AlexTheGerman
425 Reviews liked by AlexTheGerman
Portal
2007
An absolute masterpiece of gameplay, world building, and story from a developer that releases almost nothing but genre-defining grand slams.
Portal
2007
I want the credits song to be played at my funeral
Portal
2007
• Beginning of something great - This game could be considered a cult classic nowadays and everyone should play it at least once
• Short and Sweet - It is a short experience, but memorable. Replayability will keep you hooked
• Glados is a well-written and memorable character, and she is one of the reasons why Portal is such a popular game
• The cake is a lie
• Short and Sweet - It is a short experience, but memorable. Replayability will keep you hooked
• Glados is a well-written and memorable character, and she is one of the reasons why Portal is such a popular game
• The cake is a lie
Portal
2007
this one has portals in it
Portal
2007
A short but sweet puzzle game with a fun yet still menacing villain. The game is short; I finished it in around 3 hours, but theres plenty of additional challenges for you to complete after the main story. Portal is a classic for a reason. Play it if you haven't. If you have, play it again.
Portal
2007
i cant believe they ripped off splitgate
Super Life of Pixel
2018
This is a bit of a weird one. At it's best, it is definitely a fun platformer albeit outside nothing particularly special outside of the art style. I really like the game's concept visual-wise, and I really liked the different system aesthetics this game had to offer. The controls work fine - nothing much to talk about there but about what I expect from an indie platformer of this calibur.
At it's worst though this game can be outright frustrating. I kind of feel like the game goes for a sort of "Super Meat Boy" vibe, but I feel like it worked better there since that game's levels were generally bite size. With this game, some of the levels - especially the unlockable ones - can feel longer than they need to be, and full of annoying NES-esque design tropes with leaps of faith, cheap enemy places and insta-death spikes and hazards. On top of that, there's no checkpoints and you only get two hit points - and if you get once by an enemy, the extra life pickups feel pretty sparse, and as mentioned this game's full of insta-death spikes, which can make replaying those later, longer levels more of a slog.
This isn't a bad game, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun with it, but I have trouble recommending it if you like this sort of challenge and/or just enjoy video game history. It can definitely range from being pretty fun to downright obnoxious with it's level design and lack of checkpoints and hit points.
Also there were a few consoles I could've unlocked but they required collectables I didn't really feel like going for, and since I played all of the "main" stages plus the SNES, Amiga and Apple II stages (which are unlockable just by playing everything up to the NES stages) I just decided to mark this one as completed lmao. Maybe at some point I'll have another go at them.
At it's worst though this game can be outright frustrating. I kind of feel like the game goes for a sort of "Super Meat Boy" vibe, but I feel like it worked better there since that game's levels were generally bite size. With this game, some of the levels - especially the unlockable ones - can feel longer than they need to be, and full of annoying NES-esque design tropes with leaps of faith, cheap enemy places and insta-death spikes and hazards. On top of that, there's no checkpoints and you only get two hit points - and if you get once by an enemy, the extra life pickups feel pretty sparse, and as mentioned this game's full of insta-death spikes, which can make replaying those later, longer levels more of a slog.
This isn't a bad game, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun with it, but I have trouble recommending it if you like this sort of challenge and/or just enjoy video game history. It can definitely range from being pretty fun to downright obnoxious with it's level design and lack of checkpoints and hit points.
Also there were a few consoles I could've unlocked but they required collectables I didn't really feel like going for, and since I played all of the "main" stages plus the SNES, Amiga and Apple II stages (which are unlockable just by playing everything up to the NES stages) I just decided to mark this one as completed lmao. Maybe at some point I'll have another go at them.
Chained Echoes
2022
Chained Echoes is a pizza with too many toppings
First: I enjoyed Chained Echoes. It's an incredibly well-made, polished product considering the small team. The battle system feels good, the systems are balanced to prevent a need for level-grinding, and it didn't start to drag until I started pursuing the optional superboss stuff in the endgame. If this came out five years ago, I'd probably be singing its praises.
The dev has echoed a common sentiment with many of these retro-inspired indie games, which is that they want to recreate how those games are in your memories - how they made you feel - rather than how they actually were. If Chained Echoes succeeds in this, it's only partially, because it reminded me of other games constantly.
It's got a pretty standard JRPG narrative, but I have nothing inherently against that (unlike G4). The cast is full of the broad archetypes you might expect - hesitant hero, rebellious princess, self-interested thief - doing the sorts of things you might expect. Monsters roam the countryside, the empire controls dangerous magic, and the Pope's inquisitors make cryptic statements to each other about Gods' true intention. I think there's plenty of room for another retro-inspired indie JRPG out there, but there might be such a thing as too inspired.
