Eschalon: Book I

Full disclosure: I got this game game for free during one of GOG's free giveaways. So, my expectations weren't as high as they might have been if I had paid full price for this game. Having said that, I'm still really disappointed with the overall feel of this game. I enjoyed the isometric perspective, which reminded me a lot of the old Fallout games before they went 3D. I'm used to these older RPG's being a bit slower in their pacing, so I was able to be patient with the game, at least for awhile. What I really disliked about this game was the way that it was artificially slowed down. I'm not just talking about the walking speed of the PC either. That was bad enough. But the way that most of the maps are just so cluttered, and that fact that fast travel becomes somewhat useless in certain areas of the game combine to make this game feel much slower paced that what it really is. I think that the game could have benefitted from alternative means of travel, like horses, or a better teleportation system. The NPC's also become boring and tedious to talk to. Most of them don't even react when you loot their chests. As an experiment, I also killed one of the town guards in Aridell. No reaction from anyone. As far as the dialogue goes, it's easy enough to navigate through. The mapping system is another point of contention. I like that the cartography skill plays a part in how good or bad the maps looks as you traverse the land. The problem is that your PC is represented by a dot so small that most of the time I couldn't tell where I was at. So in one sense, I had to get to know the lay of the land, which was good for an old-school gamer like myself. But if you're going to take the time to put in a fancy mapping system, at least make it useful. Overall, the game is a solid effort. There's just not quite enough polish to hold my attention for the long-term. 3 out of 5 stars.

This game has a wonderfully enjoyable and rustic atmosphere. The music, setting, and art styles are all in the right direction. Unfortunately the charm wears thin pretty quickly once you travel more than a few areas out of the way. The game feels very unforgiving when you attempt to actually explore the world. There's no warnings, information, or direction to keep you from straying into an area that will get you immediately killed, and very little separates low level areas from mid or higher level ones. Even when you do encounter powerful enemies, there's no way to recognize how dangerous they might be until it's too late. There might be the offhand road sign that might warn of danger in a few select areas, but they will always be completely devoid of context and scope. Item and level progression seem pretty stagnant, with variation between item quality and levels being almost non-existent. After 8 levels my damage reduction has gone from 1%-5% even though I've intensely focused it. Enemies still hit for damage ranging from 4 to 14 hp, so after 8 levels that difference still mitigates a whole 1 point of damage from attacks. Spell are either life saving, or completely useless to the point where they may be bugged. The spells that let you see in the dark are a huge game changer, since most enemies suffer as drastic a penalty to accuracy as you do in darkness, allowing you to finally get the upper hand. Then there's spells like Entangle, where ever aspect of it seems to be broken. It's a Divination spell, for some reason, that nearly every monster in the game is unaffected by. At level 1, it cannot even affect goblins and tells me it may be able to if prepared at higher levels. The same message persists at levels 2, and 3. After that point I stopped trying to make it work because it was no longer worthy of the investment. It's still enjoyable as a free game, but some polish could have made it much more.

Freaking amazed from the very start. Love the sounds, controls, text (lots of text! so sweet!), the plot, everything!

Enjoyable. More challenging as a squishy mage than a hardy fighter, you get old school goodness from this title. If you don't mind lots of walking and sleeping to recharge your character, then this game might be worth your time. Nothing terribly original here, but it has all your beloved fantasy rpg elements: magic, merchants, leveling up, side quests and exploration. Enjoy!

I can see how people would like this game, especially for those who grew up in the 80s and 90s, but it's not something I would recommend for those who haven't played old school games before. Although, I would still say to go ahead but, before you download it, here's a video that you can watch: https://youtu.be/M6Fd4bNmx7M