My thoughts of Eschalon Book II

[RobC04]

Hello,
Recently I purchased Eschalon Book 1 & 2 and have completed them both. To feed my illusions of grandeur that my opinions matter, I decided to share my thoughts on Book II. I didn't read any tips or spoilers during my play through.

The initial impressions you get from most RPGs is when you create a chracter. Eschalon provides the standard attributes to improve, along with a significant number of skills. Since I played as a typical fighter in Book I, I decided to see how the mages lived in Book II. I focused on primarily using Elemental magic, so I put most of my points in Intelligence and Perception. I also became fairly skilled in Divination magic too before the game was over. I understand the decision, but I was a little disappointed that I couldn't continue my character from Book I for a high level adventure.

I think the main draw for me in Eschalon is the sense of exploration. Encountering new lands, different monsters and anticipating finding some useful loot keeps the game interesting. The visuals are done well enough to enjoy the settings even though they are far from state of the art. The increased resolution from Book I was appreciated. Even though movement didn't follow the typical method found in computer RPGs, I usually found it to work well enough. There were times that movement was a pain. This usually occurred when moving through a heavily treed area when you couldn't see the path. A feature to make the trees (or other obstacles) transparent around your character so you could get an unobstructed view would have been appreciated.

The music was very enjoyable and matched the setting well too. I didn't tire of it even after listening to it for 40 hours. It didn't grab me quite as much as Leliana's Song from Dragon Age, but the music in Eschalon gets pretty high marks from me.

The story was entertaining enough to keep me interested in what was happening, but I don't expect studios to be buying the movie rights. If this sounds harsh, I don't mean it to be. I think it served the game, but doesn't compare to the stories or characters in Dragon Age. Of course, this is made by a team of one (or mostly one?) instead of a horde so I don't exptect it to have multi million dollar polish.

I like the idea of mapping being a skill but there are some annoying consequences. I know this has been discussed on the forums already, but
it is important enough to mention. It is very annoying to have automap redraw at less detail after mapping an area with an elevated cartograph skill. My guess is that there was a technical reason for it to behave like this, but it definitely detracted from my enjoyment. I really hope this is changed for Book III.

I like the improved status window. The current effects on your character are displayed in a window as buttons. If you click the button it displays more information about that status in the message area. This allows you to see many statuses and easily get an explanation of them.

I am glad there is a quick travel option to revist areas already found. I dislike slogging through areas multiple times after I have cleared an area out. The frequency they are placed is pretty good. I never felt frustrated because the quick travel markers were too sparce, but they weren't too frequent that I wasn't thankful when I found another one. There are some inconsistencies with quick travel though. Quick travel uses food, water, and wears your footgear. Unfortunately health and mana are not replenished. Also time within the game world doesn't seem to pass when you quick travel. This seems inconsistent to me. It doesn't seem fair or logical that quick traveling should cost food and water without replenishing health and mana. Day may cycle to night, but the number of days passed doesn't change.

I found the game as an elemental magic user in Book II much easier than my fighter in Book I. I had all of the optional rules turned on (water, food, saved random number seed, etc), but the game wasn't really a challenge. I was able to employ the same strategy throughout; use ranged attack spell, retreat when out of mana, rest, kill another monster). Between my meditation skill and perception attribute, I was able to gain 197 mana within a couple hours of rest time. Except for a couple locations, I never needed to rely on mana potions or buffs to get me through. When I couldn't find a place to rest, pressing space bar to skip a turn worked well enough. By the latter portion of the game I recouped 1 mana per turn. I got quite adept at rapidly pressing the space bar.

Another thing that made the game pretty easy is the enemy AI. It is pretty easy to to lose a creature by rounding a corner. Also, even my low speed mage could move at least as fast as every creature he encountered. Perhaps some of the monsters should be more fleet of foot so constant hit and run tactics wouldn't always be effective. Some creatures also just stood there and didn't respond to my ranged spells when I attacked from far away. These issues didn't make me not enjoy the game, but it could have been better.

This brings up a complaint I have about most RPGs. Time doesn't matter. My character is on an important mission to save the world, but doesn't give a second thought to running an errand to get some ore or some other less than critical task. This makes the strategy I describe above acceptable. There is no penalty for my constant resting or time skipping. The enemy isn't getting any closer to their goal, my hip isn't getting ready to give out due to old age. It just feels like there should be a consequence to the passage of time. I know why most RPGs avoid this...I would be quite hard to balance to provide a challenge but not be frustrating. Also, RPG players tend to like to explore every corner of the world and open every last chest. I admit I do that too, but I think I would prefer time being relevent. If you don't explore everything you can always get it on another play through.

Eschalon Book II is a hard game to sum up. After reading many of the comments I made above, it sounds like I didn't enjoy the game that much. This isn't true. I am happy with my purchase (although I did get it on sale) and may eventually play again with another class and skill set. I enjoyed this game more than others with a much higher budget (I'm looking at you Empire Total War). Eschalon has a good sense of exploration and variety of skills and attributes that support different play styles. As a former software developer I am always impressed with the games a small or one man team can create. I wish I had the motivation to try and make something myself. On a true 1 to 10 scale with 5 being an average game (not the inflated scores found on most gaming sites) I would give Eschalon a 6.5. I am glad I found this game and I applaud its creator for his efforts!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Welcome to the site, RobC04. We're glad you found and enjoyed Eschalon: Book I and Book II. (We being the crazy addicted fellow players on here, as well as Thomas, the Basilisk Wrangler and creator of these games, I'm sure.)

