Echelon II, anyone play it?? any good?

[Turok]

Just asking, the graphics look ok, the gameplay is like the oldschool, anyone can recomend it?

 

[Jasede]

Eschalon Book II is out?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Echelon you say?

Yeah, I like the graphics. Looks pretty oldschool too. Definitely recommendable.

 

[Voodoo Daddy]

He must be posting from the future.

 

[Turok]

i found it thankz to the icestorm9999 webpage.

http://basiliskgames.com/book2.html

 

[asper]

Eschalon: Book II is not released yet.

 

[Turok]

Too bad, looks nice.

How about BOOK I?? good?

 

[JarlFrank]

Too bad, looks nice.

How about BOOK I?? good?

Walking speed is horribly slow.
Otherwise, it's a good game. The dungeons are awesome. One of the very few games where torches are actually really fucking useful.
REALLY fucking useful. More like, absolutely necessary.

 

[asper]

Just try the demo, and/or read Elwro's codex review. A fun game, but a lof of peeps on the codex hate it, for a lot of bad reasons (no extended dialogues with skill checks, world not sufficiently original, no C&C), but some good reasons as well (combat is very simple, a lot of boring walking).

 

[Hobo Elf]

Good visuals, sound and music, but horribly boring gameplay. Combat is very bland, side quests are ALL Fed Ex crap (so is the main quest, mostly), story was very predicatble (I guessed the twist as soon as I read the first letter). It just wasn't a very fun game to play.

 

[Jasede]

Actually, it's only horribly slow (as has been said thousands of times before) if you use the default graphics shader. Change it to OpenGL and you walk 75% faster or so.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Combat is very bland.

No it isn't, and it rewards creativity.

 

[Voodoo Daddy]

Rewards creativity? How?

Anyways, to the original poster, I'd wait for book 2. The plot is not important, all quests are the most basic fetch and kill quests (Kill all the fungal slimes in the swamp for the boatman, bring this vase to Blackwater, etc.), there is no c&c, enemies rely on high hitpoints instead of tactics, it's painfully easy, and the environments are small and bland. The dungeons are generic as hell (linear and either full of bricks or full of rocks). The game also encourages save scumming (reloading until you get a good reward) because ALL chests are completely randomized, along with combat. Fight through a bunch of Taurax (tough minotaur things) and your reward... five gold and old boots unless you reload and open the chest again. Full health and walk into a forest? Despite having great sword skills, a lowly bee can critically hit you five time while you can't get off a single stroke. There's no checks for anything. Good points include the music, the lighting, and the ease of playability. There are also a few paragraphs of descriptive text, but this is only in the beginning, and unfortunately disappears completely later on.

Oh yea, the game also punishes you if you put any points into weapons, magic, alchemy, or cartography because you can cheaply buy these up to level five pretty early in the game (that's up to level 5 - not five levels, so if you put five points into cartography then do the cartographers quest you're SOL). Unless you're real lucky with the dice rolls, you'll need about eight levels in any weapon before you can hit the broad side of a barn consistently.

PLOT (good if you take my advice and wait for book 2):

Spoiler

While wandering the battlefield you found a special gem called the Crux of Ages with your brother. You hid it in a bank and erased your memory. Your brother couldn't erase his memory in time and was captured by the goblins looking for the gem (they kill him). You go through the game finding notes from yourself that tell you where to go next and what to do. After about three notes you get the gem, and then you walk up to the goblin king and kill him in about thirty seconds (unless you really suck). Then you put the gem in a pedestal and find out the goblin king was controlling the real king so he could let goblins into the world. Afterwards you get an ending slide that says you move away and live happily ever after. Oh yea, the "twist" when you find the gem is that you're actually the one who wrote the letters, but this is painfully obvious unless you're incredibly thick.

It had a lot of potential, which could be realized in book 2. Wait for that.

I personally don't mind the $20 I spent on it because it gave me a few hours of fun and the money went towards funding a promising indie developer who knows that graphics need to be at least presentable.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Combat is very bland.

No it isn't, and it rewards creativity.

*click* miss *click* miss *click hit *click* miss

And let's not forget pure magic-users. Fire Dart, Fire Dart, Fire Dart holy dick I'm out of mana, let's run around in circles and wait for my mana to regenerate slowly.

Yeah. Creativity.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Rewards creativity? How?

For example, while playing a warrior I put a minor amount of skill points into divine magic and got the cats' eyes spell, and kept using it to my advantage in dungeons and at night, since chance to hit was largely influenced by the amount of light (both for you and your opponents), before going into a fight I'd turn off all torches and activate cats' eyes which gave rather solid lighting at point blank range only for your character, which had the monsters at a HUGE disadvantage due to the lack of light, while you suffered like -5% to hit when compared to torchlight, I think.

