Eschalon: Book III

[Minttunator]

Eschalon: Book III, the third and final part in Basilisk Games' old-school fantasy trilogy, has just been announced. From the official page:

Eschalon: Book III brings the trilogy to a climatic end as you seek to uncover the mystery of your past, the secrets of the Crux stones, and who the Orakur really are. You’ll traverse miles of virtual wilderness and dungeons, filled with secrets and danger, in an unparalleled role-playing experience designed to feel like a true pen-and-paper RPG.

• The end of a saga! The final Book in the Eschalon Trilogy brings the story to an epic conclusion and all your questions will be answered. Of course, we’ve made sure Book III can be fully enjoyed even if you’ve never played the previous games.
• Dozens of fan-requested features and updates to the engine and rule set.
• Hundreds of graphic updates including re-rendered tiles, new spell effects, and enhanced environment effects. New sound effects and music in crystal-clear HD audio via an updated sound engine.
• Expanded stats for creatures give them new abilities, defenses and vulnerabilities. Combat will require new levels of strategy.
• New spells and hundreds of new items for you to discover. A huge world filled with secrets, riddles, traps, treasure, and glory awaits you!
• Book III is not a dumbed-down “RPG for the masses”. Rapid button clicking won’t save you here. Eschalon pays honor to the greatest RPGs of the past, with unlimited character development options and freedom to explore the world as you wish. The difficulty of the game does not scale to your character.
• Developer tools to be released shortly after the availability of the game. Build your own maps and make your own adventures!
• Single player only, like a great RPG should be.

Personally, I'm looking forward to this, I really enjoyed the first two games - they were kind of generic and easy to abuse, but had an undeniable charm to them. The toolset being released is especially nice.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

Hmm. Yes, toolset would be great but I will mainly be happy if they finish this off so they can move on, solo PC RPGs have limitations.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Do you think that the PC will wake up with amnesia in this one?

Edit: I hope Basilisk changes the way trainers work, because as they are in 1 & 2 they are incredibly exploitative.

 

[hoverdog]

Eschalons were the worst, blandest games since Mantiis stopped posting. I seriously cannot fathom why anyone liked those games. Eschalon had primitive combat straight out of roguelikes, but without RL's randomness, tension and all the other things that make them interesting. Its other aspects weren't any better. In fact, for me the games didn't have a single redeeming quality: banal story, simplistic character system, traveling taking LONG, lots of mob-grinding. Oh, the graphics were nice. For an indie. Which isn't much, AoD or Underrail look better.
ell I'd rather play Mass Erect at least seven times.

 

[Mortmal]

"Rapid button clicking won’t save you here" indeed you cant as its turn based button clicking, repeating the same basic attack ad nauseam. one step back shoot, one step back shoot! Ah well you can also cast some magic missile instead ,who knows what "the new level of strategy" will bring to the game, two step back instead of once ? .Eschalon is the perfect example to not follow for indie developers, cliché , bland boring uninspiring.That kind of thing must be put in its rightful place with arcania and dragon age 2 in the pit of infamy .

 

[Kosmonaut]

Eschalons were the worst, blandest games since Mantiis stopped posting. I seriously cannot fathom why anyone liked those games. Eschalon had primitive combat straight out of roguelikes, but without RL's randomness, tension and all the other things that make them interesting. Its other aspects weren't any better. In fact, for me the games didn't have a single redeeming quality: banal story, simplistic character system, traveling taking LONG, lots of mob-grinding. Oh, the graphics were nice. For an indie. Which isn't much, AoD or Underrail look better.
ell I'd rather play Mass Erect at least seven times.

Bummer. Still getting it at a Steam Sale or something. Just like the other two games.

 

[Minttunator]

Do you think that the PC will wake up with amnesia in this one?
Edit: I hope Basilisk changes the way trainers work, because as they are in 1 & 2 they are incredibly exploitative.

I'm sure they'll fix a lot of exploits and introduce new ones. For instance, I remember getting near endless money in Book II with Foraging.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Do you think that the PC will wake up with amnesia in this one?
Edit: I hope Basilisk changes the way trainers work, because as they are in 1 & 2 they are incredibly exploitative.

I'm sure they'll fix a lot of exploits and introduce new ones. For instance, I remember getting near endless money in Book II with Foraging.

Yup. I foraged a shitton of cash and then bought all my skills, and then raised them to even godlier levels when I actually spent my skill points on them. I don't mind foraging for lots of dosh, but I do mind that it's encouraged to refrain from using skill points until you've capped the skill at a trainer first. It makes for a very tedious early game.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Dozens of fan-requested features and updates to the engine and rule set.

Including the walk speed, I hope. But the developer once said (back when E2 was in development) he thinks it's fine as it is...

 

[Snufkin]

I finished Book II with character that had enough endurance to regain 1 hp/move and all points went to unarmed. He destroyed all.

 

[Misconnected]

I don't mind foraging for lots of dosh, but I do mind that it's encouraged to refrain from using skill points until you've capped the skill at a trainer first. It makes for a very tedious early game.

Emphasis mine. I'd say there's a pretty big difference between encouraged & rewarded. Both previous games rewarded min-maxing through trainer exploitation, but while doing it did slow character progression down a very great deal early- and even mid-game, the pay-off was in no way required to beat the game with the encouraged zapper/slapper/shooter character builds.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ah good, then we get an end to the story, which is at least moderately interesting.

You people can say as much about how much the Eschalon games suck (and they're by no means perfect) but they're turning a profit, which means that there's demand for them, and somebody likes them.

And I doubt that Book 3 will be out by Summer 2013. I'd say it's a full year away.

 

[Misconnected]

I'd be hard pressed to explain exactly why, but I like the Eschalon games a great deal. I think maybe mostly because they manage to be just well-done and detailed enough by story/graphics/whatever standards to catch my attention, and not so much that it gets in the way of my imagination. Kind of like Spiderweb's stuff.

But man... I wish the guy would have gone 6-8 PC party with proper TB combat, instead of single-PC Rogue-Like. As it is, the combat isn't boring to me, but it most definitely is mindless and it's just about impossible for me not to imagine how much more fun it could have been.

 

[Monstrous Bat]

Dozens of fan-requested features and updates to the engine and rule set.

I bet these don't include faster walking speed lolololololol

 

[Luzur]

thought you guys wanted to know about this, im looking forward to it.

 

[Excidium]

Looks exactly like the previous games. Good for the fans I suppose

 

[Bubbles]

They misspelled "Echelon" in the title.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Won't buy until I hear @Martin 's feedback.

 

[thesheeep]

Liked and bought the previous titles, will most likely do the same here.

 

[Micmu]

I still haven't played the second one. I was majorly disappointed with the first one.

Is the second one also like 5 hours long?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I bounced off the first one a couple times. Just couldn't get into it. It's like a spiderweb game, only with worse combat and without Spiderweb's usually excellent writing and world building. Plus, spiderweb usually puts stuff in their levels to discover, but Eschalon's levels seem like they are all huge, empty, expanses. It did seem to have a nicely deep stat and skill system, but I didn't get far in the game so I don't know if they were well integrated into the game or not.

It does have better graphics than a spiderweb game, though, so it has that going for it.

 

[groke]

dull.

 

[Luzur]

well i have always been a fan of Ultima-esk "Birds-Eye-View" RPG's, so im game for this.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I disliked the controls, the walking speed, the world design, the mapping system, and the writing of the previous 2, nowhere near as fun to play as spiderweb games.

 

[tindrli]

i liked everything except that coming soon part.. seems like they meant november 2014