Eschalon: Book II Review

RPG Codex has taken Basilisk Games’ Eschalon: Book II for a spin, and while they don’t provide a score in their review, it doesn’t sound like they were overly impressed with the RPG sequel.

Unfortunately, these are only isolated instances of interesting content in the predominantly empty game world. With all the bugs (now mostly ironed out) and general feeling of emptyness, it’s unfortunately obvious that the developer simply had to put this game on the market in May. There are also two places, a cave entrance and a staircase, which should provide access to two dungeons which do not exist in the game. You’re told (There’s nothing more in that direction. Turn back your fate awaits elsewhere!) With all the empty areas, I felt like having been ripped off a little. This is unfortunate, since it seems like a matter of presentation. It would be better if the entrances were non-approachable by the character, or if they were simply removed, as the dungeons might be added in a future addon. You might remember that a similar project for the first game did not take off. Here’s to hoping the developer fares better this time. If he did not put the entrances in the released version of the game, the players could await the dungeons as a nice, free expansion. Unfortunately, due to overall lack of content in the game they look like something which should have been there from the start.

There are also some balance problems. First, there is absolutely no reason to use Heavy Armour. Use Light Armour instead. It gives almost the same defensive bonuses and is, well, light. Eschalon: Book 2 breaks with the cRPG tradition in that the more rare smithing materials are heavier than the common ones. (Mithril is heavier than iron, for example.) The tungsten armour you find late in the game will weigh a lot more than your beginning iron set. This means that even if you increase your Strength regularly, if you use Heavy Armour, you will continuously have to throw stuff out in order not to become encumbered. And it’s always nice to have 25 free pounds for a powder keg, just in case.

A bigger problem regards stat trainers. They can now teach you (for a price, of course) a skill up to the skill level of 8; there are trainers for most of the skills. This means that if you want to become a good alchemist, you should NOT invest your skill points in that skill (or read the book which increases it) before you pay the trainer for teaching – otherwise the skill levels you could’ve gained with the trainer are wasted. This is a bit frustrating on the first playthrough – “Come on, I wouldn’t waste points on Cartography if I knew I can pay 100 coins to get a point in the skill” – and still difficult to properly deal with on subsequent ones. Book 2 seems to punish your character if you don’t metagame. In general, in cRPGs paid skill trainers are, I think, a problem, not a solution; the problem becomes big if you can reach level 8 in most of the skills just by saying goodbye to a sizable pile of cash. Perhaps the best thing to do is to try to subdue the feeling of being punished and play the game without minmaxing; Book 2 is easy enough that most likely your character won’t be overwhelmed even if he’s not developed as perfectly as he could have been.