Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus

Moby ID: 1779
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Elvira - a horror movie star, a witch, and your girlfriend - is in trouble. A demon Cerberus has kidnapped her in order to kill her and gain her power. To save Elvira, you arrive at the studios of Black Widow Productions, where she is being held. Unfortunately, the whole studio is filled with monsters, as the horror movie sets have turned real.

Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus is an adventure/RPG first-person game. You begin by choosing one of the four classes for your character (which determines your starting attributes, such as Strength, Intelligence etc).

For movement, you click the arrows in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Collecting items can be done via clicking on them in the first-person view window and dragging them into your inventory. (You can also click the "room" icon to see all the items that you've found in the room so far.) Should you encounter monsters, you fight by clicking on them. You can choose one of the four tactics (Normal, Defense, Fierce, Berserk) when fighting, and there's a number of different weapons you can find in the game. If you meet someone who doesn't want to murder you (a very rare occurrence) you can talk to him, though conversations are pretty simple and consist mainly of short phrases.

As you defeat monsters, explore the game world and cast spells (see below), you get experience. Once you have enough experience, you gain a level, and your attributes improve.

Thanks to Elvira's spellbook she gave you, you have the ability to create and cast spells. Some spells can be used to heal yourself, protect you in combat or damage your enemies, others are necessary to solve certain puzzles and make progress in the game. Creating a spell requires you to be of high enough level and to have the proper ingredients, different for every spell. The ingredients are usually gone forever once the spell is ready, so beware and don't use up any items vital for completing the game! Casting a spell requires you to use some amount of Power Points (PP), which regenerate automatically but slowly. What's more, you only get a limited number of castings when you prepare a spell, so don't waste them.

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 26 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.0 out of 5 (based on 33 ratings with 3 reviews)

Where are you, Horrorsoft?

The Good
Absolutely all. This is a long long game but also quite difficult. In the early 90s this was a game with good graphics, good sound and great interface.

The Bad
The big mazes. Also, you have to save the game a lot of times to go on successfully; you can die twice in a minute! Before exploring any place, SAVE!

The Bottom Line
Better than Elvira Mistress of the dark. And I was not capable to finish it, after so so many hours!

DOS · by Fishda Palanpa (1) · 2004

Watch out for the bedrooms!

The Good
A combination of two of my favourite things in life, horror and RPG's. Static 2D visuals is in itself an unthinkable horror to many of today's contemporary gamers. However to me it always meant that if the programmers were serious about their product then I would be treated to beautifully drawn images, instead of wallpapered 3D.

The music was always a bit...subtle. But then I changed the setting to use Roland sound with my SB Live card and phwoar! What a change, the music quality was incredibly different and much MUCH better. This is more of an RPG than an adventure with character stats, leveling up, the ability to interact with menial items just because you can AND the ability to pick up everything. One of my favourite elements was the way all the wonderfully unique ways you could die was so graphically illustrated. Ranging from mutilation to being burned alive to decapitation and having your eardrums burst. The haunted house never failed to give me the creeps.

The Bad
As the previous reviewers commented, those mazes...Aaaargh! Make maps or else you WILL get lost, especially in the spiders tunnels. Also I'm not sure if the programmers did it for realism, but make a mistake and you'll bring the flow of the game to a halt and you'll be stuck. For good.You can pick up everything, but you can't carry it all, SO CHOOSE CAREFULLY, and watch what you say to the wierdos you'll meet. Also the sudden deaths you encounter could become very frustrating.

The Bottom Line
An atmospheric horror experience. Play it alone with the lights out for full effect, some of the things you'll see are truly disturbing and will leave their image imprinted in your memory for some time. If the game was released now the censors would have slapped a massive rating on it. Enjoy and don't go opening any doors on a full stomach...

DOS · by Tiamat (18) · 2003

creepy

The Good
Elvira 2: The jaws of Cerberus is one of the first RPG games I really liked. The spells and variety of weapons make it very interesting and able to experiment with. It has buckets of blood and some nice graphics (although it has very few animations, if any).

The Bad
The sound and music are pretty lame for the time. The enormous size and amount of the mazes will make you want to throw your monitor thru the window. The game can be very unforgiving at certain points.

The Bottom Line
If Elvira isn't enough reason to play this game; action, suspense and lots of locations to visit and explore should convince you to give this game a try.

DOS · by n-n (50) · 2000

Trivia

C64 version

In the C64 version a picture of a pin-up girl near the beginning was replaced with a muscle man and the license plate of Elvira's car says "Jaz" instead of "Kick Ass".

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 02/1993 – #3 Best RPG of 1992 (Readers' Vote)
  • Commodore Format
    • July 1993 (Issue 34) - Modern Classics: FRP & RPG

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  • MobyGames ID: 1779
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by ClydeFrog.

Amiga added by POMAH. Windows, Linux, Macintosh added by Plok. Atari ST added by Martin Smith. Commodore 64 added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added June 26, 2000. Last modified January 19, 2024.