by Siddharth Ramshankar

Created on: June 15, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Eschalon Book 1 is a Role Playing Game created by developers "Basilisk Games." It's a tile-a-turn based game with attacks and damage calculated by "dice rolls" within the game. It was an interesting concept. Then I started playing the game and I quickly lost all interest.

I spent the first fifteen minutes of the game wandering aimlessly after creating my fighter. Within those minutes I encountered several salamanders, a locked chest that I couldn't open, a castle overrun by goblins, and no weapons. Correct me if I'm wrong, but part of RPGs is going through quests. This means there must be some form of instructions or directions, both of which the game was lacking. I understand that it's an Open Environment, but if the game is too open, I'm just going to get lost and feel helpless, a feeling most games should not cause.

I had a few big problems with the game. First off, to level up your character from the very first level, you need to get 1000 experience points. Unfortunately, each monster you fight gives close to 6 to 8 experience points. Given the relative lack of fighting taking place, and the speed at which the game trudges along at, I couldn't even get halfway to leveling in an hour. You see, my previous assumption was that RPGs usually allow people to get through the lower levels relatively quickly because no one wants to be a low level peasant forever. Gamers want to get to the high levels and slay dragons. Don't punish the gamer by sticking him on level one for three days.

Also, it seems as though the game needs to be played with the lockpick skill. Without it, you cannot open any of the chests you see in the game. Again, this is poor design, leading to the game punishing players for not choosing to obtain a skill. If you don't choose lock picking as one of your primary skills, then you're essentially crippled and have no chance of finding treasure other than in the barrels (oddly) littered throughout the landscape. Besides, as I've mentioned above, it takes forever to level up, and even if you get to choose a new skill you're going to have to wait a long time.

If you're still going to play the game, I suggest you block off some time to go through the random meandering that's going to take place at a snail's pace. You can't really speed the game up, so get ready to suffer through a hopeless point-and-click walking style that gets incredibly annoying. There was one shortcut that just barely helped, and just meant that instead of furiously clicking, I could click once and sort of drag my mouse around and hope that my character didn't run into a grove of trees or salamanders.

On the plus side, the character creation method is nice and intuitive. There are plenty of classes and races to choose from, each granting certain bonuses and skills, helping you choose your class. Unfortunately, this portion of the game is barely a minute long and cannot save the rest of the fumbling that Eschalon Book 1 brings to the table.

All in all, the 60 minute trial was not something that made me want the game. Nothing stood out and grabbed me, and the only thing that kept me playing was sheer force of will. The graphics and audio were OK, but then again, these days what isn't? The story is clich and lackluster, gameplay is dull and repetitive, controls can become difficult to handle, treasure hunting was frustrating, and the whole experience was very boring.

Overall, I give "Eschalon Book 1" a 2/5 rating.

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