Eschalon: Book II

I really enjoyed Book I, enough so that I bought a copy for a friend. Book II lost the magic... there was always something waiting around the corner in Book I, but in the sequel, the world seems empty. It's like they made the maps much larger without increasing the number of encounters or quests.

for me, this is a one and done game ... actually, kinda wished I didn't waste my time with it, below average/failing grade in many aspects; The positive: - Music was pretty good, nothing spectacular, but it was OK - thought not too original or unique in its setting. - Graphic was alright/good enough for its time. Again, nothing spectacular, but well done. - Fast travel map system. The negative: - Plot/storyline has potential, but too linear and very restrictive in its deliverance. - Could not hold or draw my interest throughout the game. - NPC are flat, cardboard characters ... might as well use a wall to deliver their messages, it would not have made any difference. - Very frustrating map screen where you don't really know where you are able to go (partly because of the movement system, too). Just not enjoyable moving around ... and you do have to move around in the game. Part of the charm of an RPG game is to be immersed in its game world and this is one of the glaring problem Eschalon failed to deliver. I did not care about the character, NPC, the game world in general, and ultimately the game itself. And to add insult to injury, once you completed the game, it felt like a huge ad for Eschalon 3 ... which I am staying far, faaaar away from.

Part 3 beeing quite disappointing, this remains the best of 3. Scenario and atmosphere wise it`s similar to part 1, but it`s bigger, and has a lot of gui and gameplay improvements. Also - definitely try out community mods - extra maps and content.

The equipment durability and repair system make this game somewhat inferior to Eschalon I in my opinion. By hiring a blacksmith to repair my gear, I repeatedly went broke. And I repeatedly broke ingame items due to regular use only to realize later after I had saved, since I only camped to repair. So that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Still a good game, and your experience is very configurable when you start. To be fair, this also provides a solution to the savescumming spam option in the previous game. But also I noticed that the game is actually not fully turn-based, because if an animation, for example the movement of the giant beetle monster, takes a long time, the player can simply button mash faster to trivialize combat. There are puzzles and surprises and fun though. If you loved Book I then I recommend this, just be careful setting up your game rules.

This is another amateur RPG that tries to mimic the motions of the giants whose shoulders they stand upon, but who fundamentally don't understand why the originals worked. Since the first game, all that has changed is that additional random mechanics of better games have been poorly aped without understanding how to make them work, much less fixing the problems of the first game. Now, you have food and hunger, but there's a survival skill that lets you find infinite fruit and reindeer meat out in the middle of the desert because it doesn't bother to check the surroundings before giving you infinite free stuff. The game still pretends to be a "difficult" "tactical" game, but the AI is still incapable of anything but moving blindly randomly or directly at you like it's borrowed its AI from DOOM. Like DOOM, all the enemies are basically the same AI and have no special abilities to make any one enemy anything but a different graphic on an old enemy with slightly more HP. Even from the start of the game, the I-take-a-turn-you-take-a-turn mechanics mean you can kite enemies to the map edge, and abuse regeneration to win every fight. If that isn't enough, the PLAYER is the only one with a "haste" potion/spell, which makes kiting everything laughably easy, and puts all notion of difficulty to shame, especially since a meager few skill points are needed for infinite free potion ingredients (and food) by camping. The story is a shamelessly rehashed cliche of an evil sorcerer that wants 4 orbs of power, but tries to be "original" by doing Wizardry 7/8's schtick and making space aliens and technology disguised as magic. There's also only about 15 pages of total text in the whole game. This game is neither hard nor old-school, it is just boring. There are MUCH better games available at GOG, including most of the games this one wishes it were. There are much better games for free, including many roguelikes. There are much better RPG Maker games than this!