You have been summon by the lords of the city of Waterdeep to investigate the sewers of the city and once you step in...
The character creation its quite simple. D&D rules of the time, with severals portrait for either the male or female characters. Once you create 4 characters you are ready to go.
The first EOB was a little hard in the beginning because of a very small amount of info (this is not a problem in the next 2 games of the series). But for me has the trigger for my curiosity. You start from scratch and knowing a little more than nothing. Once your go deeper in the sewer you´ll find some Characters that explain the game plot. Your mission is to investigate the sewers in the city of Waterdeep, for some estrange events have been occurring under the city. But once you step in there´s an earthquake and the only way out its blocked by rocks.
This is the classic dungeon hack game, the down side is that your´ll never get any gold nor buy nor sell anything. But it make it a little hard because you will need to rest to recover and not everywhere is safe to sleep. There is the food variable, that make little nothing than nothing, because once your cleric get to the 3rd level he/she gain the "create food" spell. You´ll fight numerous random-generated monsters, so you´ll never kill ´em all. That means more exp. On every floor there is 1 to 4 types of monsters, with a very simple ai. If they see you, they will chase you and attack you. Some have spells, some just melee attacks, but every enemy will try to kill you. You will meet some NPC´s, most of them death, as a "complete set of bones" of a race (human, elf, dwarf, and so). You will never get resurrection of raise death in this game (you´ll get it in the 2nd game Darkmoon), but there is a dwarf cleric in the 5 level of the dungeon that can resurrect those people for you.
Well, the graphics were really good for the time, and the sound (if you can forgive the fact that there is not music at all) its quite real. You can hear the monsters walking from away, but not that great.
The history is just good, a simple quest to save a city from one Beholder named Xanathar. Who wants to take over the city for no reason. But you´ll find it out by the 4 or 5 level. So you will find yourself in the hero of the day situation. The most innovative part of the game its that 4 members of your party can be taken to the next game (EOB2 the temple of Darkmoon) with almost everything they have with them. So you will have greater levels and better stuff when you start the next game. So that was the best thing for me in this game, because I can play it from EOB1 to EOB3 with the originals 4 or any NPC´s that joins the party and may prove to be worthy.
So this is a classic Role playing game. Simple, full of monsters, with a nice story, easy to play and quite good graphics. So if your are a sucker for the old school RPGs, this one will make it for you.