Eschalon Book 1

[PotiusMori]

Not sure if anyone's interested, but an independent RPG was recently released by Basilisk Games.

 

There's a free demo available, and the game is available for purchase, too.

 

Basilisk Games

 

Apparently, it's in the same vein as Ultima, Fallout and Wizardry. And story driven! Whoot! No more hack 'n' slash!!

[Domi]

Yeah, it has horrendous graphics (gods, it's like bright boxes, brr, can it possibly be any more pathetic?!) and of course! a male-only PC. They have to pay me huge money to play it, lol.

[jcompton]

I actually thought Eschalon's graphics were pretty slick--very small-scale, certainly, but good quality for what they are. It's not exactly My Kind Of Game (although out of solidarity I did buy it as soon as it was released) but I wouldn't say that it's ugly by any stretch.

[Daulmakan]

Graphics seem a bit too small, I agree. I'll give a try though, thanks for the heads up.

[Jarno Mikkola]

And the best part is that you can play this game from a flash drive.

[Ascension64]

The screenshots remind of ancient free MMORPGs like Astonia before it got overhauled.

[gertjanvh]

Based purely on graphics alone you could reason that Baldur's Gate is ugly too, it just depends on your frame of reference. I'll certainly try it.

[Daulmakan]

Funny you should say that, I think graphics are one of BG's finest attributes, if not the best.

[gertjanvh]

Funny you should say that, I think graphics are one of BG's finest attributes, if not the best.

 

Well, artwork in BG is superb yes, but the graphics are.. outdated at best. But thats not why I love the series, the storyline and character development is what makes Baldur's Gate one of the finest titles ever created.

 

My point is just that I don't think it's fair to judge this new rpg based on it's graphics, because it isn't it's main selling point, and I think one should respect that when judging it.

[Domi]

BG and particulary IWD graphics are beautiful. I don't understand why it's unfair to judge this on the graphics? There are plenty of 2D games that look wonderful - this one is gods ugly, with completely unrealistic screens, that make my eyes bleed. For me its one particular aspect that can turn me off a game. Well, that's not to mention that this company's idea of an 'old school' game is 'male protagonist only'. Eww. The world has evolved, people, and thanks goodness for it.

[gertjanvh]

BG and particulary IWD graphics are beautiful. I don't understand why it's unfair to judge this on the graphics? There are plenty of 2D games that look wonderful - this one is gods ugly, with completely unrealistic screens, that make my eyes bleed. For me its one particular aspect that can turn me off a game. Well, that's not to mention that this company's idea of an 'old school' game is 'male protagonist only'. Eww. The world has evolved, people, and thanks goodness for it.

 

Because to judge a role playing game solely based on graphics is, with respect, a very superficial argument to me. It's not about graphics. Your other argument, that the pc is male-only, is a much more valid argument, because it is relevent for the purpose the role playing experience which this game hopes to accomplish.

 

btw, just to clarify: I never said the graphics in BG are ugly. I just said there out-dated when compared to more recent crpg's.

[WizWom]

didn't care for it myself; the wandering about a incredibly tight-packed land where I need to tell it every singlestep in combat or not is really not my idea of "fun".

[Domi]

Because to judge a role playing game solely based on graphics is, with respect, a very superficial argument to me. It's not about graphics.

 

And to me it breaks immersion. I couldn't play Arcanum because the characters looked like walking bowling pins. I couldn't go past that. On the other hand a game that has beautiful graphics, be that BG1, IWD1, JE or NWN2... they create the atmosphere that welcomes me into the world and makes me believe that this is the village, that this is my NPC, and that is my romantic interest. I would never discount graphics as superficial. A game imo should appeal to the intellect and the two senses that it targets (ie hearing and seeing.) Terrible voice-acting, terrible graphics and terrible writting imo all are the game-breaking flaws.

[gertjanvh]

To me, the storyline, to a degree, outweights every other aspect of a game.

Heh, I really loved Arcanum. True, the graphics weren't great, but the ambience, music, the entire admosphere was phenominal, at least to me.

Plus, the concept was a new one in crpg's, and well-drafted for that matter.

[Domi]

I find all of these aspects of Arcanum attractive, and that is why I bought the game and tried it out, but no matter how much fun I had creating the character, the moment I got into the very first area and saw the game, that was it. To a large degree I also don't play NWN1 because of the graphics. At least its HoU expansion, that seems to be tolerable in terms of companions, but since the graphics is the same sucky thing (and a couple other things), I just don't see the point of torturing myself with the badly made game. In my view, a fantasy game should have a distinctive, and beautiful artistic style, and it is very important. Of the latestgames only JE had a true style, and I hope that aspect is coming back in DA. I don't want to move plastic soldiers in the cardboard boxes as on the screenshots for that Book one. I want a living, breathing world, and if it has a true artist's, true painter's signature on it - wow, way to go!