Look there's not enough good things i can say about this game. FF VI is one of my favorite games of all time and this game basically uses that as a blueprint while introducing new modern mechanics that make the turn based gameplay even better.

Removing all the annoyances of old school JRPGS made me want to always be in combat and I wanted touse my abilities more because i would get replenished at the end of battles anyway. Add to that the Overdrive mechanic which made me have more balanced characters for every situation and made switch characters constantly, this was a delight of a game. Don't even get me started on the writing and how good all the characters are!

5/5

Last year, at a friend's request, I played NieR: Automata for the first time. It was great, but simultaneously a little indie RPG called CrossCode stole the next couple months of my life and a spot in my all-time favorites. I hoped to recapture that experience this year with NieR: Replicant 1.22 and Chained Echoes, but it didn't stick. Granted, my expectations were hard to exceed and I favor Replicant over Automata. However, I think the biggest reason Chained Echoes didn't entice me like CrossCode (or either NieR game, for that matter) is its quality.

On one hand, I admire the effort. It's impressive for one person to make a game, especially on this scale. The mark of Matthias Linda's 10-year labor of love oozes from every SNES-baptized pixel. On the other hand, I can't believe he spent 10 years on the game and ended up with such a broken leveling system.

When discussing Chained Echoes' leveling system, I can't help but recall the ill-fated Paper Mario: Sticker Star and its lack of experience (which I haven't actually played, but I've played Color Splash, which does the same). On paper (pun not intended), it sounds great: every battle challenges the player's skill, not their level. In practice, combat wastes your time, only giving coins to replenish the items spent winning the battle. Granted, Chained Echoes gives you some reward for fighting and standard attacks. You even fully restore HP and TP after battles, which is nice. Unfortunately, battles' difficulty practically necessitates item usage, and the minuscule rewards almost feel nonexistent.

If Matthias Linda really wanted self-contained battles, Xenoblade did it right 12 years prior: HP restores after every battle, but there are no consumables (unless you count 2's pouch items, which I don't), with any healing or revival mechanics baked into the battle system itself. You also get EXP, so battles feel meaningful. Chained Echoes' combat is fun, with a novel mechanic in Overdrive, but it feels empty without incentive. In this video, Youtuber mhswoocer claims Chained Echoes solves the "Cool Drink Problem" with certain redundant JRPG mechanics, but if anything it makes the problem worse. The music and graphics are nice and the story entertains enough, but in terms of gameplay, Chained Echoes just feels like a bunch of ideas done better in other games.

Edit: This is like a 6/10 quality wise. The extra star is for the effort.

Edit 2: Nah, fuck it. This game doesn't deserve a 4.1.

Chained Echoes is not perfect, it's not the most artistic game I've ever played and it definitively has its flaws, but it was an extremely fun experience. I went into the game not expecting much but I was really surprised by what the game gave me.

Let me start with the worst parts: yes, this game's story is a mix of maybe too many things, you don't always understand where the creator wanted to go and many things feel rushed if not unexplained. Despite that, I think the game has a likeable cast, an extremely solid intro of over ten hours and the story manages to be good enough to be enjoyed and have its touching and memorable moments.

That aside, what this game does is something I don't often see in a JRPG. The gameplay is extremely FUN. From the combat to the exploration, this game really nails it and in a lot of ways it reminded me of why I loved CrossCode. You have to go from point A to B but the level is so big and full of stuff that you might spend hours just looking up for every small chest instead of doing the main quests.

As for the combat, I never got bored of the combat system and every trash fight was enjoyable even if not providing a challenge because the game has so many fun skills to use or combos to create between different abilities that I really enjoyed just mindlessly wrecking a horde of trashmobs, instead of trying to save my MP while spamming physical attacks.

And perhaps the strongest point of the game is the sidequests. The game has very humorous and lively quests that are unlocked as you progress or that you discover by exploring. They're all fun and there is a LOT of optional areas to explore. Hell, at some point the map really opens up and you get an overwhelming amount of things you can do at once, I thought it was a blast.

Chained Echoes is a really good game. It knows how to be fun and I could feel the author's spirit. I don't care that it's flawed, I think it's fine the way it is because ultimately the author wanted to do an homage to his childhood games and I think he managed to do so.

Chained Echoes has so much to like while also managing to feel unpolished in many other ways. It's genuinely impressive how much one person has created here, with a strong art direction, a solid story, and some great music as well. The battle system is the area that I take the most issue with. The ovedrive / overheat system is cool in theory, but ends up resulting in more micromanagement than necessary, often getting in the way of strategies by requiring random moves to reduce the heat bar. The Sky Armor battles feel even worse, given there are fewer ways to manage the heat bar. On top of this, too many bosses have the ability to act multiple times per turn, creating some scenarios that feel truly unfair. Despite these quirks, I did enjoy Chained Echoes a good bit, but it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been.

Uma obra-prima dos RPG retrô modernos

Ok, eu nem sei se esse termo existe, mas por hora vamos fingir que sim. O que importa é que Chained Echoes me surpreendeu profundamente e é, pra mim, um dos grandes lançamentos do ano. É também um RPG obrigatório para os fãs do gênero.

