Could be great, flunks on many issues
Eschalon has the potential to be very charming. It has several mechanical bugbears that hold it back to an incredible degree.
• There is absolutely no way to move faster. The slow pace at which the PC travels kills any sense of urgency or swiftness. Even compared to other CRPGs like it, this is a very sluggish gait.
• Fast travel is useless. The game is entirely linear, with very little to no reason to return to previous areas.
• There are too many stats. Even the primary skills feel redundant, but the list of minor skills just goes on forever and you need to dedicate too many levels up to work something minor like your map up to a competent level.
• Many items, abilities, and spells are redundant. Why ever bring a torch for light when you can use cat's eyes for ultravision, or learn a stronger spell when fire dart is simply more efficient?
• Inventory management is poor. Moving items about is a fiddly business, and bringing an item out to invoke it is often more trouble than it is worth. For a bit more fun, there's an arbitrary weight limit in addition to an item limit.
• Survival elements, because reasons. This and the third game have optional survival elements, something that even the most hardened GMs don't bother with in most games because they're so easy to trivialize. And they're easy to trivialize in this game as well. Don't bother activating this feature.