Eschalon: Book I

The story is vinegar: not very tasty by itself, but you'd notice if it were missing. Item acquisition is completely random, that includes vendor. Very bad mechanic, especially since it's weighted by the player level. The reason why this was necessary is probably the small number of towns and non-linearity: aka back tracking aka our map was too small. And when it comes to the maps, yeah it gets very bad here and there, especially when low health monsters are running away. Not a good mechanic for a game that is turn based. This game either tries to be too much or too little, not complex enough to be the immersive sim it tries to be, and not simple enough to be dumb fun like "Torneko's Great Adventure". As for character building, which is a very important part of this game, the mercantile skill is just as bad as it sounds and the absence of a luck state is either a saving grace or a curse, not too sure yet. The riddles/puzzles are simple but missing a hint will waste you a good 30 minutes, which is in-line with old RPGs. This isn't really an RPG though, it's a glorified diablo-like with a slow pace, and a slower crawl as default movement. It's fun for what it is, although the first couple of levels where you don't know what skill does what exactly and have to figure it out wasting a few points are a bit of a pain, and by the time you figure it out the game is soon over. Replayability is nil because the story is a placeholder and your character's origin doesn't matter. The ending bugs after the first slide, but apparently you can't import your character onto the next game so I guess that's two failures. Throw away expectation and think of it as if it were a game made in the early 90's with a clunky fanpatch to make it look a little better, and it becomes enjoyable. Also all dungeons are very dark and the resolution is stupidly small so expect your eyes to hurt after a while if you play in windowed mode for any reason.

This game has a little bit of some older roughness to it, but not so much that it really gets in the way of anything. It has the RPG goodness and exploration that I like, and I can't wait to finish it to get on with the rest of them. Nice game!

very nice classic game with a diablo feeling

I know. Not very becoming way to detail the game. But seriously. It is. It may not be perfect, but you can play it from start to finish and not be frustrated with most of it. Which is hard to come by in gaming these days. The one thing I would want, is a post apocalypse type of game, without magic.

Excellent old school RPG. Would be great if it had ability to work with higher resolutions, but fun regardless.