Digno de um grande clássico da era de ouro dos RPG’s, Chained Echoes prova que o estilo está mais vivo do que nunca. Não devendo em nada para os lançamentos de grandes publishers, impressiona mais ainda o fato de o jogo ter sido feito quase que inteiramente por uma única pessoa.


A forma com que ele mescla o tradicional com o moderno é brilhante, sendo uma aula de game design e de como inovar em um gênero que já está há tanto tempo na indústria e que as vezes parece que não tem mais para onde evoluir.

O diretor Matthias Lindas não esconde suas inspirações, muito pelo contrário, espalha diversas referências de jogos clássicos em Chained Echoes, como você deve ter notado pelo nome de Glenn e Lenne, mas entrega um jogo que se sustenta por si só de forma incrível. Eu não posso deixar de recomendar esse jogo sempre que possível.

Review completo: https://gamelodge.com.br/critica-chained-echoes-e-brilhante-e-digno-da-era-de-ouro-dos-rpgs/

While playing Chained Echoes, I could just tell that the director of this game played a shit ton of JRPGs and knows all about the conventions and clichés. I love how they managed to circumvent all of the more tedious bits that are commonplace in a game like this.

Firstly, there are no random encounters. Enemies are clearly visible in the gameworld and while they can't always be avoided, you can always run away with a 100% chance to fix your party or reset the battle if it goes wrong. Since your party is always at full health at the start of a battle, every fight is allowed to be somewhat demanding. You can just go nuts with you abilities and use whatever you want.

The cool part about this however, is the overdrive system. A gauge on the top of the screen that you can raise or lower by using specific actions or swapping out characters. The idea is to keep that gauge at a certain point to gain various benefits in battle. It adds a really interesting layer to battles, because you have to decide whether to focus on your overdrive bar or use an option you would rather use at the moment. It creates really interesting decision making and kept battles really engaging. There are some really cool twists to that system later on, as well. It's neat!

Skillpoints are only obtained by defeating bosses and working on your reward board, which is a cool twist on the sphere grid of FFX. Where doing specific challenges unlock new tiles and creating a chain of said tiles unlocks skillpoints and other rewards. It's a motivating system for doing side content that is much preferred to just grinding levels.

Another cool thing about battles is that weaknesses are openly shown to the player. Instead of looking that stuff up or painstakingly analyzing every foe and then remembering all the weaknesses, that step gets skipped and you can go crazy. It also shows if you can steal from an enemy or if they're consumable (yes, there is a blue mage in this game)

Boss battles constantly offer unique twists and are seldom pure bloated trash mobs. They really went out of their way to make them a special event that requires additional thinking.

The mechs you unlock fairly deep in the game are another really cool addition to the game. They not only give you more freedom in exploration (suddenly being able to fly around feels amazing) but also introduce yet another style of combat that puts yet another twist to the battle system. It also uses the overdrive system, but in a whole different way that felt fresh. Even the basic idea of how to customize the mechs is quite cool and different from the actual characters.

Talking about exploration: Side quests aren't really hidden and are openly placed on the map. They often feel like part of the main story in terms of writing and content and there is no fetch questing to be found here. The actual exploration is more about finding unique minibosses, treasure chests or entire dungeons that can hold new items or class statues, that can unlock specific class items which can customize your party even further and are gated behind combat challenges. It's so awesome stumbling upon such a shrine, solving a combat challenge and getting a strong buff for one of your characters with additional skills. Being able to freely switch those around offers a lot of freedom. I really enjoyed exploring the entire world and there's plenty to be found.

For example clan members! At one point you unlock a Suikoden-style base and get to recruit NPCs that level up your base and offer various bonuses. The game doesn't even really hide those from you. There's a clairvoyant that gives you advice on where to find those. Same thing goes for the glossary, which documents which enemy drops what item. You barely have to use guides for this game, because the developers knew there is no point in hiding stuff from you!

The story of Chained Echoes is really well written. I admit, it lacks the spectacle or "epicness" of a Final Fantasy game, but it makes up for it with mature and believable writing. It doesn't shy away from really dark themes and each of the party members have a proper reason to travel on your side. The backstories are mostly very captivating (I loved the backstory of Glenn and Ba'Thraz in particular) and the game does it's utmost to escape tropes. Some of the revalations of this game really blew my socks off and I utterly enjoyed how the storyline concluded.

There are some things that did not really blow me away, though. The music, while pretty good, did not really stick in my head all that much. I'd argue JRPGs are the games that benefit the most from an amazing soundtrack (I can't even explain why, it's just that a good soundtrack carries this genre even more than others for me) yet Chained Echoes is mostly just "alright" in that regard. I would love to give it another listen once the OST is available on YouTube, but from purely playing the game it felt a bit unremarkable. Though some of the calmer pieces were nice.

Another thing I felt indifferent about was the gem system. It's another layer to character customization and stuff, but fusion those bad boys felt a bit too convoluted and a bit tedious, so I mostly just used the auto fusion and put the first thing that sounded good into my gear. I like that you can take them out at any time to put it into your new stuff, but I wish it was more steamlined.

Some enemy groups also seemed to have a bit too much HP at a late point of the game. Maybe I my gear wasn't amazing at that part, but there was a brief sections where fighting enemies was a bit of a hassle. Not a big deal, but I need to justify that half star that's missing, lol.

