Elvira II - The Jaws of Cerberus (1991)

Name:Elvira II - The Jaws of Cerberus
Number:270
Year:1991
Publisher:Horrorsoft
Developer:Horrorsoft
Genre:Adventure/RPG
Systems:Atari ST/Commodore Amiga/Commodore 64/DOS
Country of Origin:United Kingdom
Difficulty:5/5
Time:10 hours 35 minutes
Won:Yes (119W/92L)

The follow-up to the infamous Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, another horror-themed adventure/RPG. Containing much of the same people who made the first one, this should be more of the same, and in such a unique style, that should be a good thing for me. Yet despite being such an easy thing to follow-up on in my mind, there's considerable difference between this and its predecessor. Oh, and the most common methods to play this game destroy the mood completely.

This is the era where such things are usually a hard question. The Amiga likely has better music, but the DOS version will work better in other ways even if it sounds like ass. Loading, your ability to control the speed, possibly even better support for modern gaming layouts. For Elvira I, this was a genuine question for which there was no good answer. Both had good soundtracks, and there weren't any noticeable issues in ScummVM. Whichever you felt like playing, you could easily enjoy.

Elvira II changes things. Normally, in ScummVM, it fixes issues you would realistically have with the Amiga version. Constant loading, no keybinds (because cool kids use a mouse!), the occasional glitch. It does the first two, possibly fixes the third, but it also adds in glitches of its own and screws around with the music to boot. After all, who plays the Amiga version of a game for the music? Even though I managed to get through most of it, I cannot recommend the way I played at all.

That said, this distinction exists because the DOS version has problems of its own. By default, the Adlib soundtrack sounds like some goofy haunted house game, which, despite a major loss in mood, this still isn't. It's not necessarily bad, but it feels goofy without using taking advantage of Roland MT-32 sound instead. Even then, there's a certain mismatch. The opening area sounds like The Incredible Machine, while the insect cave sounds like it was taken from Inca. The Amiga version, when played properly, is unquestionably better, but can you deal with a slight bit of loading every tile? Unquestionably, the music there is best, but if one must play Elvira II, some sacrifice to playability must be made.

As I went through the game, the backstory continues. There are three films being filmed and thus three areas to go through. An underground crypt that was taken from a fantasy RPG...I mean a zombie film. (There are like three zombies in there) A haunted house film that has shades of a Lucio Fulci flick, and is by consequence, the most interesting of the three. An insect cave for...I'm not sure what it is, but it's a cave maze four floors tall, is this supposed to be what it looks like pre or post demonic possession of the place? This question actually bugged me, because the house set seems reasonable, but everything else screamed the kind of production that kills movie studios. We'll call them "Elvira's Gate". Are all those giant worms I killed actual props we built? Sweet Jesus, we were going bankrupt before they started eating our cast and crew.

The game starts, after picking out one of four classes, out in front of the studio which is locked and you need to get inside the security office, which is also locked. You have keys, but they aren't the keys you need to enter...anything. They're your actual keys, presumably to your house and car. There for flavor, or if you feel like getting screwed after the game is over, useful as a spell component. What you have to do, after Elvira manages to jumpscare me in the one time I actually got scared this entire game, is find a rock hidden on one tile throughout the area outside the studio. Starting off with pixel hunting, what fun!
 

There are three movie studios for you to switch between at any time you wish. Kiss of the Spider, a giant insect monster updated for the '90s; House of Horror, a Fulci-esque haunted house film; It Came From Beyond the Grave, which is...uh...a skeleton movie. I'm not actually sure what it's supposed to be, because it sounds like a zombie film, but in actuality, I'm fighting skeletons and goblins like I wandered into a fantasy film. The studio is your oyster.

But that's a lie. In actuality, you have to do these things in a reasonably set order. Go into the insect picture first, and you get killed by giant worms. Go into the zombie picture...and you'll either get killed by a bat you have no idea how to deal with or by skeletons. Until you get to about level 5, you need to explore as many tiles and solve as many puzzles as you can to get that precious experience to survive those two studios.