 

[Voodoo Daddy]

Combat is very bland.

No it isn't, and it rewards creativity.

*click* miss *click* miss *click hit *click* miss

And let's not forget pure magic-users. Fire Dart, Fire Dart, Fire Dart holy dick I'm out of mana, let's run around in circles and wait for my mana to regenerate slowly.

Yeah. Creativity.

You forgot hide in shadows. Put a few points in and you'll just stand there while enemies run around you in circles.

 

[Voodoo Daddy]

Rewards creativity? How?

For example, while playing a warrior I put a minor amount of skill points into divine magic and got the cats' eyes spell, and kept using it to my advantage in dungeons and at night, since chance to hit was largely influenced by the amount of light (both for you and your opponents), before going into a fight I'd turn off all torches and activate cats' eyes which gave rather solid lighting at point blank range only for your character, which had the monsters at a HUGE disadvantage due to the lack of light, while you suffered like -5% to hit when compared to torchlight, I think.

Instead of putting those points into divine magic, you could have just put them into your weapon skill, and had the same chance to hit in completely darkness, and been even better in all those places where they have the big torches you can't turn off.

Or, better yet, don't even bother and just walk past the enemies, because the XP they give isn't worth the time it takes to kill them.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Rewards creativity? How?

For example, while playing a warrior I put a minor amount of skill points into divine magic and got the cats' eyes spell, and kept using it to my advantage in dungeons and at night, since chance to hit was largely influenced by the amount of light (both for you and your opponents), before going into a fight I'd turn off all torches and activate cats' eyes which gave rather solid lighting at point blank range only for your character, which had the monsters at a HUGE disadvantage due to the lack of light, while you suffered like -5% to hit when compared to torchlight, I think.

Slightly cool idea, I guess, but it hasn't got much to do with the actual combat, which is just a boring click fest of attack ad infinitum against boring and generic monsters who attack you with a generic melee swing attack. The only monsters that I recall having something different were the bees that could poison you, and the last boss that changed into a giant spider, and I think he had a fireball spell as well. Probably a few archers there too, it's been a while since played Eschabore.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Instead of putting those points into divine magic, you could have just put them into your weapon skill, and had the same chance to hit in completely darkness, and been even better in all those places where they have the big torches you can't turn off.

Except that no. As I said, my investment in the divine magic was VERY small, like 2-3 points, and placing these 2-3 points into the weapon skill wouldn't make that much of a difference. Complete darkness gave roughly -35% to hit or even more iirc, which isn't a matter of 2-3 points. Plus, I also had the bless (which furtherly improved the chance to hit) and healing spells which relied on divine magic and proved to be handy many times (like the moments where I couldn't 'turn off the lights').

 

[Luzur]

well it is still better then playing Oblivion, so i dont know why you all complain so much.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Just because it's slightly above shit doesn't mean it's good.

 

[Voodoo Daddy]

Instead of putting those points into divine magic, you could have just put them into your weapon skill, and had the same chance to hit in completely darkness, and been even better in all those places where they have the big torches you can't turn off.

Except that no. As I said, my investment in the divine magic was VERY small, like 2-3 points, and placing these 2-3 points into the weapon skill wouldn't make that much of a difference. Complete darkness gave roughly -35% to hit or even more iirc, which isn't a matter of 2-3 points. Plus, I also had the bless (which furtherly improved the chance to hit) and healing spells which relied on divine magic and proved to be handy many times (like the moments where I couldn't 'turn off the lights').

I just know what I played, and I walked through the game tearing shit up in the dark with a hammer with stats that weren't very spectacular (I think I was at level 11 when I took on Gromuk or whatever the hell he was called). I don't powergame or anything and this was on my first playthrough (after playing up to blackwater with about two junk character and getting the hang of things). About two thirds of the way through (my final playtime was about 8 or 9 hours I think) I just avoided all enemies because of the futility in fighting them.

 

[Luzur]

Just because it's slightly above shit doesn't mean it's good.

its like what my old granpa used to say (translated) " its better to be trudging trough shit up to your knee then swimming in it up to your nose."

 

[Hobo Elf]

Your pa must have been used to losing a lot then, huh? I only aim for the best.

 

[Luzur]

well he was a farmer so it came with the profession, ya know? (and no i dont take offence to your little...poke)

but aiming for only the best these days would leave you very....unsatisfied i guess.