Ice lizards were hard until I realized my party was fast enough (two fighters, two rogues) to keep any enemy effectively stun-locked for the three or four rounds of blows it takes to kill them. Even the
twisting hallway full of ogres
was easy once I got the rhythm of stun-locking down.
I thought games like EoB and DM were abusable because of circle-dancing (aka the DM two-step). Grimrock gives you stucklocking
and circle-dancing. It's like candy from a baby.
As for puzzles that require lugging around crap from earlier in the game? I seem to recall being really pissed at DM's "riddle room" when I was little (identical premise), as well as the much much later "enlarge my view" puzzle that, at least on the atari ST, required either having
the mirror of dawn or the magnifier
, neither of which seemed all that useful when you find them, nor appeared anywhere near where they were needed.
That room on level 9 is more or less a huge inside joke referring back to the most frustrating kind of riddle puzzles in old-school crawlers. And yes, they were a pain in the butt back in 1989 also - so I see where the OP is coming from. But come on, if I were designing a dungeon, I sure wouldn't have the key to a puzzle in a room a few yards away from where it's needed
like the red gem on the next level down