Despite those complaints: Chained Echoes is a fantastic RPG that deserves to stand right beside it's clear inspirations. There is a bit of FF6 in there, a bit of Chrono Trigger, a bit of Xenogears, Suikoden and more. It seems like a game from a person, who really loves the genre and tried their best to put all their favorite aspects into one game while cutting away all of the bad stuff. I think it really succeeds in most regards and deserves to be played by anyone who loves the genre.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked (1,000G). Far from being 'just another' retro-style JRPG, Chained Echoes is pretty much the highest-quality homage to Chrono Trigger that I've played, succeeding in capturing the meticulous world design, epic narrative scale and, particularly, dynamic tactical feel of its turn-based battle system - and arguably surpassing its clear inspiration in some ways.

Set amidst a war of conquest by a recently-ascended prince, the story follows an expanding party as they seek allies in an attempt to stop the war - and ultimately a much greater threat. While the writing isn't the game's strongest facet, it does a good job of pressing forward the story, remaining compelling in the face of a handful of optional quests - just be warned that the game's first act (of four) is by way the longest, probably around half of the total! The pixelart that depicts the world is unfailingly detailed and attractive, imbuing the environments with a real sense of life - even if the backdrops themselves are mostly static - and with chests, hidden caves and buried treasure spread liberally to reward exploration.

Eschewing a traditional levelling system, character progression in Chained Echoes comes mostly from gradually expanding each party member's skills with points earned from each 'significant' encounter (mostly bosses) and equipment upgrades. This will be controversial, but to my mind works well, with the absence of a need to grind making for a refreshing change, and preventing the ability to win battle simply by out-levelling opponents - in-battle tactics are key. This brings me to the game's strongest facet, its battle system, which introduces a truly innovative 'overdrive' system. This sees the party's battle readiness represented by a bar, starting in a minimum position and gradually increasing with attacks/abilities and damage taken as the party 'warms up' and reaches an 'overdrive' level, increasing damage dealt, reducing damage taken and halving skill costs; however, exceeding a limit sees the party 'overheat', instead taking increased damage. Battles then become focused on managing this overdrive level, which is reduced by defending and the use of skills that fit into a rotating type (physical attack, magic attack, buffs, etc.), ensuring an ever-present requirement for tactical thought, always compelling. With a total of 12 diverse characters available, with up to 8 participating in a given battle (4 active, 4 in reserve), an impressive level of variety in approach is possible too. Also notable is the implementation of automatic full-healing after every encounter, an approach that more RPGs really should follow!

It's not perfect, with a few elements that don't quite hit home as they might - a crystal-based weapon customisation system is a notable example that's just a bit too complex and involved to feel worth exploring - but when taken alongside the stunning fact that the whole game was created near-single-handedly, as a complete package Chained Echoes is very impressive.

Of the indie RPGs I’ve played so far, this is the one that’s understood how to capture the classic JRPG appeal the best, from the combat system to the story scenario and presentation. I don’t mean this as an insult to most RPGmaker games or anything, as they usually have different goals and strengths as a final product, but that this one is very explicitly aiming to scratch that itch for people who love the 16-bit classics like Chrono Trigger and FFVI. The systems it crafts have their missteps, which I’ll get into, but it gets enough right that the overall experience is very much worth it.

Combat encounters take place on the field after entering an enemy’s proximity with very little transition into battle, making the background of each fight different. Very notably, your resources minus the ultra bar reset at the beginning of every battle—eliminating the need for resource management on the field. Most people will see this as a convenience, and I’m pretty inclined to agree (or at least say that it works well here) as it allows each encounter to challenge the player without having to account for all your characters being unable to use their best moves. You’re also guaranteed an escape from these battles, however the enemies will still block your path meaning that you’ll have to beat them either way. My only annoyance is that the rewards for fighting don’t feel all that significant due to how progression works in this game, but I’ll get into that later. Basically how this works in practice is that battles are obstacles first and a way to get stronger second.

The battle system borrows from one of my favorite turn based systems to take inspiration from: FFX’s. Turns are decided based on each character’s agility, with characters who are fast enough sometimes getting more than one turn in before someone with a lower agility stat. Also after a certain point, you’ll have more than four party members and be able to switch freely with reserve characters during battle. One difference here is that instead of you being able to switch with any reserve party member, each character has to be linked with another when you set up your formation—putting limits on when you can switch to that character and who can be in battle with them simultaneously. For instance, I had my fastest character linked to a healer, so that she would get the most turns in battle and be able to switch out for a heal the easiest at the cost of me having to wait a bit until I could switch back because my healer was a lot slower. I like the strategy this offers for setting up your team, as I had to experiment with it for a few battles before settling into a formation I liked whenever changes were made to my party lineup. The only thing that lets this down is that unlike FFX, the game doesn’t really design enemies around you switching all that much. Like in that game, you were incentivized to use Tidus against evasive enemies, Wakka against flying enemies, and Auron against armored enemies, but nothing like that happens here so ultimately I settled into a party by the mid game with most other characters keeping the bench warm. I think it’s mainly early on that I got the most enjoyment out of this option when each character’s options were still fairly limited so they all had a unique niche of sorts, because after a certain point there’s just some characters whose stats aren’t as favorable as someone else who can effectively do many of the same things.

