RPGWatch - Eschalon: Book III Review

Yes there is a planned expansion but nothing has been said except this. If you have patience wait a year if not buy it now. It doesn't matter really.^^

Link- http://basiliskgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9074&sid=18b94dec16bb8b181178bec57592996b
Yes, we are working on a add-on (much like the Secret of Fathamurk
add-on for Book 2). Also, we will be releasing dev tools so that fans can make their own add-on adventures. You will be able to get a lot more play out of your character.
 
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Great review, as usual. I always enjoy your recap.

This time however I played and finished the game before your review was released. My E3 time was split between this game, Mars Logs and Banished. My logged game time was 54 hours and I started Feb 28 and finished Mar 14.

One thing you left out was that this game has very good background music. Not quite as good as the superior Divine Divinity soundtrack but E3 is far better than most gaming soundtracks. There is of course no spoken words in this indie game except in one spooky dungeon that will surprise and creep the hell out of you.

One option I wish I would have taken was optimized treasure chest. Supposedly it works where it will give you a so-called almost best treasure. The treasure chest in the game are mostly random but if you reload you can get any where from a piece of bread to a high quality armor piece. The chest types do come in basically three categories (cheap, medium and high) but a few reloads will tell you what you have.

I started out as a simple ranger with food and weapon degradation turned on. With the monsters too tuff in the early start and no money for food and arrows, I soon had to resort to magic and then treasure chest reloads.

I luv game exploits. And sadly for me this game doesn't have that many. There is an early game exploit where a quest giver will continue to give you reward money but it only works immediately after the quest. And another quest where after you return the goodies to the quest giver, they only take one of the goodies and you can come back and sell the rest. But that's it.

I got my moneys worth with this game and there is an expansion forthcoming. It will be interesting to see what this team does next. It would be interesting to see them try a 3rd/1st person RPG.
 
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I usually turn music OFF when playing a game, I find it a distraction!! :)
 
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Is Book 3 the only book to allow the option to turn off food and water? I'm just wondering if I missed something when I attempted to start Book 1 this weekend :)
 
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Book 1 doesn't feature Food and Water usage, that didn't come up until Book 2.

From memory, Book 2 didn't feature a way to disable food and water usage as it was an integral part of the game play.

From my first look at the third game (finally caved and bought it a couple of weeks ago!) Book 3 is the only one in the series to make consumption of these items optional. I think I'll be going back to a mage when I finally get to playing…
 
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Is Book 3 the only book to allow the option to turn off food and water? I'm just wondering if I missed something when I attempted to start Book 1 this weekend :)

Food and water became an option in book two, it is also an option in book three. It's easy to miss in book 2 because the option comes up so quickly, but it is there. Book 3 has a lot of options in the game set up with a far cleaner interface.

Here is a quote from the developer on our forum:
Thomas Riegsecker: Well, as we have said, food and water requirements are being put in to further establish Eschalon as a true old-school RPG. Traditionally, this has been used to put limits on camping abuse- players who take a couple hits then retreat to camp, repeating over and over. Obviously, this strategy becomes much more difficult if your character is consuming resources. But rather than impose new rules on players who enjoyed Book I as it was, we have decided to make food and water an optional gameplay element which you can disable if you want.

LINKY: http://www.rpgwatch.com//show/article?articleid=93&ref=0&id=328
 
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Personally, I always turn them off. I HATED it in Ultima 7; it was just a total nuisance and certainly didn't enhance gameplay IMO. Mind you, I didn't like the need for reagents either, but I grew to tolerate them, but the wailing for food every few minutes got old very quickly!!
 
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Geez, I loved the need to search for reagents. It was such a different spell system from everything else I'd played which made it all the more compelling. I also liked the need to eat and drink; it was the logical conclusion to the virtual world simulatory experience that was Ultima VII. :)

Anyway, not to drift too off-topic - but having just finished up Avadon 2 (will write a report on the review page soon) I think I'll play Book 3 next!
 
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Yes, it's very easy to confuse Canadians!! I should know, I grew up there. :)
 
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Obviously you demonstrated your high degree of intelligence by marrying a Canuck and living there. The only way you could improve your situation is by moving to Oz like I did!! :)
 
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