Poucos jogos foram capazes de me deixar num estado constante de agonia e tensão como ECHO.

Essa é uma literal experiência única dentro da mídia, que sobressai e complementa-se diretamente por toda limitação técnica e orçamentária que pode ser considerada um empecilho a quem decida jogar.

Todo cenário caminha na entrelinha entre um delírio febril e uma maestria arquitetônica jamais alcançável. São infinitos corredores, salões e ambientes liminares que desafiam a noção de espaço e te colocam dentro do que só pode ser descrito como uma grande esquizofrenia. O senso de encanto aumenta exponencialmente a cada capítulo, e por mais que a estrutura geral possa muitas vezes ser repetitiva, não tira a criatividade imposta em sua execução.

A mecânica principal é simplesmente brilhante, e se complementa de forma tão natural com o que o jogo lhe permite fazer em gameplay que fico com uma imensa dificuldade de colocar em palavras tudo que me cativou. Há uma constante calculação do que é possível fazer em cada ciclo e como você se coloca em desvantagem para se colocar em vantagem. Há que considere as ações disponibilizadas simplistas, mas não, são decisões conscientes que não funcionariam de outro jeito. O quanto o jogador está limitado casa com a tensão causada por ECHO, que te coloca como pivô decisivo do que você enfrenta e um oponente exatamente igual ao desafio apresentado. Simplesmente MAGNÍFICO.

ECHO é um dos jogos mais visual e mecanicamente criativos que já joguei, e um que ficará marcado em minha memória por anos a vir.

I feel like the game started very well but as soon as you get to the middle of it everything started to down fall.

They had lots of potential to make the game mechanics even better like adding an upgrading system- where you could maybe increase stamina, upgrade your pistol, decrease the "En"/Echo's radius detection, etc...- but they just never added anything else by the end of the game, except for the Super Echo which they added to maybe make it "more challenging" and to prolong the gameplay more.

Slowly, I kinda got boring with playing til the end because of how it gets too repetitive and sometimes annoying.

The main menu is pretty sick though I like what they did with it. I adore the Victorian-type map designs and aesthetics, its very elegant to look at.

Overall, the game was pretty okay I'm just really bummed out that they didn't add more to the gameplay cos they really had potential.

A lot of conflicting things here, often seemingly stemming from the indie nature of this game. It's actually quite clever: Using your character for the enemies as well, reusing palace assets heavily while changing them a bit between each area and limiting the plot to two talking personalities, and it does not feel like these hinder the game in any way and elevate it instead.

As so often, the description of this game as an 'adventure' promises more than it keeps. The story segments get sparser while the bickering dialogue never resolves any tension, using the pattern 'what you're doing is dumb' - 'no' throughout.

The enemies replicating your actions - what a great idea! They change their routes and abilities, you change your strategy. But it's not clear how to approach it - pure stealth? run'n'gun'? A mix? Nothing feels right, it's all very scrappy. It's made worse by the two main objectives you encounter multiple times - 'collect X out of Y orbs' and 'collect the key(s) and open the door'. Doing each once or twice would have been fine to some extent, while the best passages are the ones where you have to find your way through an area. Just halfway through, wandering through the drought of meaningful story sections, and then being invited to collect 35 orbs is actually terrible.

The monotony is intensified by the palace design, which is understandable - having a poor person make four variations for each environment (besides simpler material and color changes) wouldn't have been worth the effort. It certainly tries to create uncanny environments with heavily repeated parts trailing off into the distance, but for some reason it doesn't click, except maybe during the mirrored sections towards the end.

I normally don't write this much, but seeing all the little pieces, anticipating how great they'll turn out and then each one turning out disappointing is a frustrating experience.

Stare deep enough into the fractal, you'll find yourself staring back. Nothing short of genius - informed by its budgetary limits and creates something truly unique through them. Visuals that go far against horror genre presumptions and instead strives for something calm, meditative, beautiful. The spotless, uncanny opulence of the aging room in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but completely unfathomable in terms of scale and purpose. Possibly my favourite diegetic UI and sound design in games, with the frantic feeling of the encounters being matched completely by their aesthetics going from subtle to sensorially overwhelming. Absolutely beautiful reactive score and weighted feeling lore that is explained through fantastic writing and voice performances.
I don't want to give away the core gimmick of the palace, but suffice to say; Oh My God, play this.

