Eschalon: Book I Review
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To sum up, Eschalon: Book One shows that its makers, Basilisk Games, definitely have the potential to make a great, old-school cRPG title. The main fault of their first game is that it's not really fleshed out. The bits of lore we get to learn are interesting, but, well, they're exactly that just tiny bits. Dialogue is too scarce, and a stat-heavy game really should provide some dialogue options which would appear only for PCs with the proper combination of attributes. There's too little choice in the quests. Some locations feel empty. Dungeon descriptions are a nice touch, but they come up infrequently. But the rest forms a really enjoyable fantasy cRPG, fit for a replay or two. Be sure to try the demo. And my opinion is that $27.95 for the downloadable version is a good price - I'll certainly be trying the game with different characters.
All in all, Eschalon: Book One is a very promising first title from a small team. I hope Basilisk Games learn from their debut game's faults and produces a more fleshed out sequel, either concentrating on providing a bigger number of quest-related options or on building more tactical options into the combat system ideally on both of these things!
