<SPOILERS> Final battle
Posted: March 5th, 2008, 1:32 pm
So I finished the game last night - a good bit of fun. I really enjoyed all the exploration, and the casual feel to the game was refreshing. But I was a little disappointed by the ease of the final battle - even the Taurens were harder than the Goblin leader (Grumak?). Granted, I'm the type who likes to explore every nook and cranny - I think I completed all the quests and killed most if not all the monsters out there - so my character was pretty powerful (level 17 mage, 23 elemental magick, 31 int. 32 percep. with all the bonuses from items, plus adequate scores in divine magick and swords as well). But IMO, the ending challenge should be a decent one even for a player like myself. For someone who does only some of the side quests, the challenge should be considerable, and for someone who only does the minimum necessary to complete the game, the challenge should be very difficult. That's just my opinion though.
One other issue I thought was interesting was the 2 possible endings. First, I thought the fact that such a dramatically different ending would result from one conversational choice was maybe a bit simplistic. But then, I suppose since all role playing in the game was really left up to the player (alignments were not included in the game), that kinda makes sense. What really got me though was the fact that the game/character isn't saved at the end (in fact the app. just quits - I think I'd have made it go back to the main menu instead). So that would mean book 2 wouldn't have direct access to the end result of book 1. Does that mean book 2 won't have anything to do with book 1, including your character? And given the huge difference in the ending (Thaermore under control of Goblins vs. control of humans), and the effect that could have on a world, how would book 2's story play out? I mean, if book 2 does somehow use the character from book 1, it still wouldn't know the ending of the game. Since the character ends up in different regions of Eschalon in each ending, and Thaermore is completely different in each, I'm just not sure how the story could deal with such a huge difference (unless book 2's story is completely separate). I'm not necessarily asking BGames to answer this, just kinda wondering out loud.
Anyway, I appreciate the effort you guys have put into the game! I'm an up-and-coming (hopefully) game designer myself, so it's great to see other indie RPGs out there.
One other issue I thought was interesting was the 2 possible endings. First, I thought the fact that such a dramatically different ending would result from one conversational choice was maybe a bit simplistic. But then, I suppose since all role playing in the game was really left up to the player (alignments were not included in the game), that kinda makes sense. What really got me though was the fact that the game/character isn't saved at the end (in fact the app. just quits - I think I'd have made it go back to the main menu instead). So that would mean book 2 wouldn't have direct access to the end result of book 1. Does that mean book 2 won't have anything to do with book 1, including your character? And given the huge difference in the ending (Thaermore under control of Goblins vs. control of humans), and the effect that could have on a world, how would book 2's story play out? I mean, if book 2 does somehow use the character from book 1, it still wouldn't know the ending of the game. Since the character ends up in different regions of Eschalon in each ending, and Thaermore is completely different in each, I'm just not sure how the story could deal with such a huge difference (unless book 2's story is completely separate). I'm not necessarily asking BGames to answer this, just kinda wondering out loud.
Anyway, I appreciate the effort you guys have put into the game! I'm an up-and-coming (hopefully) game designer myself, so it's great to see other indie RPGs out there.