The other important aspect of combat is something I haven’t seen anywhere else at least, which is the drive meter. As you perform actions, a slider is pushed further down a bar and you are incentivized to make it stay within a certain range. You can lower it by defending, swapping characters, or performing an action of a corresponding type shown next to the meter. This is an interesting addition as it seemingly discourages spamming the same moves and encourages diversifying your party and swapping between members frequently. I think it’s another aspect of the battle system that works best early on and loses relevance later in the game except during boss fights. This is mainly because you’ll learn how to tear through regular encounters after a certain point while boss fights being longer mean you’ll need to dial it back a bit so as not to overheat. The other complaint I have with it is that enemy actions increase the gauge as well, which often times can be the primary source of frustration when taking on an optional fight with a lot of enemies and there’s basically nothing you can do to not be overheating because of THEIR actions. In case you needed any more reason to avoid using slower characters, that’s a big one right there.

So while the on foot combat is flawed but overall very enjoyable, there’s another form of combat to talk about: mech battles. While they’re not bad, I feel as if they take a step back from the strategy of the main combat. There’s no more swapping so you’re locked to the same four party members for every battle, which makes the overdrive meter the primary mechanic of the system. You can perform actions in one of three gears: 0 which restricts you to basic actions while restoring your resources and doesn’t move the slider at all, 1 which is your default setting and moves the slider right (the same direction that enemy actions move it!), and 2 which makes actions more powerful but more costly while moving the slider left. So overall it’s fine for what it is but I just don’t enjoy it quite as much.

As I alluded to earlier, the part of combat that’s really the most disappointing is how it doesn’t feel all that rewarding to actually fight enemies as they serve as obstacles more than a way to gain experience. I want to be fair to this game’s progression system as I understand what it’s going for and appreciate a couple of the conveniences it offers. In this game’s attempt to eliminate grinding, the only “level ups” you get will be from defeating bosses. This allows the game to dictate around what power level you’ll be for specific fights, so that you won’t be too over or under leveled for them. That doesn’t mean you get nothing from regular battles, as they drop items and SP which can level up your skills (this will also become mostly irrelevant later), but it’s significantly less of a reward from other games. Each level up gives you a point to invest in either a battle skill, passive skill, or stat increase, with the first two options being things that you have limited slots for—meaning that once you have a kit to work with everything else goes into stat increases until you’ve run out of those. It also restricts which ones you can select until you’ve spent enough of these points, so sometimes you just have to invest in something you have no plans to use. At the end of the game I was just picking things at random for most of my party because it literally didn’t matter anymore, and even before that sometimes I almost didn’t want to level up because then I’d have to choose which skill to waste the point on. This system works. It is functional. But I did not find it satisfying as a means of seeing my characters grow.

The mech progression system is a bit more traditional but still kind of annoying. As you use weapons in battle, you gain SP and reach higher levels with them which give you stat boosts and new actions. That’s pretty alright on its own, but then if you want any stat boosts after that you’ve gotta start all over with a new set of weapons and learn new moves with them—leaving behind all the ones you had on your previous weapons. I guess it encourages switching around your party’s composition and again it’s fine and functions but it’s not fun to go from eight moves to two because you don’t want to have mediocre stats.

One thing I will praise the mechs for is their use in exploration. I actually had quite a bit of fun flying around areas I’d been through previously on foot and being able to check just about every corner of the map thanks to their capabilities. The game limits you somewhat in terms of where you can land or takeoff in pretty smart ways so that later areas aren’t too easy to just plow through, and it adds an extra challenge to finding secrets in the rest of the areas. This is probably the most fun I’ve had backtracking through the map to find chests I missed, upgrades I could still use, or even areas I could reach before. So the overall addition of these actually ended up being pretty neat even if I didn’t enjoy fighting in them as much as I did on foot.

The one aspect of the progression system I’d call a complete flop is the upgrade and gem system. I don’t know if this was in Xenogears since I haven’t played it yet (it’s cited as one of the inspirations) but it did remind me quite a bit of how the gems worked in Xenoblade where you’d find a deposit and you could put them into weapons. The problem with this is that you aren’t holding onto weapons long enough for it to be worth investing into them. I might find a nice gem that suits a character’s fighting style, but then I switch to better equipment two hours later and lose that bonus. So I didn’t really feel encouraged to use these. Same with upgrading weapons, as it costs crafting materials and money when I might just stumble across a better one later. I think the only time I really let myself use these except at the beginning when I first experimented with them was right before the final boss because at least THEN I knew I had the equipment I’d be using.

I don’t want to go into detail about the story here, but overall I liked it too. Similarly to the gameplay there’s some things that I maybe wasn’t totally sold on but when I look at the big picture of it everything fits together pretty well. Glenn especially grew on me as a protagonist, who at first I felt pretty neutral towards as he reminded me of other characters I’d seen done better but later on his arc really came into its own. It makes me even more interested to see how other games like Xenogears influenced this one. The story also has its fair share of subversions, but overall it doesn’t feel like something that set out to flip the genre on its head or anything so much as just play on a few expectations for narrative purposes and it does so pretty well.