As a reminder, in the original, you didn't have levels, you just gained experience and skill by fighting. Other stats pretty much only increased or decreased through set events. This is a traditional RPG with no real thought into the system. Stats increase through each level based on your class until you reach level 10. These stats are very important, and the manual kindly explains them:

• Weapon Skill, how well you can hit with a weapon...probably.
• Accuracy, actually, why is this different than weapon skill again?
• Will Power, a higher of these means you don't faint at the sight of a zombie. Never mind that this isn't your first rodeo and last time you took maggots from a freshly severed throat, seeing a smiling head on a platter is the real terror. Can be improved with a spell, important for all of the haunted house stage.
• Magic Resist, how resistant you are to magic attacks. There are two enemies which use magic attacks. Skeletons, which cast glue on you, and the wizard you need to avoid anyway. It does actually help, but you're also nearly done with the game by the time you need it.
• Strength, how much damage you do. Probably connected to how many items you can carry, but I never tested this.
• Constitution, how much health you have.
• Poison Resist, how well you can resist poison. I'm not actually sure how useful this is, considering that by the time this is high enough to matter the only poison attacks left are those from traps. I think it works, in that sometimes when I should have gotten poisoned I wasn't, but that could just be a hallucination.
• Intelligence, what the player character doesn't have, though in this case I'm copying from the manual. Affects mana and the number/power of spells.

Also, that HP icon on the bar? Total amount of health divided among your limbs, if you had full health. The body in the upper left is the one to watch. Get zero in an arm and you can't pick things up, get zero in a leg and you can't walk anymore. Get zero in the other two parts, and game over. Also, PP is power points, your mana. Mana regenerates, health does not, for that you need a spell.

Spells in this game are mostly like the ones from the last game. Find regents, then you can cast that spell. The difference is, this only prepares the spell, and you carry around the spellbook yourself, preparing and casting them without the aid of Elvira...since she's locked away in one of the studios. Three spells are castable without regents, one of which is a healing spell. I like the system, except that since you need to wait, it would have been nice if there was a rest function somewhere. If there's no way that someone can attack me, I should be able to rest, not have to pull out a novel or something while my mana gets restored. That's not an exaggeration, it takes a while.

Given that it's Elvira, you'd be right in thinking that it's easy to screw yourself by using regents the wrong way, but only in one case. In order to win the game, you need to cast the Resurrect spell on a dead priest, and among other things, you need a brain, and an item important to the deceased, in this case the walkthroughs said "Bible". Other religious items may work, but curiously, nobody mentions trying that bit. The brain and the Bible are used in other spells. The former Turn Undead and the latter Unholy Barrier, which works against the undead. You cannot cast this spell without first using at least one brain to cast Turn Undead, and if you were unwise, you may have used Unholy Barrier in an encounter that it didn't actually help in.

Normally, I don't like spoiling things like that in these reviews, but let's be honest, if you weren't playing cautiously, you'd lose. Technically, I lost, but I'm not going to let a little thing like "the game arbitrarily decided I did not pick one option of dialog in a crappy system" stop me from counting it. It's not that the game is difficult and requires you to be careful to not end up in an unwinnable state, it's that the difficulty sucks and the unwinnable states are like playing Russian Roulette.

Let's talk about that dialog system. It's bad and adds absolutely nothing to the game. Elvira I didn't need a dialog system. The only talking that happened was when the captain of the guard threw you in prison and Elvira saved you. And you didn't talk back, because you were either getting thrown around or getting your marching orders. Here, there's a four option dialog, which stinks for three reasons:

1. It adds nothing, there is no real choice. You talk to four people, one of which is a magical Indian type who is employed as a janitor, because of course he is. He tells you about the Cerberus of the title. There is no reason for this to be a conversation, just tell me what's going on with him.
2. It adds in completely pointless dead-ending. What kind of moron, in a situation in which his girlfriend, her financial assets, and likely his future, makes fun of someone? "Elvira's going to get sacrificed to a demon, but me make firewater joke!" Elvira isn't joking when she refers to the player character as an idiot.
3. It doesn't work very well. Now, this could be ScummVM, but the text box wouldn't advance if I didn't click on it, and if I clicked on it, it might automatically select an option if I'm not careful. Like, say, asking an Indian where the firewater is.

The other two characters don't add anything either. Two of them require you to dress a certain way using photos, then guessing the right dialog choice, then the third, the priest, who you have to resurrect so you can properly cast a Bind Demon spell, requires you to exhaust the options with the Indian. Exhaust the right options, in case your guy decides to ask him how many beads it is for a bride or some crap. This doesn't even take anything away, this is just annoying.