A refreshing and unique survival horror experiment that actively rejects the typical aesthetic trappings of the genre (grimy, dim locales of Texas Chainsaw-style dilapidation) and explores the potential for fright in brightly lit spaces of immense opulence and grandeur. Very intelligently makes the best of its limited budget and scope by utilizing repeating assets and cloned character models as a means to instill a chilling and uncanny atmosphere that comes across as intentional rather than lazy. The Palace is a stunning sci-fi location filled with eerie details, and the occasional hinting at the broader lore of this world is very cool. The central gameplay gimmick where "enemies learn every action you perform and utilize them against you" is a fantastic idea and makes for some stressful problem solving, but the gameplay doesn't really develop much after the initial hour or so and definitely could have pushed the concept further. However, the game's short length (about 3-4 hours) makes sure it never outstays its welcome. This is a very striking and unique debut. It's a shame that Ultra Ultra had to shut its doors soon after release, because I would have loved to see what else this team had to say as they developed their concepts further. The procedural soundtrack of warm but eerily synthetic strings is excellent too!

Apparently there's a movie in the works? I really don't forsee that being great.

In literature, Jorge Luis Borges' Library of Babel is an imagined space where all the books and all the possible books are stacked on shelves in an endless library. The Library's infinite corridors are better realized in ECHO, set on a dormant planet where each interior is a part of an impossibly large Victorian palace. As En, you find yourself sneaking, running, and shooting your way through an army of clones that learn and adapt from your every action. The mechanics cleverly force you out of your comfort zone, living as an improvisational survivalist. Do I shoot and let my clones learn how to aim? Or do I sneak silently, hoping I can avoid them better than they can avoid me? ECHO, on all fronts, felt refreshing.

"Feelings unspoken are unforgettable."

Every single one of Andrei Tarkovsky's films are contenders for my favorite film of all-time. Every single one of them. However, this is the one that speaks to me the most strongly, the most personally. It reminds me of my father, who passed away only a short two years ago. It reminds me of my home, which I love and miss so dearly. It reminds me of my past, my childhood. There is so much going on in Nostalghia, so much to take in, that to some, it may come off as perplexing.

To those people I say, "I understand," because indeed it is a very complicated, even mystifying film. Therefore, instead of going on and on about how much I love the film, I am going to provide a number of brief theories as to what I believe this film is about.

Keep in mind that this is only one man's word, and as Tarkovsky would say, "poetry is untranslatable, like the whole of art."

Things to keep in mind while watching Nostalghia...

- Materialism has had a strong influence on modern society, and it's important to separate yourself from this influence as much as possible, in order to stay in touch with your true self.

- People are constantly transforming in ways both good and bad; one of the most miraculous transformations that a human being can experience (or even observe) is that from daughter to mother.

- There is no need for our world to be so divided, so broken up. We must come together as one and be kind to all souls who dwell on this Earth.

- It can be very difficult to leave your home, and your family, but the world is a gorgeous place - a place worth exploring.

- There is great beauty, even in darkness.

- Stay faithful to those you love; resist temptation.

- Love even those who (attempt to) betray you.

- The creation of life is a miracle worthy of pondering, worthy of deeply appreciating.

- Human beings can learn great things from their memories. One should not stray away from these thoughts, but rather, use these thoughts to better themselves.

- People can be cruel; they always have been. That will most likely never change.

- Bring light into the world. It is your responsibility.

- Learn to accept the person you have been, the person you are, and the person you are becoming, or you will be met with great melancholy.

- While the world is beginning to end, it is not yet beyond repair.

- A child's innocence is not only precious, but divine.

- There are many paths that one can take through life, and it is up to each living spirit to decide which path is best for them to take.

- Death is not the end of life.

This is one of the few films that I can safely say has made me a warmer and more caring person. To those of you who haven't seen Nostalghia, it comes highly recommended from me; to those of you who have seen it but remain unsure about the film, trust me, it gets better with each and every viewing.

I'll leave it at that for now. Remember:
"One drop plus one drop makes a bigger drop, not two."

Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2020/05/24/echo-2017-ps4-pc-review/

ECHO was developed and published by the Danish indie studio Ultra Ultra, and was released on the 19th of December of 2017. Unfortunately, the game was not a financial success, and ended up being the only game released by Ultra Ultra before they shut down.

After spending a century in stasis, En arrives at her destination call “The Palace”, an enormous technological construct the size of a planet that bears a resemblance to the Palace of Versailles. En is a designer baby called a “Resourceful” that was freed from her Bread and Circuses life by a man named Foster. Foster was heavily injured during the rescue, and En was forced to “translate” him into a small, red cube. In an attempt to pay him back, En plans to traverse “The Palace” to find a way to restore him to his original body.