I also really liked how the sidequests were handled, with the game making it pretty clear where to find most of them. Each one continued on a narrative thread that the story had left off and seeing that smaller part of the story get a proper conclusion made doing the quest feel very worthwhile. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that most of them feel like they’re part of the main story itself. There’s a couple that set up major points later in the story so much that I’m legitimately not sure how it would’ve handled these plot points if I hadn’t done the quests. I had to look it up to see if there were multiple endings perhaps if you hadn’t done them but no there’s just one, so honestly I don’t know how it’s done but my guess is the concept just gets explained differently. I said that most of them were easy to find, but I ended up missing at least a couple, and after reading a bit about one of them I felt a sense of regret at not having done it because it followed up on a party member’s character arc in a way that I felt was lacking in the main story (meaning I have to look it up later to either do it if I can or watch it). So while you could maybe argue that it’s a disappointment that the main story doesn’t tackle everything that it could, I don’t necessarily mind it being handled in sidequests especially since I like feeling rewarded for doing them.

Anyway, I hope this didn’t sound too negative since I legitimately enjoyed my time with this a lot and appreciated its efforts in capturing this many of the aspects that make JRPGs so special. Most of these complaints are more nitpicks rather than major flaws, and I’m also a huge nerd about turn-based combat and progression systems. This makes me hope that the team makes more RPGs in the future, because they’re very clearly on the right track here.

three and a half, uh... chained.. echoes.. out of five. second time i'm trying to do this gag and i'm already running out of ideas.

anyway, very good game. i think it's definitely not without its issues, but for (basically) a one man creation it's such an astoundingly impressive achievement that i really don't feel like going TOO deep into them. the two things i will mention specifically are the portraits, and the dialogue. i just frankly don't like the portrait art very much, i think many of the characters look quite goofy which often clashes with the tone of the scene. i think i would have preferred just.. no portraits at all, maybe some character art in the menu. the rest of the art is just fucking beautiful, man, which is why the portraits stand out.

the portrait thing also feeds into the second issue, which is dialogue and specifically, how a lot of the characters seem to lack a distinct voice most of the time and how hard discerning tone could often be. many characters have their own fun little quirks (i could never get used to victor's "shishishi" though it just READS SO WEIRD BRO) for sure, but idk, when talking like, whole conversations, something about it just felt off a bit too often for me. could be a function of the game being made by someone whose native tongue isn't english, could be a lot of little things.

but yeah, otherwise it's really damn good. while, granted, i did lower the difficulty to the lowest about halfway through and kept it there for the rest of the game because i am apparently--unfortunately--completely over regular turn-based jrpg combat at this point, i loved the idea and most of the implementation of the combat and character progression systems. the grimoire shard system made level ups feel just right when it comes to rewards, a really nice middle point between your typical jrpg numbers bump and a considerably more involved crpg, and the low fight frequency and replenishing resources made every fight feel meaningful. everything about the gameplay in general felt snappy, which is just fantastic.

i enjoyed the hell out of the story, too. i thought it was a really wonderfully executed take on the whole "revive the classic jrpgs" sub-genre of indie rpgs, like it's blatantly doing that but also it does such a good job weaving all these tropes and cliches and beats into a tightly plotted storyline that also feels genuinely fresh. lots of fun little twists to said beats along the way which definitely helped there. lacks a bit of emotional impact for me since i wasn't SUPER into the cast due to the aforementioned dialogue issues, but it had its moments and the ending in particular made me go :') a bit.

p damn excited to see what matthias does next. i read that he initially wanted chained echoes to have a more real-time combat system, so i'm definitely hoping he'll get to fulfill that dream with his next game--something more along the lines of ff12 or xenoblade but with chained echoes' philosophy on combat frequency and character progression could be incredible.

A fantastic tribute to classic JRPGs

It's become no secret that indie developers are starting to make excellent games in genres and styles that are associated with a company or country, and Matthias Linda and his team have shown that there is now no excuse for indie's to not deliver excellent JRPGs

The gameplay is fantastic, with a nice mechanic that makes even basic battles more challenging and boss encounters requiring some thought and not just spamming your strongest moves, best buffs and debuffs and healing. The roster size and skill system allows for experimental and flexible gameplay. It's also well paced and doesn't overstay it's welcome.

On the presentation side, the visuals are excellent (with some scenes that would make for great wallpaper,) backed up by music that is high class and sound effects which sound hard and crisp.

The plot is very well done and the game doesn't shy away from dark and grim happenings. But it also shows its soft and lighter side and the humour, whether it be item descriptions or NPC dialogue will have you chuckling from time to time.

It does have a few issues; some design choices are weird, as sometimes you can find using a particular menu a bit more troublesome than usual which makes the process of selecting or selling something not as smooth as it could be. Some things aren't explained well or in-game at all (particularly status effects) and the crystal is system is not great. You can do 90% of the game without bothering with it which is nice... But that also exposes just how flawed it is.

Overall though, this is a phenomenal game that any RPG fan should get their hands on and any issues take a huge backseat to the package as a whole, which delivers big time.

Rating: 9/10

Acho engraçado que até agora não escrevi aqui sobre Chained Echoes, sendo que tão eloquentemente afirmei que esse é o melhor RPG de todos os tempos!

