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Eschalon Book 1: Turn-based indie RPG
itylus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Had a look around for a thread on this, couldn't find one, my apologies if I'm duplicating...
...anyway, this was released along with a demo a couple of days ago. It's an oldschool tile-based, turn-based RPG which so far has a bit of an Ultima 6 vibe to it, which I like. I'm a bit worried about the cliched story but hopefully it will get better... anyway, I love turn-based RPGs and feel sad about the apparent death of them on the PC, so wanted to give this one some love, especially if it turns out to be good.
http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm
...anyway, this was released along with a demo a couple of days ago. It's an oldschool tile-based, turn-based RPG which so far has a bit of an Ultima 6 vibe to it, which I like. I'm a bit worried about the cliched story but hopefully it will get better... anyway, I love turn-based RPGs and feel sad about the apparent death of them on the PC, so wanted to give this one some love, especially if it turns out to be good.
http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm
itylus on
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XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
Character creation is such a great step of the game that seems to be lost in most games nowadays. Just fiddling with all the options and skills and stats has made me feel a connection to my character already, and I don't know anything about him yet :P
Dying is easy in this game. At the start you're pretty wimpy and even a gang of salamanders can gank you. Not to mention the other kinds of monsters.
Exploring an big cellar with secret passages feels like real exploring, especially because of the limited line of sight due to poor lighting.
I've spent a couple hours now with a new character and here are some observations.
Melee combat with an low-level character is pretty hard. You miss, or hit but don't do any damage. It's probably better to put points in Dexterity instead of Strength and Speed, just so you can land good hits.
Alchemy is super useful as reagents seem to pop up all over. You (the player) have to know the forumlae for any potions you want to make, but I found a book and a torn page that had some recipes.
Cartography is good at 3 points, but 4 doesn't seem to be any better than 3.
Survival doesn't seem to increase your healing rate as advertised. Maybe it takes a lot of skill? The poison and disease resistance are very good though.
Choosing a faithless alignment is probably not a good idea. I got diseased and the priest can't help me
Heavy armor is harder to find at the start than light armor. The blacksmith has a whole suit of light stuff but only one piece of heavy.
Questing gives tons of experience.
Doesn't seem that way to me. Health regenerates at a steady rate in my experience. I timed it on my failed swordsman at 41 turns per health, that was with Survival 4.
It's usually cheaper to buy a cure disease potion from a vendor than have a priest heal you.
when you buy the game on the website, is it like buying a CD key or is it a one-time download, or what? I'm not sure if I want to put the game on my desktop or my laptop (I'm always on the former while I live here, but I may be moving out of here in a few days), and if it was possible to just do both with one purchase I'd be rather stoked and not have to make difficult decisions.
Feels more like the spawn of Ultima and Fallout to me
All I'm sayin' is that it's a great game full of oldschool awesome.
It's an incredibly polished game; its mechanics are both complex and intuitive. The animation, although minimalistic, is smooth and feels right. I haven't had a chance to see just how good the storyline is, but while it seems pretty standard fare and the NPCs rather wooden, it doesn't bother me in the least.
If I have anything to complain about, I'd say the inability to choose my character's gender is the greatest; followed on a close second by the different races and portraits not reflecting on your little avatar. My ranger guy sure looks way paler in-game than he does in his portrait. I heard Book II will solve these two pet peeves of mine though.
Oh, and the soundtrack... can't forget the soundtrack. It sets the mood just right and it's very unobtrusive.
Overall, I'm expecting to be hooked on this for a while. Not sure how much of a replay value there will be after you're deep enough into the game to be a jack of all trades... but it'll be a blast to find out!
It's a good idea with starting characters to specialise in a few important skills rather than trying to get a little of everything... and having divination/divine healing is so useful that pretty much every character should get it.
Yes, even if you have magic skill. The higher your alchemy skill is the more effective your potions become. Being able to create a level 2 healing potion with easily-found reagents is convenient and life saving
I'll be trying the demo sometime, but I want to know first and foremost, how good are the story and dialogue? Those are usually the key draws for a game like this, at least to me.
Where do you learn recipes at? I tried just putting random things together, but I usually get blown up.
You can find books and scraps of paper with recipes written on them. The character doesn't learn them, the player does. So once you know some recipes you can make them on any character you happen to play.
Look for 'The Alchemist's Cookbook' for some basic recipes.
Did you save your game?
Average RPG fare, I'd say. Not terrible, not fantastic either.
Well damn. I was running away from some blobs as I was about to die and I had no more healing potions. I tried to mix some random ingredients and blew myself up. And I had last saved in the middle of some dungeon. Crap.
Healing potion recipe: