Even though I've been a gamer since about 1995 and have been playing games for about ten years before that, I've never finished a CRPG before this day. Something about Eschalon was just so inviting, so comfortable. It wasn't overwhelming in size and/or complexity like many other CRPGs; it was seemingly the perfect fit for me. Not too hot, not too cold, just a nice, warm place in the middle of a pleasant town called "moderate."
The simplicity of the game combined with the bright, colorful graphics and more than decent music compelled me to actually get through it. I must admit the storyline was rather lacking (being almost nonexistent), but how can I rest on complaints? I devoted 30 hours to this game and enjoyed almost every minute of it (with the gun-to-head monotonous exception of trying to map Baron's Thicket).
There's only a few things I would suggest to make the game much (much) more fun. I know it's rather late in Book II's production to perhaps take these into consideration, but... maybe Book III?
1.) Other people have probably mentioned this, but having to have a skill to have a minimap seems anti-productive. I realize it adds a bit to the realism of the world, but how much does it really offer gameplay? Is it really worth it to spend very, very valuable skill points on Cartography?
2.) Having the minimap function on the basis of line-of-sight, even though the actual game window doesn't do this, is supremely annoying. Baron's Thicket is the chief example among every forest example in Thaermore. Mapping that place was TEDIOUS, and it went on FOREVER. I could see that there was nothing to find in the game window, but the minimap wouldn't fill in until I stepped in every nook and cranny and looked at every tree from every angle. Call me obsessive compulsive, but I was trying to get the minimap filled completely in and I wasn't leaving until it was done.
My suggestion is to keep the line-of-sight minimap, but make it so trees don't get in the way of line-of-sight as far as the minimap is concerned. Walls, sure, but not trees and not objects. I can't tell you how much more fun Eschalon would have been had this been the case. Even though I very much enjoyed the game, exploring it quickly became my least favorite part due to the minimap and trees.
If you can see it in the game window, it ought to show up on the minimap. There's little excuse to have to walk up to a wall you can plainly see just so it will show up on the minimap.
3.) You need to get more Skill Points per level-up. Need. I'd say 9, and limit the amount each skill can be raised per level to +3. I wish I could have experimented with skills a lot more, but they were so expensive and leveling so time-capturing that it seemed like a quest in un-fun to even try... so I didn't. I focused on two skills, and that's it, because that's all I could really do.
Having to have a minimum of 5 in Cartography for it to be useful and a minimum of 10 in Merchantile to start getting decent prices seriously, seriously hurts the survivability of characters in the early and mid-games due to the expensive nature of skills. Because I just had to have those skills at those levels, much of my time in the game was spent camping to heal massive HP loss because my weapon and armor skills were much lower than they should have been for my level.
4.) A minor gripe, but I've never liked puzzles in any game other than an adventure game. I play games other than adventures to shut my mind off, not have to start grinding the gears again. But I realize this is a just a personal opinion, so...
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But, all that said and done, I still found Eschalon to be a very fun game and perhaps a great reintroduction to the world of CRPGs for me, a genre of gaming I've always ignored because I was never mature enough to sit down and be patient and explore a gritty world of all-too-often death in the face of incredible odds. (And because my RPG fan-hood was weaned on games like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger.)
Bravo, Basilisk, bravo.