Sim, tu não leu errado. E com isso não o coloco acima de Chrono Trigger e tantos outros games fantásticos. Eu apenas quero deixar claro que pessoalmente o jogo virou meu favorito absoluto, com na parte mais critica ai sim o colocando lado a lado de tantos outros clássicos. Pois Chained é sem dúvidas uma obra prima.

Um RPG épico que passa por eras e apresenta múltiplos personagens interligados, num dos mais incríveis cenários do gênero. Tudo feito por um único desenvolvedor e impressionando em cada aspecto em tela. Com direito inclusive a batalhas de mechas e plot twists que fariam George R. R. Martin sorrir de um canto a outro. Equiparando sim, todo o ocorrido, a um livro de fantasia grandioso. Do tipo que você nunca quer parar e só precisa de mais a cada instante.

Se o hype parece pouco, o que duvido, eu falo melhor ainda desse game imperdível no meu review aqui: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAgmkyWCew

Chained Echoes is one of the best turn based RPGs out there. Amazing characters, great story, fun ability system with a lot of different options.

The turn based combat is the star here! One of the best features a lot of other turn based games never do: Status ailments actually work on bosses! One of the biggest criticisms for other games in the same genre.

Look + sound are also beautiful and every turn based fan needs to give this one a try!

By-the-numbers classic JRPG. Absolutely herculean, monumental effort for a mostly solo-dev project! 2022 has been a big year for the indie JRPG between this and Crystal Project.

Rich soundtrack and gorgeous art, but I didn't find anything to love in the characters. The combat has a few slight twists to enjoy, but the skills are painfully boring while encounters and enemy design are dead simple. The UI has a lot of friction in its map, inventory, and character management. Still had a nice time exploring the world, finding treasure, and loved its area-based quest board for leveling up.

Worth mentioning that I had to slog through serious bugs. I experienced softlocks or crashes about once per hour, seemingly at random. The autosave wasn't always recent, so I found myself habitually saving every minute to avoid losing progress. My 100% playthrough was about 50 hours, so this was a real tax on my patience.

Too many indie JRPG go for the shorter route while conveniently styling themselves as "Chrono Trigger inspired". This one says "fuck it, I'm going the full nine yards." It's the complete classic 16 bit JRPG package, with proper side quests and post game content and everything. The story is a hodgepodge of JRPG, manga and anime influence cramped into something engaging to the end, with certain events feeling a bit too familiar. Funny enough, another standout indie game from Germany in 2022: Signalis, gives the exact same impression story wise. Gameplay design is an absolute standout. With no random encounter and trash mob, the enemy variety is astounding, and each encounter is a puzzle to be solved. Just when I thought there's nothing more to be done about turn-based JRPG combat, this game came alone and proved me wrong. Writing and translation can be iffy at times, which some might say is a long standing feature of JRPG. I'm sure the writer has good intentions, but illogical world building such as "constant war makes the continent fall behind in technology" only serves to muddle the message.

Super impressive that one guy made this. It has a real unique and great battle system that is fun to min max, a decent story, and fun exploration and customization with the sky armor (mechs). There are lots of nice secrets and superbosses to find too

I'd say the only thing I still am not a fan of is the look of some characters/the portrait art. There aren't different portrait expressions and it's not really a style I'm personally fond of. The rest of the game's spritework is pretty though

Good game overall

Behold the second coming of Chrono. Blah blah love letter blah blah golden era jrpg blah blah. Jokes aside, while the game is clear about its inspirations, it does stand on it's own without resorting to nostalgia. It masterfully ticks all the box of what makes a great rpg. The story is really well-paced and starts strong. The characters are interesting and have their own arc inside the story. There are interactions between the party members that adds to the flavour of the game. The battle system allows for challenging encounters that actually needs strategy (buffs and debuffs really makes the difference). The graphics and sounds are also amazing. Overall, this is a incredible experience and a must-play to every rpg fan.

DISCLAIMER: This review is incomplete. I will update it upon finishing with my final thoughts.

Pros:
+ Surprisingly comical dialogue and story-telling along with a pleasant soundtrack
+ Having health and action points restored after every battle is great; encourages using your resources and it's refreshing not having to hoard and expend items between battles
+ Lack of RNG encounters makes the world and combat feel purposeful

Cons:

To consider Chained Echoes as a "hidden gem" would be an understatement and does not do this game enough justice to show how much this title was under appreciated. After finally getting around to 100% this game even though I beaten this last year. I still consider Chained Echoes should've been contender for "JRPG" of 2022. It's just a shame it dropped at the near end of 2022, so it was under a lot of peoples radar. Many who have played it though, those people would agree that Chain Echoes beautifully pays homage to JRPG genre, where influences/easter eggs in a measured way, never allowed them to overshadow the game. Although in my opinion, this game felt like an anniversary to every great JRPG title over the decades and condense every idea that made those series great, into one game.

From the town building system that similar to that of Suikoden. To the names of characters, combat system and star level up system that shares resemblance to Chrono Trigger and Wild Arms. The game also uses some inspiration from Final Fantasy 6 & 12 for it's NPC designs, location designs and the reward system (reward board). Hell, even one of the post-game secret bosses (that's a Kickstarter reward design btw) shares inspiration of Seymour from Final Fantasy X, although it's probably paying homage to Chel from Okage: Shadow King.