The Indian explains to you what the overarching goal of the game is. Summon Cerberus, then get rid of him using three Indian artifacts he'll enchant for you if he gets his peace pipe. Each artifact is in one of the studios, with the peace pipe being in the haunted house set. Later, there are two books in the library which explain the details of the Bind Demon and Resurrect spells, which explain how you need to resurrect the priest in the graveyard movie in order to win. Of course, the Indian could have explained that, but as I said, the game discourages talking to characters and once I got the gist I used my metaknowledge of how these games go to fill in the gaps. My mistake.

There are basically two halves to the game where the other aspects of them only incidentally matter. The adventure half, which consists of the lobby, the second floor, basement and haunted house set; The RPG half, which consists of the insect picture and the graveyard picture. In the adventure part, the RPG aspect is really only important for like two parts, and in the RPG part, most of the adventure aspect could just be thought of as a DM who wants to see you make a new character.

Let's take this scene from the second floor. I want to know what's in here, so I click on things. The game gives me a vague object name, not very informative. After I'm done, it seems like there's nothing really interesting. Why is that? Well, it's because that just adds that item to the room inventory. Now you switch from your inventory to the room inventory, then you can examine it. Sometimes, you get other actions. Often, this too, tells you nothing if you didn't pay attention to your spellbook, which has a list of regents. Does this match the description of one, or could it if it was thrown in a freezer? Maybe it's something you know you can use somewhere else, so you pick it up. Rather than a normal take command, you drag the object to the icon of your inventory. Because a take command is so lame.
 

Perhaps it's because of this that most of the puzzles feel less like clever but difficult riddles and more like using whatever options you have available to you until something works. The past two games used horror tropes to good effect. For instance, in Personal Nightmare, you used a mirror to direct light into a vampire's face during the day hours. This made sense because everyone knows that vampires are affected by light in some manner, and if they are not, it is an important plot point. Here, in order to kill a vampire, you use a tuning fork to destroy a glass window in order for light to hit the vampire. On an in-door studio. At night.

Most puzzles are okay, but a lot of their implementations are strange. You'll need to use this spell or item to get an object, when there are very valid other options, and the game just ignores them. In two cases you can use the Telekinesis spell to get an item...then in other cases it won't work or will just be treated like picking up an item otherwise. Some items which are protected by traps which hurt your hand can be stopped by gauntlets, others cannot. You have to figure out which will actually work and which the developers just didn't think of. Or possibly the usual adventure game problem, not giving the proper feedback for wrong answers. And instant death events in a RPG are just lame. 

That leaves the RPG half. Eventually, by wandering around the game and solving puzzles, you can get enough experience to fight something and not die right away. You might even survive. At first, it's tricky, because you have just enough skill to be able to fight the first kinds of insects...until you face off against a mosquito. Did I mention that there's poison in this game and said poison can only be cured with a spell for which there are only three regents for? Sources of poison are unlimited, of course, and the regents are behind the creatures poisoning you.

This creates an annoying roadblock for a while. There's a certain point in the adventure half where you can't really get any more experience without first getting stuff from the other sections, and that's the point at which you can either fight against skeletons which are stronger than you, or mosquitoes you can't hit and poison you every time they hit. You have to hope you get lucky, there's simply no other path forward that I could see.

Once you actually get into the RPG part, it's a rather uneventful one-person Dungeon Master kind of experience. Explore a massive dungeon that was designed by people whose last such dungeons were scenic square dungeon and random path hedge maze. This did not inspire me beforehand, and now that I've finished this, I wish they did something else. It's not bad...it's not good...it's just there to fill the time. Is that really what you want people to say about your game?

There are bosses, of course. The fantasy/crypt one has a wizard you can bypass by wearing the right outfit, but the insect one is interesting. A giant spider. Tick him off with a magic spell and I hope you brought a bunch of fireballs because he's not going to be happy. There's a puzzle method to dealing with him, but that's lame, I'd rather just fight him, even if all I'm doing is pelting him with fireballs.

The only purpose these dungeons really serve is to tie together the various rooms and places that actually have something important going on. Rooms with mushrooms and jewels in the insect cave, various objects in the fantasy dungeon. The fantasy dungeon is the more complex one, and more than that, basically just trial and error. Carefully advance every tile, clicking on wires or tiles to cut/avoid them. Find niches or rooms, save, then determine what the trap is. Then determine if the trap is worth dealing with, is the item worth it, and is the trap manageable? There's no limit on saves, but an adventure game shouldn't be encouraging save-scumming, every action should not be a potential landmine.

