Review Eschalon Review

[Elwro]

Tags: Basilisk Games; Eschalon: Book I

Basilisk Games are newcomers to the indie RPG development field and their debut title, Eschalon: Book One, shows a lot of promise - if you like games with a definite oldschool feel. It's far from perfect, though. Read our review to learn our thoughts on the game.

Read the full article: Eschalon Review

 

[Saxon1974]

I think this is a pretty fair review. While I loved the game, I do agree agree that it doesn't have the greatest amount of background story and dialog options, nor varied or many quests. That being said, for the size of the dev studio I think it was a great effort for a first game. I can't wait for the follow up.

I didn't have an issue with the walk speed, but maybe that's because I like to explore every square inch of a game.

 

[corvax]

While I liked the game, I must say it's a bid bland if not uninspired. Also it's a bit predictable in certain places. I've finished it once as a rogue and don't think I'll be replaying it for quite a while. Writing and quest design could use some work. It would be nice for quests to have multiple paths. What would be really awesome if one could combine Vogel's (Spiderweb) writing with this game's interface and graphics. Anyhow, don't get me wrong I certainly enjoyed the game and will buy the second installment, however I can't help but think there's still plenty of room for improvement. As a side note, I think in one of the older interviews it was stated that in order to keep that "old school" feel the designers decided to stick with such "simple" (read: bland) quests and plenty of combat.

 

[dagorkan]

I'm sorry but this review is incorrect when it comes to combat mechanics. Speed DOES matter, different creatures DO move with different speeds. And opponents do not necessarily get one attack for every attack you make. Speed influences the number of attacks you will have. What the game does is scale the rest of the game speeds to your character's statistic.

I think that's quite neat, anyway it's superior to the 'AP' system

 

[Elwro]

No, you're wrong. Here's what the devs say:

The Speed attribute doesn't effect on-screen physical movement. In the first draft of the rules, we were going to make speed correspond to number of hits per round, so that at Speed 20 you'd get 2 hits per round, at 30 you'd get 3 hits, etc. Anyone here who knows Eschalon's play mechanics can see the flaw in this: it is ridiculously overly powerful. So this was cut out

(http://www.basiliskgames.com/forums/vie ... hp?p=10953) So Speed has no connection to the number of attacks you have; I don't know what version you have been playing but it couldn't have been the released one. Also, I have clearly written that there are exceptions to the rule that all creatures move with the same speed - e.g. Acid Grubs.

 

[dagorkan]

I played the first (unpatched) commercial release. Maybe I'm imagining it I'm pretty sure there were battles where I occasionally (though quite rarely) received two turns in a row, ie enemy turn, my turn, enemy turn, my turn, my turn, enemy turn.

In any case speed influences to hit chance and to hit chance is relative to your enemy's combat skill (also influenced by speed). So speed is taken into account, if you are faster than the enemy in relative turns you will have an advantage and he will have a disadvantage which would reflect that he would have to make wilder swings to keep up and while you would take your time to strike.

 

[Elwro]

Of course, yes, high Speed gives you advantage in combat. As for the fact that you sometimes get an "extra" attack - save for the possibility that you're hasted - maybe it has a chance to happen after a critical hit? And you will normally receive extra attacks e.g. against Acid Grubs.

 

[dagorkan]

Well then they should take me on as a game designer.

Just make the attack sequence a probability. After each turn/action each combattant has a given chance based on speed and weapon type to take the next action. If the last action was yours you'd be penalized... or alternatively give a bonus increasing with the number of actions since you were last able to do something.

So the base roll would be d100 + 0 for average speed statistic (highest result gets next 'turn') and say you get -50 if you took the last action.

Plug other values and modifiers (critical miss, stunned etc) into it.

Use it for movement as well, it's annoying when you know you have a 1% higher movement that you can always outrun an enemy, or never outrun them if you have 1% lower. If you see yourself being outrun by a slug then that would represent tripping to the ground.

 

[Mareus]

This game looks beautiful. One of the rare indies which managed to catch my eye right from the moment I saw it. What is the engine called and where could I aquire this fine developing software?

 

[Elwro]

The engine is in-house, I think. As for purchasing, did you try, I don't know, well, maybe the site of the developers themselves? Looks like they ran out of CDs, so it's download only, though. Great to see they sold more CDs than they planned to sell.

 

[LCJr.]

Simply a mediocre dumbed down graphical rogue-like.

 

[Jasede]

It's actually a pretty decent dungeon crawler, but it lacks the things that make dungeon crawlers fun: first person perspective and a party and a more fun combat system.

 

[FrancoTAU]

Yeah, combat is basically rogue like. I dug the game for the 20 bucks and I was forgiving being the first real indy debut since what.... Prelude to Darkness? If the sequel is just the same game in a different terrain than I'll be more critical of it. The lead guy seems very receptive to all the criticism though. He seemed to changed most of the little annoying things already. The only question is if he can actually make combat a little more interesting and improve the writing.