As a die hard Xenoblade and (more importantly to my life growing up) Xenogears fan, I can not forget to mentioned how much I absolutely love the OST that give me a sense of reminiscence, especially when you enter in Rohlan Fields for the first time, heavily reminiscent of Xenoblade's plains in design and music. The Flower Fields of Perpetua seem to be strongly inspired of Satorl Marsh (one of my favorite locations) from Xenoblade as well. Let's not forget when you're roaming around the vibrant/uniquely different locations, Chain Echo also has pick-collectables, although unlike for Xenoblade series. These pick-ups are not necessarily important towards level/gear progression, but they do unlock "special deals" from merchants that will sell you bundles that can be a variety of things, like material, items and weapons that can help alleviate the burden on your wallet when buying gear or upgrading said gear. So there's less incentive to actually grind but more encouragement to explore because of it. Which this game does an exceptionally good job "trimming the fat" by not having you to grind at all or as much. Unique Monsters are also present in this game too, some of which require a bit of RNG to spawn, but overall. Most of them spawn under certain condition that are never a hassle to get them to spawn, which is a huge plus.

What really caught my attention however, is how insanely similar the main characters/story points are from Xenogear. Right off the bat, the game starts off with the annihilation to a city and death of many people that feels similar to the destruction of lahan scene at the very start of Xenogear. That has Glenn (one of the main characters) over the course of the story, overcome the trauma and repercussion over his action that was out of his control and learn acceptance from it. Even to go far as to contemplate suicide. Despite the high-spirited/vibrant sprite-art aesthetic, this game does not shy away from darker tones that doesn't try to use edgy tones just for the sake of going "look at how dark this is, ain't it gritty?!!" but to have a realistic tone to the story. If you're a huge Xenogear fan, as you progress towards act 3 & 4, you'll really see how similar the plot points are to that game. You might even spot which one of the main character shares some resemblance to Elly as well.

Even back 2022, playing this was such a breath of fresh air. A combination of both traditional JRPG and modern quality of life implementation that made it such a joy to play through to the end. For example. You can retry battles right away without going back to a save point, run away from battles instantly and without fail and you can retain your super meter so you can easily farm limit breaks or whatever if you're having a tough time with a fight. Starting with a full super meter in every boss encounter so you don't need to run around for 10 minutes getting monsters to beat you in the face to build it up.
Aliment afflicting is so damn good and does what I wished most games does with status effects. By removing RNG. Each time you inflict an ailment, they gain a resistance to that ailment. Resistance (in this instance or from equipment, items, etc.) means that you avoid that many instances of the ailment. So, the first time you inflict Blind, you need to do it twice to inflict it again. Then three times. Then four and so on.
Since ailment effects are also predictable (Blind status means if an enmy does a doing physical attacks, they WILL always miss) means you can completely plan your actions. It also means you can hold your guaranteed blind/silence/inact attacks until you KNOW you need to avoid something. It's completely predictable and you can use it to your advantage.

During the game's development, the one thing that really had me overly excited to point of considering Chained Echoes a spiritual successor to Xenogears, was the Mecha battle system but it does indeed do some things that differentiate it from Xenogear's gears/fuel system, and that's "gear switching". A system that plays together with Chained Echoes overdrive system. Once you're in a mech, you have options to switch between three modes. Gear 1 lets use skills that consume less "MP" and reduces your overdrive meter, but Gear 2 consumes more "MP" but does more damage, as a result though, it increases your overdrive meter. While switching to Gear 0, disables you from using skills at all but it replenishes your "MP", not only that but doing this reduces the amount of damage you take greatly if you decide to defend. So you have a complex system of planning out when to go "all out" but also finding the right time to conserve "MP" and defend against team wipe moves while playing a constant tug-of-war with the overdrive meter that determines how much damage/heals you can dish out. Some people may hate this system or some will love it, but I absolutely love that more thought was put into the mecha combat than it just being attack/defend. It's a nice change of pace from the hectic and at times, nerve racking ground combat.

On that note, ground combat uses a sort of FFX-esque/Octopath Traveler CotC switching system where you can switch between front and reserve party members during battle. With characters and their abilities all feeling fairly unique, they all serve a defined roles which incentivizes team work and synergy around the implementation of the Overdrive system (located at the top corner of the screen during combat) that works like a thermometer for abilities, warning players when they overdo specific actions you'll not only deal less damage/heals but you could suffer even more damage as a result. The goal of Overdrive is to balance turn-based combat and encourage players to diversify their attacks by not brainlessly spamming OP skills. It's a really creative and a engaging system. Added by the fact that you regain full life after every battle, the gameplay is balanced around. So it removes the incentive of having to save money for HP/MP items outside of battles like most JRPG. So it always keeps back-to-back combat engaging at all times. By far one of the most creative JRPG combat system of recent years.

Love it or hate the game (for it's ending), Chained Echoes was clearly made by someone who truly loves and understood the genre. I'm grateful that I backed this game years back and got to play something like this in my lifetime, if you're a hardcore fan of the genre (or Xenogears), absolutely give this game a try. It's quite the experience.

