Game Title Eschalon: Book II
Developer Basilisk Games
Publisher Basilisk Games
Platforms Linux • Mac • PC
Genre/Category Fantasy Role Playing
Release Date May 12, 2010
Link http://basiliskgames.com
Eschalon: Book II is an extraordinary role-playing game. Pulling from elements of the great classics in the genre, while blending it’s own unique game-world into the mix, I found myself immediately pulled in by it’s formula.
You start out simple enough. You wake up in your cabin, gather a few things from your home, and go out your front door. But as soon as you leave, you realize there’s a note on your step. You pick it up, read through it, and find yourself invited to meet a man at the local Inn. You have no idea who he is, what he wants, or why on earth he chose you for this meeting; but with little else to go on, you decide to investigate.
You don’t actually have to go to the Inn right away. The main story won’t start until you do, but Eschalon: Book II is designed to be an open-world experience for the most part, so if you really want, you can just take off in the opposite direction and do something else instead.
But if you do decide to find out who that mysterious stranger is, you’ll find yourself quickly pulled into a well-written, engaging adventure that will change your character’s simple existence forever. I won’t reveal any more details, because I don’t want to spoil it for you, but suffice to say you will not be disappointed. This game has a lot to offer any fan of RPGs.
The character creation alone is worthy of high praise. For while it’s true that your only control over the starting appearance of your avatar consists of selecting a character portrait, the portraits themselves are beautifully hand-painted, and the other areas that you can dictate more than outweigh it. You can not only choose your gender, but also your origin, axiom, and class. And when these factors are pulled together, the game spits out a title like Bard or Barbarian, and this influences your starting skills.
So for instance, you decide which origin you like from a list of several possibilities. And each of these represents a specific geographic region, or people that you come from in the game’s fictional world. These can give you different stat bonuses depending on your selection.
Then you decide on your axiom, which is a really interesting feature. Because this represents your philosophical world-view. You can choose from options like Atheist, Agnostic, Virtuous, Nefarious, etc. And whatever you decide upon can in turn dictate fairly significant elements of the game. For example, if you choose Atheist as your axiom, you won’t be able to receive blessings from Priests in the game world. Other things that can be affected are how your character heals in the open world versus underground in dungeons, and even whether or not you get the chance for bonus damage during encounters.
After that you get to choose from five basic classes, most of which should be familiar to fans of the genre. Options include choices like Rogue, Fighter, Ranger, etc, and help you to round out the finishing touches on how you’d like to adventure.
But you also get the ability to roll and re-roll your starting stats until you get a set that you’re happy with, and additional bonus points to more carefully carve out your character’s attributes. So by the time you’re done, you genuinely feel like you’ve forged a unique personality to set off in the world with.
The upside to this is obvious. You get a carefully crafted and engaging way to customize your play style. But there’s also a downside, and that’s how easy it can be to make a character that’s nearly unplayable, and that requires you to start over and try again. I think I probably had to go through the process of creating a character, playing him for a few hours, and then starting over from scratch about five times.
But I think most fans of hardcore RPGs will recognize this as something that generally goes hand-in-hand with any genuinely complex and in-depth game of this type. The more ingredients you toss in the pot, the better it tastes, but the easier it also becomes to screw up the recipe. So I doubt anyone who’s of a mind to genuinely enjoy this game will complain too much about the learning curve involved.
Once you do get into the game world proper, and have yourself a character that can survive more than a strong head-cold, you’ll immediately be taken in by the impressive visuals. And I want to make this clear right now. The game is definitely very old-school in the way it looks. Everything is done in a simple, isometric, 2D style. But don’t for a minute let that dissuade you from thinking this game is anything but beautifully crafted.
Details are everywhere. And the art in this game is just flat-out superb for the kind of style it portrays.
Even a task as simple as opening a wooden chest causes a beautifully hand-crafted image to pop-up. You’ll not only see the intricately drawn images of the items it contains, but also the individual planks that make up the chest, and the grain of the wood they’re made from.
Most games would just give you a black square with the contents of the chest displayed. But Eschalon: Book II goes that extra step to preserve your immersion and makes it look like you’re staring inside a real, wooden box. Surprising little touches like that are everywhere. And you’ll find they make a huge difference in your experience.
Another element of Eschalon: Book II that I found truly impressive was the writing. This game not only has a good story, it also has very well-written dialogue, and detailed, textual descriptions that accompany everything. If you right-click a weapon or potion, you get a sentence or two telling you what it is. If you eat something, you get a sentence telling you what it tastes like. And when you talk to someone, you get a brief description of what they’re doing, how they appear at that moment and anything else that might be relevant, or that simply adds to your immersion.
This made for a really engaging experience that brought my imagination into play in ways I seldom see in modern video games.
In fact, when all is said and done, the only real frustration I experienced with this game was the steep learning curve involved. But in a lot of ways, that’s actually a compliment. Because games that are complex and intricate enough to require a little trial and error are usually the ones that give you the best experience in the end. And Eschalon: Book II is no exception to this.
Basilisk Games have really outdone themselves with this one. Eschalon may not be the kind of game series that appeals to all the twitch-kiddy tweens with Attention Deficit Disorder, but for anyone who’s willing to take it’s old-school style for what it is, and appreciate it’s intricate design, Eschalon: Book II will be a truly memorable experience for them. I can’t recommend this game enough. Play it.
My Review
Pros Beautiful 2D graphics; Great writing; Immersive world
Cons Steep learning curve
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