Game News Eschalon: Book III Announced

[Zed]

Tags: Basilisk Games; Eschalon: Book III

Basilisk Games has today officially - or you know, formally - announced Eschalon: Book III. The game has been in production for some time already and it will be the final entry in the Eschalon saga.

These are the features listed under the product page:

Eschalon: Book III brings the trilogy to a climatic end as you seek to uncover the mystery of your past, the secrets of the Crux stones, and who the Orakur really are. You’ll traverse miles of virtual wilderness and dungeons, filled with secrets and danger, in an unparalleled role-playing experience designed to feel like a true pen-and-paper RPG.

• The end of a saga! The final Book in the Eschalon Trilogy brings the story to an epic conclusion and all your questions will be answered. Of course, we’ve made sure Book III can be fully enjoyed even if you’ve never played the previous games.

• Dozens of fan-requested features and updates to the engine and rule set.

• Hundreds of graphic updates including re-rendered tiles, new spell effects, and enhanced environment effects. New sound effects and music in crystal-clear HD audio via an updated sound engine.

• Expanded stats for creatures give them new abilities, defenses and vulnerabilities. Combat will require new levels of strategy.

• New spells and hundreds of new items for you to discover. A huge world filled with secrets, riddles, traps, treasure, and glory awaits you!

• Book III is not a dumbed-down “RPG for the masses”. Rapid button clicking won’t save you here. Eschalon pays honor to the greatest RPGs of the past, with unlimited character development options and freedom to explore the world as you wish. The difficulty of the game does not scale to your character.

• Developer tools to be released shortly after the availability of the game. Build your own maps and make your own adventures!

• Single player only, like a great RPG should be.​

Not dumbed-down and does not scale to mah levels?! Developers' tools to be released?! Wow-ee.

Oh, and there's also a (less informative) press release available, if you're into that.

 

[Brayko]

How's Book, uh, 1? Is it or

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

the series has potential. And i tried playing book one...but my guy moved slower than a quadriplegic and i just couldn't take it anymore.

I have shit to do damn you! I can't spend all day waiting for my character to move from one end of the screen to another!

AAARRGHH!!!!!!!

 

[Brayko]

Go play Call of Duty?

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

I think they're pretty solid RPGs. Obviously it depends what kind of RPG you like, if you like turn-based solo exploration RPGs, dungeons with reasonable amount of combat, traps and puzzles and realism like food/drink then recommend it.

 

[hoverdog]

How's Book, uh, 1? Is it or

it's

 

[J_C]

I like the art direction of the game. Should I give Book 1 and 2 a try? I don't know anything about the games, and I'd like to hear the Kool Kodexian Konsensus about it before I try it.

 

[Luzur]

im gonna buy it anyways.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Eschalon 2 is much better than the first one. Maybe go back to Eschalon 1 if you liked the second game, just to satisfy your curiosity. It has good music and a nice sense of exploration, but gameplay is much slower and less complex than in the second one.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

I like the art direction of the game. Should I give Book 1 and 2 a try? I don't know anything about the games, and I'd like to hear the Kool Kodexian Konsensus about it before I try it.

I've played 2, I enjoyed it. The combat is pretty simple and the quests can be kind of boring but overall it's a pretty nice indie game. You have to manage things like durability, food, water etc, but being a mage kinda breaks it so I guess they should balance that out =/

I really like the art style though, it looks great, very polished and professional.

 

[Konjad]

Never finished any Eschalon, although I bought and liked both of them, starting with various characters. They require quite a lot of free time, but are quite nice. They aren't one of the best cRPGs out there, but Eschalons are definitely charming and atmospheric games. Would recommend them over Dragon Age 2

 

[Baptismbyfire]

I like the art direction of the game. Should I give Book 1 and 2 a try? I don't know anything about the games, and I'd like to hear the Kool Kodexian Konsensus about it before I try it.

It's definitely worth picking up during Steam sales, since they started selling it there for dirt cheap.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

I played as a fighter first and found it pretty challenging. I then made a mage and found the game to be a cakewalk for the most part

 

[Fowyr]

Book 1 was average, sometimes with good moments.
Does Book 3 will have party as promised or it's single character only again?

 

[Konjad]

I played as a fighter first and found it pretty challenging. I then made a mage and found the game to be a cakewalk for the most part

I had the most fun playing thief and ranged combat. Mage is overpowered and warrior is simply boring.

 

[TOME]

How's Book, uh, 1? Is it or

If you can get past the slow moving speed, then it is .

I remember that Book 2 was great at first, but longer you played the worse it got. There was nothing keeping the world alive after finishing area's quests and killing monsters. No NPCs wandering around, no new quests after reaching certain level, no difficult dungeons you needed to come back later, no monster respawning etc.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

I played as a fighter first and found it pretty challenging. I then made a mage and found the game to be a cakewalk for the most part

I had the most fun playing thief and ranged combat. Mage is overpowered and warrior is simply boring.

Worth another playthrough as a thief? I remember having almost no money at all, spending it away on repairs for my weapons and armour as a warrior. I was thinking of playing a sort of paladin class, with melee supplemented by divine magic.

 

[Brayko]

So yeah I tried the demo for a few minutes...story seems pretty generic, it looks nice, seems like there's a wide range of skills, even though they are, uh, generic. So first impressions are pretty fairly mediocre. I mean, it's no Codex favorite like Mass Effect 3, but it certainly doesn't seem that bad.

 

[Konjad]

I played as a fighter first and found it pretty challenging. I then made a mage and found the game to be a cakewalk for the most part

I had the most fun playing thief and ranged combat. Mage is overpowered and warrior is simply boring.

Worth another playthrough as a thief? I remember having almost no money at all, spending it away on repairs for my weapons and armour as a warrior. I was thinking of playing a sort of paladin class, with melee supplemented by divine magic.

If you wanna replay the game then go for a thief, but if you plan to replay the game just to check out thief... I don't really think it's worth it.

 

[Cosmo]

The first two are pleasant, old school and quite atmospheric games. Simple but in a good way.

 

[Higher Game]

Most underrated series on the Codex.

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

Worth another playthrough as a thief? I remember having almost no money at all, spending it away on repairs for my weapons and armour as a warrior. I was thinking of playing a sort of paladin class, with melee supplemented by divine magic.

I played through both Book 1 and Book 2 with a thief character, and actually finished 2 with no kills at all. I found the thief/pacifist way extremely enjoyable, although it is admittedly very meta-gamey (especially when it comes to figuring out how to complete side quests which you shouldn't be able to complete without killing anyone in the first place), so your mileage may vary. One nice feature about Eschalon is that once you know what and where to do, it is possible to make insane speed-runs, since there are very few plot items necessary to actually complete the game and you can skip over major parts of the main quest (or basically whatever you did not enjoy so much during your original run). Thief is the ideal character class for this, because very high lockpicking skill allows you to open even plot-critical locks.

 

[TOME]

One nice feature about Eschalon is that once you know what and where to do, it is possible to make insane speed-runs, since there are very few plot items necessary to actually complete the game and you can skip over major parts of the main quest (or basically whatever you did not enjoy so much during your original run). Thief is the ideal character class for this, because very high lockpicking skill allows you to open even plot-critical locks.

So basically you are saying that you played a thief so that you could run from start to finish in a very little time and be done with it? Why play at all?

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

One nice feature about Eschalon is that once you know what and where to do, it is possible to make insane speed-runs, since there are very few plot items necessary to actually complete the game and you can skip over major parts of the main quest (or basically whatever you did not enjoy so much during your original run). Thief is the ideal character class for this, because very high lockpicking skill allows you to open even plot-critical locks.

So basically you are saying that you played a thief so that you could run from start to finish in a very little time and be done with it? Why play at all?

I was talking about subsequent playthroughs (which was also the context of Fader's question).

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

One nice feature about Eschalon is that once you know what and where to do, it is possible to make insane speed-runs, since there are very few plot items necessary to actually complete the game and you can skip over major parts of the main quest (or basically whatever you did not enjoy so much during your original run). Thief is the ideal character class for this, because very high lockpicking skill allows you to open even plot-critical locks.

So basically you are saying that you played a thief so that you could run from start to finish in a very little time and be done with it? Why play at all?

Mental illness

 

[golgepapaz]

Eschalon II,charming graphics, poor gameplay. KOTC bad fonts, great gameplay.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I love these games. Cannot wait for the 3rd.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Can't wait for it.

Will we get a bigger field of view this time?