Lots of people have talked about the cartography issue, and there's one element of the skill that you may or may not have encountered that makes the map redrawing happen: at level 16 you gain the ability to "see" mobs and NPCs on the minimap before they are visible on the screen (you sense them magically somehow). So really you're not physically drawing the map but some how magically holding it in your mind. Of all of the interface issues that have been discussed, I think I'm close to alone in not really caring about this one. Half the time I forget the minimap is there (except places like the invisible maze in Fathamurk, where it becomes essential).

Anyway, welcome and we hope you feel like sticking around for more conversation.

[RobC04]

Thanks for the welcome Kreador Freeaxe. After being very disappointed with some releases from big companies (Civilization V - my all time favorite series), it is nice to find a game from a small company that is entertaining and worth the price of admission.

Book II made enough improvements over Book I to noticably increase my entertainment (yeah, autostacking of inventory items!). It will be interesting to see what Book III brings to the table.

[xolotl]

Indeed, welcome! And a good post; thanks for your thoughts. Addressing one thing in particular, btw:

There are some inconsistencies with quick travel though. Quick travel uses food, water, and wears your footgear. Unfortunately health and mana are not replenished. Also time within the game world doesn't seem to pass when you quick travel. This seems inconsistent to me. It doesn't seem fair or logical that quick traveling should cost food and water without replenishing health and mana. Day may cycle to night, but the number of days passed doesn't change.

BW had chimed in on this issue before, saying that the lack of MP/HP replenishment was intentional, because when using QuickTravel, your character is in a mode of trying to get to the quicktravel marker as quickly as possible, without any rest or time to heal up, etc.

I do think that it's still a little inconsistent, given that you regenerate HP and MP by walking around normally (and even in the middle of battle, if the engine happens to tick up your stats at the right time), but that's the rationale given awhile ago.

I found the game as an elemental magic user in Book II much easier than my fighter in Book I.

Yeah, many have said that mages are overpowered in Book II (personally I find them powerful but enjoyable). For greater challenge, swap your characters. Mages in Book I are much more difficult to pull off (IMO), and melee fighters are a little harder in Book II (again IMO).

[RobC04]

Indeed, welcome! And a good post; thanks for your thoughts. Addressing one thing in particular, btw:

BW had chimed in on this issue before, saying that the lack of MP/HP replenishment was intentional, because when using QuickTravel, your character is in a mode of trying to get to the quicktravel marker as quickly as possible, without any rest or time to heal up, etc.

I do think that it's still a little inconsistent, given that you regenerate HP and MP by walking around normally (and even in the middle of battle, if the engine happens to tick up your stats at the right time), but that's the rationale given awhile ago.

Yeah, many have said that mages are overpowered in Book II (personally I find them powerful but enjoyable). For greater challenge, swap your characters. Mages in Book I are much more difficult to pull off (IMO), and melee fighters are a little harder in Book II (again IMO).

Thank you. Your explaination of quick travel does make it a little more reasonable that there isn't any hp or mana replenishment. I also agree with your assessment that it still seems inconsistent.

I'm not sure what type of character I would play if I do another run through in Book II. I almost always play a fighter the first time I play an RPG, as I did in Book I. I was tempted to be a fighter in Book II, but then I thought if I don't end up playing again I want to make sure I try something different in Eschalon. Perhaps a thief with alchemy abilities so he can buff himself economically.

I didn't use alchemy at all in Book II yet. In Book I made a lot of use of it, specially buffing my armor and weapons. I thought it was a little too powerful in Book I. With all the armor and weapon buffs it made you unstoppable.

I have a tendency not to replay RPGs, and I agree with another poster on this forum. I think what makes an RPG replayable are good tacticle battles. Neverwinter Nights is the only game I can recall replaying a couple times. I almost replayed Dragon Age, but quit part way through on number 2. Its battles just didn't seem as deep as in Neverwinter. They just seemed a little 'arcadeish'. Unfortunately it seems most games are getting more steamlined and less deep.

[RobC04]

I am feeling very wordy tonight. It just dawned on me how I feel about Eschalon in general terms. I don't mean any of the following in a bad way. To me Eschalon is the Solitaire of RPGs. It is very easy to pick up and play. There is enough to it that you can't just mindlessly play, but it isn't too taxing or stressful. Of course I find it more interesting than Solitaire.

[IJBall]

BW had chimed in on this issue before, saying that the lack of MP/HP replenishment was intentional, because when using QuickTravel, your character is in a mode of trying to get to the quicktravel marker as quickly as possible, without any rest or time to heal up, etc.

I do think that it's still a little inconsistent, given that you regenerate HP and MP by walking around normally (and even in the middle of battle, if the engine happens to tick up your stats at the right time), but that's the rationale given awhile ago.

I've always rationalized it that "normal" walking is more of a 'gentle stroll', whereas QuickTravel is like running full out which would not be conducive to 'Healing', etc. like a 'gentle stroll' would be. FWIW.

[kenoxite]

So really you're not physically drawing the map but some how magically holding it in your mind.

Then it ends up to being just a problem with the name of the skill. You're talking about something pretty close to "Spatial Awareness" and definitely NOT "Cartography", with it IS about physically drawing maps.

[RobC04]

Reguarding automapping-- I am OK with things like monsters or NPCs not staying on the map. It is normal for them to move so you can't expect them to be exactly in the same place. It is the things like roads, paths, water, etc...

Reguarding quicktravel--There are some pretty good rationalizations above for why it works how it does (moving to fast to recouperate), but you do recouperate during combat, which I would tink would be more strenuous and less condusive to healing then moving fast. Also, quicktravel all around the map to trigger multiple day / night cycles. Then look at the stats. The 'Total number of turns played' changes, but the 'Total game world time' (game days) does not. This also means merchants don't restock when you use quicktravel.