Soon after entering “The Palace” and turning it on, En finds that “The Palace” is seemingly alive and filled with numerous clones of her, all attempting to kill her, that she gives the title of “Echoes” And this is where the gameplay loop of Echo comes in.

Because of the power that “The Palace” takes in having the “Echoes” AI learn from your movement, “The Palace” runs on five-minute cycles in which every 5 minutes, “The Palace” shuts down and then reboots. Whatever moves you make during these 5 minutes, the AI will have learned to use, and then apply after the reboot. Thankfully, they only learn the moves you used in the last cycle, and it’s not a cumulative learned experience, which means if you did something last cycle, but didn’t use it in the current cycle, the “Echoes” won’t use it the next cycle.

In between cycles, the is a blackout where “The Palace” is teaching the “Echoes” what you did during the last cycle. During this down period, “Echoes” won’t learn from your actions, but it’s short, so you should plan your actions in advance and use your time wisely.

Graphically, the game looks great. Like I mentioned earlier, each area involving the “Echoes” resembles the Palace of Versailles, and have quite the sense of scale to them, even if the gameplay area isn’t as big as the visuals give off. Graphically, the game looks great, even if it ends up looking a bit samey by the end of it. The soundtrack is also pretty good, also does a good job of adding a haunting empty feeling to the large halls of the “The Palace”, and is quite nice in a lot of places.

The game is on the shorter side, and unfortunately, does feel a tad underwhelming by the end of it. I don’t know how much you can expand on the game without the gameplay loop getting tiring after a while, but there is a universe here and I wouldn’t minded more of it. Sadly, the development company behind this game, Ultra Ultra, shut down not too long after this game came out, so there’s not much of a chance of a sequel coming out. Here’s hoping that if there is a chance of a sequel coming ever coming out, it keeps the low-scale story of the first game.

Apparently a film adaptation is in the works too, but I don’t think it will ever see the light of day.

Unfortunately, Echo is just OK. While I can recommend it, it’s a lukewarm recommendation. If you’re eying this game, you should probably wait for a sale.

Echo is a futuristic stealth game in which you play as a woman named En who is trying to resurrect a man named Foster. Her species are known as the Resourceful who was created by her grandfather. She enters this facility to find a cube that Foster is supposed to be inside of. The story doesn’t explain a whole lot outside of voiced dialog here and there.

The game has a great opening sequence where you land on a strange planet full of square cubes and you must descend into the facility. The first hour of the game introduces all of the game mechanics, with the biggest being that the enemies are clones of you and learn from you. These clones reset during power cycles every so often. The music changes, the game goes dark, but this is when the system can’t learn your moves. If you shoot, jump, duck, hide, or smash clones in the face with crystal balls they will be able to do the same moves during the next power cycle. It’s important to reserve using your gun or even using elevators until the lights go off.

There are other abilities you have such as a power bar and being able to shove clones. Every action requires an action point such as shooting and leaping over ledges. You also have a very limited sprint meter. You can slowly regenerate one action point, but there are little towers with white balls that can give you one point spread around a room. It’s both strategy and stealth to only use these points when necessary as some rooms can have dozens of clones you need to sneak around. This is when all the problems start setting in.

Sneaking around is fine and all, but there are so many clones that it’s nearly impossible not to get seen in any single room. The only objectives you get are to make it to the next room or find keys in large open rooms to activate an elevator. This gets extremely frustrating when you restart an area over a dozen times only to never find a good path around the clones. So many times I was spotted and tried to run only to run out of action points and energy. You get one freebie by fighting your way out of a clones’ grasp and your proximity meter will glow red meaning you can’t take another hit. Rooms can be so large that you can’t get to the other end even after lining up your shot with several clones, sprinting, using your free grab, and shoving clones down.

The next issue is that the game feels like it drags on forever. I love the art style and atmosphere with strange Victorian style furnishings in a nearly sterile environment full of silver and gold decor. The problem is it repeats forever, never changes, and the constant repetition of going room to room wears thin fast. If there were a variety of things to do here it would be more enjoyable.

Overall, Echo has great voice acting, good graphics, and a creepy atmosphere, and very interesting game mechanics, but they are poorly executed in a repetitive frustrating stealth gameplay loop that outstays its welcome.