Platinumed in 50 hours.

I bought Chained Echoes on a whim with some early Christmas cash. I was browsing the PSN store and the cover art for Chained Echoes caught my eye so I looked into the rave reviews it was getting and snatched it. It was the smartest decidion I've made in ages because Chained Echoes is fuckin amazing.

It is a solo-developed indie (j)RPG where almost every little thing is a reference to classics. The director's favorite games include Xenogears and Final Fantasy Tactics, according to interviews, and his taste oozes from the plot and aesthetic. Chained Echoes eloquently avoids the pitfalls of its peers: there's no attempt at quirky 4th wall breaking meta humor, nor is the gameplay terrible or barebones. Hell, it'd also quite long and has tons of side content. It really is just a genuine classic-feeling (j)RPG developed by a genius on a small budget. I can't recommend it enough.

a mostly solid (if not inconsistent) experience even if portions of this felt lost on me as a love letter to SNES era RPGs seeing as i've played none of them.

the (on foot) combat system is a joy to experiment with and some of the more unconventional boss fights were some of my favorites out of any RPGs i've played. most of the party members are useful in their own ways.

meanwhile the sky armor fights usually overstayed their welcome and i got tired of the prevalence of them in the later portions.

pacing was fine from the start through the mid portion of the third act but then it felt like everything started to drag. some of the more labyrinthian level/map design probably did a bit of damage on top of the aforementioned unpleasant sky armor combat.

tons of stuff to do, or not do in regards to side content. it would've been nice if it didn't feel like such an ordeal to get around to doing some things when it came to backtracking. sometimes you'd need to go to a one-off location from the first quarter of the game or so that isn't immediately accessible by fast travel or the airship which made it a pain.

soundtrack, aesthetics, and overall presentation were nice.

will absolutely check for a sequel even if i wasn't completely blown away here. the second go around could be truly special.

I don't want to be this guy but I feel like it's my duty to be this guy. I can't stay silent about this. I can't just skirt around the edges. Chained Echoes isn't just LIKE Chrono Trigger or FF6 it's BETTER than Chrono Trigger or FF6.

The game is just way more fun to play mechanically, it has a lot more customization with a lot less bloat in its systems. On screen enemies, all the homies love on screen enemies. The overdrive system combined with fully healing your characters after every battle turns the normal MP attrition management of a SNES era JRPG into DPS/party optimization. Which my monkey brain loves: The enemies make the big numbers, I make the big numbers, everybody wins.

You get the Sky Armor suits and the airship and it completely recontextualizes the world and previous areas making them worth revisiting and exploring.

The world is cool, the lore is cool, the characters all rule. I read a book that talks about a land of big fungus and then I go and see the big fungus. YES. One of the characters talks to a big bird and decides to become a better person. YES YES. There's a mountain that's just a big meditating monkey. YEEEEEESSSS.

It felt like a weird cross between Berserk, Les Mis, and the first book in a Cosmere trilogy. I think if this was just a book I would have still been satisfied but it also excelling so hard mechanically within its genre. I need to clean my pa

What an ride. The combat is honestly the best I've played in any JRPG. You're restored after every battle, which in means you're able to go all out for every one of them. In turn, the enemies are difficult, allowing almost every encounter to be strategic and engaging. The Sky Armour combat added an extra layer of variety that was much appreciated.

Rarely did battles feel repetitive or tedious which is a trap almost every other turn-based JRPG falls into. It's kind of a miracle just how smooth the experience was.

The story is also pretty great, even if it took a while for it to really grow on me. I was a little lost on a few aspects of the plot by the end, but for the most part the characters and their trials were fun to follow. The world set up was also surprisingly interesting for what appears cookie-cutter fantasy on the surface.

My only real complaints are that the music can be quite repetitive due to a limited number of tracks (though the tracks themselves are excellent!), the UI can be a bit un-user friendly, especially for gem-crafting and the like, and some of the Sky Armour bosses can be a little frustrating.

Otherwise, this is a polished, engaging, content-rich JRPG that soars among the greats that inspired it. To think one person can develop a game better than the majority of AAA of its year.

I have a lot to say about this game. First of all story and character wise this is what I wanted Octopath Traveler to be. The characters are great and they interact and the story is phenomenal and has lots of twists and turns.

The battle system is unique which is both good and bad. I love how you go all out every battle with all your skills and the battles are difficult enough that you will need to do that. I love the switching out and different character builds. Unfortunately the big negative for the battle system for me is that you don't gain xp during the battles. You earn skill points and pretty much get level ups from beating bosses and doing quests on your chain board. This is great for most of the game but once you get your characters to where you want them, then battles become pointless. I don't like when games do this so that's a major knock for me but might not hit other people as hard.

The item management screen when it comes to selling and trying to get deals is bad I hope they optimize it more in a sequel. I also don't really like some of the character portraits they just look weird or bad.

That's all I have to say negative though, because otherwise it was perfect. The pixel art is beautiful, the characters are great and offer tons of options in battle, exploring especially in your Sky armor is a joy and makes finding chests way easier, and finally the board/quest system is so fun and unique.

Overall I had a blast with this game even with a few issues. I can't wait for a sequel and to see how it improves.