Eschalon Book 2 – PC Game Review
Developer: Basilisk Games
Author: Avery Abernethy
Eschalon Book 2 is a turn-based, single-player role playing game produced by Basilisk Games. I purchased my copy on a www.gog.com sale. There is a playable demo which can be found at: http://basiliskgames.com/downloads. I purchased a full copy without playing the demo because the price was low and I tend to like these sorts of games. This review is based on more than 30 hours of play. My fighter played the game to completion including exploring every map and completing every quest. My play style can be described as “overkill” and one should be able to complete the game in fifteen to twenty hours of play.
This was a fun game. There is a huge variety of skills, weapons, armors, spells, alchemy, and side skills that will warm the heart of any old-school RPGer. The combat is turn-based so there is no irritation at having twitched right instead of twitching left and thus causing the demise of a character. There are lots of enemies to smite and quests to complete.
The world is open. There is nothing preventing the player from wandering anywhere on the huge maps in the game – except the deadly monsters infesting the various maps. Play balance in open world games can be a design challenge. Play balance was done quite well done for my fighter character. I occasionally wandered onto a map with monsters far more powerful than I. But prodigiously using my potions and running really fast enabled me to escape, become more powerful, and return to wreak my pixilated vengeance at a later time.
The player receives a mysterious note at the start of the game requesting a clandestine meeting. As many RPG meetings of this type go, the contact is assassinated while leaving clues which drive the story for the rest of the game. There are a couple of neat twists on this plot which I will not divulge. Overall, the background story is enough to drive the character’s actions without becoming an annoying deus ex machina holding the whip hand over the player.
In Eschalon Book 2 the player can use perfectly adequate prerolled characters or can roll the computer dice until they get a player of their liking. The characters can be dramatically shaped by skill point allocation as they gain levels. Still, the basic characters tend to be a fighter, an archer, or a magic user. A combat-avoiding thief can be designed but I doubt the utility of that play style given how experience points are awarded.
