Saxon1974 said:
MountainWest said:
Just finished the thing. Didn't experience any bugs except crashes on reloading. Nothing I couldn't live with.
Oh, and RPGCodex gets a Special Thanks in the end credits.
So what are your opinions on the game?
Fuck. I was thinking of writing a longer "review", but I've got a project to wrap up in the next couple of days. And time's, as usual, a bitch.
But what can I say in a few non-spell-non-grammar-checked, non-thought-through- words... If you didn't grow up with old school RPGs I have a hard time imagining you'll enjoy it. The enjoyment I got was the remembrance of days gone. Sure, that's exactly what Basilisk set out to do - creating a old skool rpg - but it's like they used the universal form for the genre and failed or didn't care to improve it a single bit. It really doesn't excell at anything. The main story is thin as paper. There's only about 12-15 (give or take some) "nodes" to pass before finishing the game. I uncovered every map and it took me about 23 hours.
The combat involves some tactics in what weapons/spells you use (you will die if you try brute force, at least I did) but compared with the combat in the games it tries to mimic the combat feels gimped since you only have one character to issue orders to. Turn-based thrives best with a party imo.
The NPCs are bland and few. You choose what you want to say from a couple of lines and get a page or less of text thrown back at you. A style I really don't like. It hardly conveys a feeling of interaction. No back and forth. It's like talking to a book. Ultima Lazarus used a similar - but more evolved - style and did it a hell of a lot better.
The quests are all of the go there, kill that, fetch this-kind, and lack depth.
The exploration is probably Eschalons redeeming point. There's a lot of land to uncover and chests to be found (most contains random lot). I'm an explorer by heart so I couldn't quit until I had uncovered the last bit of land. Also, there's flavour text triggered here and there which I like.
There are choices on how to proceed in the game - i.e. different paths - but I don't think they bear any major consequences with them (could be totally wrong on this one though).
Character creation is somewhat fun. Most of the skills are useful and you're always thinking of where to put the next three points.
All in all it feels like they created the engine and then hurried with the story. Like they did exactly as much as they had to do to sell the game, and not a bit more.
However, I'll be checking out for book 2. With the engine done I hope Basilisk will lay their effort on creating a better and more fleshed out story and world. And thus create a game that's at least as good as the old ones.
