a lot more ravenloft video games I mean it's such a cool setting

Hey! I just recently stumbled over your channel, you reviewed the games i watch most on YT, so here i am :-) Thanks for those videos!

Drizzt was so popular he basically guaranteed the Forgotten Realms crushing other official DnD settings like Mystara and Greyhawk and Dark Sun. After all if you're making a videogame based on DnD, you can set it in one of the original settings by Gary and co, oooor you can set it somewhere where Drizzt can cameo. 3.0 and 3.5 gave you info on the Greyhawk gods, and made Greyhawk the "Official" main setting, keeping spells named for Iconics from Gary's table, but all the real setting support books were Forgotten Realms

As soon as I saw the first 4 words of the title I thought "I wonder if it is Menzoberranzan?"

Well lads, we've finally arrived at Menzies :D

21:01 Nice you mentioned the game's great music. 'Drizzt's Shelter' and 'Temple of Dumathoin' are both excellent compositions IMO. Great video overall!

I made a full optimized playthrough of this after Ravenloft 1 and 2, finishing all three for the first time in 2021. My verdict is of course it sucked, especially the large empty labyrinthian caves. But I am still happy I did finish it because it was not void of very memorable scenes and content. The music segment you made made me remember those track immediately as really good ones.

I really like the way you cover these old RPGs, so you plan on covering all of the Forgotten Realms titles eventually? I’d love to see a video from you on Savage Frontier

I am actually going to be buying this game soon. Been playing through all games set in the Forgotten Realms setting, except the ones which seem really trash like Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance, and Descent to Undermountain.

Loving these old dnd games!

What is interesting as I only have very vague memory of the two Ravenloft games, but it wasn't a huge Ravenloft fan back then. However, I played the heck out of Menzoberranzen and enjoyed it.

Drizzt cosplays are amazing, we need more lol...

Great that you're bringing up these old gems. I bought all these back in the day as part of their "Masterpiece" collection along with the Dark Sun games in very elaborate packaging. I was enthralled for weeks. I know that it's not specifically part of D&D, but any chance you'll give a lengthy review of SSI's World of Aden: Thunderscape? I've always felt that it was a bit underrated and would love to see a modern remake.

Looks like SSI liked using that weird resolution that had those wide pixels. The other game I remember using it was Blood & Magic. The graphics in that resolution always looked strange to me, a bit like old C64 games.

I had this game as a kid and oh man do I have complicated feelings on it. I wanted to like it so much but I think like 99% of my playtime was being lost in those fucking caverns. I don't think I ever made it to the actual city. However, this game did get me into the Drizzt books, which I know is absolutely wild that I played this not knowing who that was.

Great video. I'd like to see a video on what modern, party based, first person, adventure games are available.

26:21 What was the reference with the "D&D 5E character" joke? I've been trying to figure it out, but idk what he means.

"Matron Malice has Drizzt on a table..." Not gonna lie, my inner 9-year-old wants to yell, "WELL CLEAN IT UP THEN!!!"

A lovely and fun video, as always! Ahhh, I fondly recall 1994, and thinking exactly what you pointed out: That the SSI D&D games were getting stale (or, lacking innovation, etc). I still enjoyed playing them (usually), but yeah. This was also during an era when tabletop AD&D/D&D just wasn't kewl anymore (hello CP2020, KULT, WFRP, SLA Industries, Talislanta, et al), and TSR seemed to being going down in sad flames. Quick question: I love that undead dude on throne t-shirt; where'd you get it? Thanks again for the awesome videos, sir.

Glad the algorithm showed me your channel, this was a slice of nostalgia, I got a 10 game set of a bunch of SSI games with this game in it as the last. Takes me back. Sorry to hear you're doing Neverwinter... I mean solid game except for MMO's it's one of the worst microtransaction you to death one, I stopped playing years ago because I had enough. Still, if you do find fun it it good for you.

I have a severe allergy towards being captured and forced to work the mines.

I love how he brings up 90s drow being perfect targets for thumbnails, but then the actual thumbnail is a shirtless human man.

This was such a great game back in the day. Very mysterious and a fun rpg grind, and leaps and bounds ahead of the old dungeon delvers. I didn't play any D&D video game as much as this til Icewind Dale 2.

I didn't play this myself but it kind of reminds me of the Might and Magic series. I really liked those, even the bad ones (but not the last one which doesn't exist)

Not gonna lie, I've probably watched your Stone Profit review at least 9 times now if not more. I really like these reviews, especially since I most likely will never play these games and love d&d adventure games like this (I just don't have the time for em anymore)

Sooo... the SSI was basically kinda like an Ubisoft of it's time?

@8:11 Is this music from the game? It's also in Pathfinder: Kingmaker

I’ll never understand why some of the artists started giving Drizzt that ridiculous gold forehead triangle. I don’t remember that from the stories

What I heard was "If you don't like The Color Purple, this game may not be for you," and I was a bit confused for a moment

This game killed AD&D games for a while because who the hell is going to walk into a GameStop and tell the clerk they want to buy a copy of "Menzoberranzan".

The devs have seen spiders we know nothing about

As a young nerd who knew nothing about this game before I dove in, I have to say that it was extremely cool to get Drizzt Do'Urden in your party back in 1994. Menzo still holds a place in my heart thanks to its atmospheric visuals and absolutely fantastic soundtrack. I completely agree, however, that the middle portion of the game is mostly a boring, repetitive slog. It's a shame because both the Icewind Dale plains and the City of Menzoberranzan are very fun and engaging.

18:05 I love using cypher scripts! I wish this font asset could be ripped from the game, but I can't find any way to do it.

the Centaur was the right choice for thumbnail

Nice video man, keep em up

So what's the Music Box for? The one where you trade it for the Helm Of Fakhiurm'Om.

He was the best choice, but I wouldn't have been opposed to putting all the sexy characters in the thumbnail at once.

Drow Ranger with Twin Scimitars and a Panther was the Tiefling Warlock of its day.

I was wayy to young when i read those "Dragon Lance" but i turned out fine

0:55 Is it wrong that I hear "Your Drizzt is on My List" to the tune of that Halls and Oates song "Your Kiss is on My List"?

Fantastic video, great work my dude 👍

The combat is inferior to Might and Magic 3 and that game came out 4 years earlier! Thank you for suffering through Menzoberranzan for us, William. The Drizzt trilogy from R.A. Salvatore was so awesome. How could they screw it up so much?!

Have you done the eye of the beholder series yet? They were the predecessors of these Ravenloft style games but they actually play much smoother since you are on a grid instead of on ice skates in a 3dish world.

I never have seen any of these games. Nice vid