The reviewer did make note of the fact that there were "many interesting ideas and several well-developed tribes and hierarchies", and felt that, overall, the book is "a good, well presented addition to the AD&D series, with some very useful creatures". However, the reviewer felt that there were too many high level and overly deadly monsters, and that most of the monsters in the book were inimical to adventures. The reviewer praised the book's standard of clear presentation, and felt that the artwork was of a higher quality than that in the previous monster books. Monster Manual II garnered positive reviews, receiving a score of 7 out of 10 in a review in White Dwarf magazine. This included, for example, a printing of the Monster Manual with a new cover by Jeff Easley (cover artist of the Monster Manual II). On publication of Monster Manual II, all subsequent reprints of other AD&D manuals were updated to match the design of Monster Manual II. Unlike the previous two books, this book does not contain an alphabetical listing of the monsters in the beginning of the book. The book contains a preface on page 4, a section entitled "How To Use This Book" on pages 5-7, descriptions of the monsters on pages 8-132, random encounter tables on pages 133-155, and an index of all the monsters in the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II on pages 156-160. The Monster Manual II along with the first edition Unearthed Arcana book featured several monsters, races, and places from Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign setting. Like the Fiend Folio before it, the monsters in Monster Manual II listed the experience point value for each monster within the entry. The book included random encounter tables for dungeon and wilderness settings built from the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II. Despite this, a significant amount of its contents had never been published previously, unlike the monsters in both the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio. Many of the monsters were drawn from scenario modules, in particular from S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and it included a dozen new devils that had been first published in the pages of Dragon magazine.
As with the Monster Manual, this book was written primarily by Gary Gygax. Monster Manual II was published as a hardback book in 1983, and has the largest page count of the three, containing over 250 monsters, most with illustrations. 160 Monster Manual II was the third and final monster supplement for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, following the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio.
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