Eschalon: Book I

This was a fun game, took me about 45 hours (I did pretty much every side quest) and the play time worked out just right I thought. It's not a perfect game, a few of the mechanics get tiresome like encumbrance, but it wasn't overly difficult, just challenging enough, only had to look at a guide a couple of times to figure out something. One might see that it's free and be skeptical, but if you're into the crpg genre with turn based combat, an interesting storyline, and a fun alchemy system, it is definitely worth the time to play through.

Fun game but it was finished very quickly. Very few quests and very limited loot/equipment. Good game for the price as a diversion.

Eschalon emulates and celebrates Old School cRPG's as in those from "The Golden Age of cRPG's (1985-1993), basically 'pre-Baldur's Gate', which, I suspect, is why a lot of people seem to have difficult grasping the core concept of Eschalon; much like the Bard's Tale series, early to mid Wizardry series, early to mid Ultima series, Times of Lore, Early GoldBox titles; it keeps things rather 'plain and simple' and focus more on the world-building and atmosphere Sure it doesn't have the depth of the Ultima series, nor the dungeons of the Wizardry series, or the class-system of Bard's Tale; but Eschalon brings its own flavor to the table and feels somewhat like Times of Lore, in terms of 'adventure', mixed with some Ultima, in terms of world-building and oozes of atmosphere, much like the Goldbox games, add to that a rather 'nifty' class-system, within the games' limitations (cartographer, as many have mentioned, is an interesting addition, as being a skill) All in all, I believe that Eschalon is a fine example of the 'spirit' of The Golden Age of cRPG's done right: it's not overly complex, nor is it just another dungeon-crawling hack'n'slash; it's that fine middle-ground; a game you can spend however long you feel like, just soaking in the atmosphere and enjoying decent gameplay to a decent story With regards to music and sound effects, they are simply brilliant and truly evokes some sort of nostalgic sensation - perhaps due to the sparsity and simpleness, but there's something to it that just feels 'right' Graphics-wise I personally find it to be very enjoyable pixel-art and although you're basically stuck with 800x600 (16bit, or 32bit color), it more than does the job, especially for me who am playing it on a CRT I would recommend this to any and all of you who enjoyed the cRPG's of the 80's to early 90's - this 'fits right in there on the shelf', with other perhaps less remembered, classics of a time before Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Daggerfall came about

Wow what a great game, i am very pleased i brought this in a package deal with book 2 and 3. i loved the skill table, the character creation, i loved the challenge of staying alive, it was highly entertaining all the way to the end. My only gripe is it could have done with more locations to purchase more arrows.

I was looking for a solid dungeon crawler, open world exploration. This is it. Well written dialogue (which is shockingly rare in video games), intelligent captivating story, graphics are decent, the sound is GREAT; music, monster and combat sound, ambience - it fits and is high quality. Turn-based combat, but at such a fantastic rate that you can play the game almost as if it were real-time action, so it's like the best of both worlds. Watching the video presents a very good overview of the gameplay. Leveling up is fun and easy, the game is challenging without being overwhelming, and having a little window open rather than full screen means I can play this at work endlessly, and nobody the wiser. I love a game where my appearance changes with my armor, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving (without being so difficult as to lose my interest), and it comes with a very clever auto-map system where you can advance in levels to gain more and more detail. I love this game. After playing for 20 minutes, I immediately went and purchased both sequels.