Finnish game site Game Reactor has posted the first official review of Eschalon: Book II, giving it 8/10 with high marks for its nostalgic factor. That’s what we aimed for! The article is in Finnish, but you can understand most of it with a quick Google translation.
Simone
Finally got my game, I haven’t played it through yet but to me it would be a 9/10, might even become a 10/10 and I feel this without nostalgia though. It’s hard for me to feel that when I only play these kind of games.
Anastas
Unfortunately I already see a pirated version available for download online . Nevertheless I just bought my serial. Please support the developer and buy your copy. True RPGs/Adventure games like this one have died out since the advent of 3D.
Faithful
To pirate a game; does that mean that someone had to buy it and then pass it on so it could be pirated? So, foolish to want these types of games on the PC and then allow them to be pirated so the developers so not get the money they deserve and require to produce more games.
Support Basilisk by purchasing the game (well, both Book I and Book II), and showing that you appreciate these types of games and their hard work.
Samuel
They like:
-Overall “old school” atmosphere.
-Freedom and responsibility in character development.
-Challenge level compared to new easy games.
-In good way old fashion audiovisual side.
-Hardware requirements (or lack of them).
They dislike:
-Little bit awkward user interface(quick spells and changing armor)
-Not perfect(—heh, what is?—)
-Hard
—I am confused why they put that ‘game is hard’ in overall bad things, when they mostly price the challenge level in review. I guess that was meant to some 15 year olds(aren’t reviews persons subjectical opinion and NOT that what reviewer expects target audience(readers) to like, well what you gonna do—
Samuel
And they mention nothing about that you can choose challenge level options. Like food & water thing for example.
TheBuzzSaw
What language is the review in??
CycyX
@TheBuzzSAw: as BW said, it’s in Finnish.
@Faithful: there is no need for someone to buy the game and pass it out so it can be pirated. You can download the full game here, and it’s only protected with a serial number. Pirates “just” have to reverse engineer the algorithm to create a keygen or just unlock one copy and put it on the Internet.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is some kind of wrong. Nowadays I only buy Indie games, and I mean “buy” them. I know that everyone can’t afford to spend 70 euros for a blockbuster but good indie games are around 20$ and they’re worth it.
Buy Book I & II and let BW earn some money so he can keep making good games!
Faithful
CycyX, I am with you as I buy Indie games as well. I have given up on big name publishers as they seem to try and put the most restrictive DRM that can be created on their games. Count me out on that, for sure.
I will stick to good Indie games that do not carry DRM on them. But, even some of the Indie games have DRM on them; so, so sad.
Setanga
How about not telling everyone a pirated version is freely available? What was the point of starting this discussion at all instead of discuss the review? It’s a given with 100% of the PC games out there. There’s no need to remind it to random users who may find their way here. All PC games can be illegally acquired for free as rule with few, if any exceptions so, Eschalon pirated version, news @ 11.
Minotaur
I have been waiting for this game for so long. It is awesome guys!!!!!!! I love the improvements!!!
Isotalo
I’m the one who reviewed Book 2 for GameReactor, and could clear a few things. Firstly, both the pros AND cons have “hard difficulty” mentioned. This is partly because our mag audience consists of younger players who’ve gotten a bit soft in terms of challenging games. But at the same time, we…emm…veteran players are completely fine with that. Retrospectively I could have added a mention about the difficulty options, but one just can’t jam EVERYTHING that the game offers into a tight review.
That said, I really like the game and hope it’ll get plenty of sequels (and pirating a game like this really sucks).