What's actually good here? Well, it's Amiga game, so it would be embarrassing if the music and graphics weren't nice to look at. Despite the aforementioned issues, the soundtrack is nice, even if it doesn't quite fit what the game is going for. The intro is nice, but it doesn't sound like it's introducing a horror game, it sounds like a pirate intro...which at some point it probably was. The big issue is that what I've heard is a destruction of the original experience, which turns even the more overtly Amiga in style tracks into less interesting versions.

Visually, there are some 4000 advertised rooms, and a lot of those aren't special. Most of these are in two of the dungeons. Ironically, these are better looking than most dungeon crawlers, simply because they aren't two sets of stone blocks and static sprites. There's variation in the number of tiles you find, at least three tiles worth. It's not great, but you know, it's hard to make nice-looking dungeons. On a technical level, the rest of it is amazing, but the haunted house set looks like a relatively normal house and the lobby feels like an ordinary lobby. They're well-drawn, but I don't feel like I'm playing a horror game half the time.

Animation is where a lot of these things shine, and while there isn't that much, most enemies didn't feel static. Idle animations or just constant animation in general helped them. It was a shame that most enemies weren't that interesting. Sure, the insect cave was nice, usually we just get giant spiders and worms, but ants and mosquitoes are rare, but that's arguably the part of the game you'll spend the least time in. The crypt was mostly just your usual set of fantasy enemies, outside of a ghost which was more of a hazard. It doesn't feel that special.

This is ultimately the problem with the game. Elvira I was special. You click on the wrong hallway, a guy saunters out and you're in a fight for your life. Do poorly and you see your severed head. There was an aura of menace to the experience. Any wrong move could result in you dying, with each death being more gruesome than the last. In contrast, this is a sedate experience. There are no shocking deaths, no gruesome discoveries, just cuts across your face to indicate a worm with a giant mouth killed you.

And this is downhill from every decision in the game. A worm blocking my path here is not tense, I'm just not strong enough to deal with it. It's just an enemy in a game. Not so with Elvira I, in which enemies in certain areas could only be beaten by certain items, and looked like they were going to enjoy what they would do to you. You didn't back up either, you turned around and ran. Because if you didn't, you would get killed. Resources were tight, and it was a genuine question if you could survive.

Jaws of Cerberus just feels like a bland experience. It isn't scary, it isn't interesting as an adventure game, and it isn't interesting as a dungeon crawler. 

Weapons:
Regular weapons are basically indistinguishable from a practical perspective, though obviously some have effects and do more damage. Just point and click. Spells are awkward to use in combat, requiring you to switch to a different menu, but cool to see when you can afford to use them. 2

Enemies:
Why am I playing a horror game and fighting against random skeletons and goblins? Hey, at least the insect cave is nice. 3

Non-Enemies:
None, really.

Levels:
I like the interconnectivity of the place, but nothing really stands out as an interesting location or cool level setup. It's just tiles and places to go. 3

Player Agency:
By default, you have to do everything with the mouse, but ScummVM adds in keyboard movement. It's a smooth experience with that. The inventory is a pain to deal with. Not having an actual pick-up command is a crime against game design and having three different inventory screens you need to switch between to either pick up items or use spells is annoying. 4

Interactivity:
For an adventure game developer, things sure feel very static. Examining things are a pain and everything happens automatically, whether you want it to or not, unless it's an object in your inventory. 2

Atmosphere:
For a horror game, I wasn't exactly having a horror experience. I've seen straight RPGs which had scarier stuff going on with them. 3

Graphics:
Unquestionably good-looking, excellent use of color, well-done sprites and animation, but everything is just too bright. 5

Story:
Generic save the princess (of sorts) story, modified for the 21st century, brought down by an obnoxious dialog system. 1

Sound/Music:
An interesting selection of jaunty tunes and effective sound effects. 7

That's 30, or 12 points less than the original. 

Reviewers at the time loved this. Why? Well, for as much as we love the Amiga in retrospect, we must also admit that a game could be the developers wiping their bottom with five pound notes and people would love it as long as the graphics and sound were nice. They were, no matter if they could have been more than just two nice things to look at. Shiny things are nice, but in the end, it's what's inside that matters.

As an aside, I've cut the game Combat Lynx, as it was just too much of a mess to actually play, leaving only three titles left in 1984. What game I play next is up in the air, I may return to Star Cruiser or I may head for something else.