Literally from the moment I hit New Game up until the middle of the end credits, I found myself thinking, "Oh, this is just that thing from that other thing." It reads almost like an extended X-meets-Y marketing copy: WHAT IF... the plot from Xenogears, the party dynamics from FFVI, the geopolitics of the Ivalice Alliance, the event scripting from Chrono Trigger, the Giant of Babil from FFIV, the Mana Fortress from Secret of Mana, the final act from FFVII, the introductory missions from Wild ARMs, the Yevon church from FFX, the home base from Skies of Arcadia, plus a special mixture of secret herbs and spices... were all in the same game?? Any individual identity Chained Echoes has is subsumed by slavish adherence to its inspirations.
To clarify, I definitely wouldn't say any of this is plagiarism or anything, and they usually aren't tiresome "hey, remember X?" direct references. It's that the whole thing feels like like every Squaresoft RPG from the 1990s was pureed in a blender and poured into a SNES-shaped mold, kitbashed into some kind of Franken-game.
Sometimes, I take my mother to a chain restaurant called "Pieology", which is basically an assembly-line style (Subway, Chipotle, etc) fast food place for pizza. She puts every single topping she likes on the same pizza without considering why you might use a specific ingredient. If you separately enjoy parmesan, ricotta, mozzarella, pineapple, corn, cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, cilantro, artichokes, olives, peppers... putting all of them together should be even better, right?
But you get something underbaked. It tastes like everything and thus tastes like nothing in particular. It's still recognizably pizza, and you like the pizza genre as a whole... but "it's pizza!" feels like the only intention behind it.
For example, Chained Echoes has mecha, which stand out next to the usual JRPG airship fare in its otherwise Ivalicean setting. Xenogears has mecha. But Xenogears (for all its faults) also has a sci-fi plot about the intersection of man, god, and machine; mecha are a deliberate narrative device to buoy those themes. Why does Chained Echoes have mecha? Because mecha were in Xenogears.
It's that feeling, every 20 minutes, for 35 hours.
I genuinely believe there isn't anything inherently wrong with being an imitative work. Something like Signalis wears its aesthetic inspirations on its sleeve, but makes use of them for its own thematic goals. Crystal Project is transparently a FFV-style job system battle simulator that doesn't pretend to have any lofty narrative ambitions. And Chained Echoes is a perfectly good indie JRPG... but I wish it were a bit more than that.
First: I enjoyed Chained Echoes. It's an incredibly well-made, polished product considering the small team. The battle system feels good, the systems are balanced to prevent a need for level-grinding, and it didn't start to drag until I started pursuing the optional superboss stuff in the endgame. If this came out five years ago, I'd probably be singing its praises.
The dev has echoed a common sentiment with many of these retro-inspired indie games, which is that they want to recreate how those games are in your memories - how they made you feel - rather than how they actually were. If Chained Echoes succeeds in this, it's only partially, because it reminded me of other games constantly.
It's got a pretty standard JRPG narrative, but I have nothing inherently against that (unlike G4). The cast is full of the broad archetypes you might expect - hesitant hero, rebellious princess, self-interested thief - doing the sorts of things you might expect. Monsters roam the countryside, the empire controls dangerous magic, and the Pope's inquisitors make cryptic statements to each other about Gods' true intention. I think there's plenty of room for another retro-inspired indie JRPG out there, but there might be such a thing as too inspired.
Literally from the moment I hit New Game up until the middle of the end credits, I found myself thinking, "Oh, this is just that thing from that other thing." It reads almost like an extended X-meets-Y marketing copy: WHAT IF... the plot from Xenogears, the party dynamics from FFVI, the geopolitics of the Ivalice Alliance, the event scripting from Chrono Trigger, the Giant of Babil from FFIV, the Mana Fortress from Secret of Mana, the final act from FFVII, the introductory missions from Wild ARMs, the Yevon church from FFX, the home base from Skies of Arcadia, plus a special mixture of secret herbs and spices... were all in the same game?? Any individual identity Chained Echoes has is subsumed by slavish adherence to its inspirations.
To clarify, I definitely wouldn't say any of this is plagiarism or anything, and they usually aren't tiresome "hey, remember X?" direct references. It's that the whole thing feels like like every Squaresoft RPG from the 1990s was pureed in a blender and poured into a SNES-shaped mold, kitbashed into some kind of Franken-game.
Sometimes, I take my mother to a chain restaurant called "Pieology", which is basically an assembly-line style (Subway, Chipotle, etc) fast food place for pizza. She puts every single topping she likes on the same pizza without considering why you might use a specific ingredient. If you separately enjoy parmesan, ricotta, mozzarella, pineapple, corn, cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, cilantro, artichokes, olives, peppers... putting all of them together should be even better, right?
But you get something underbaked. It tastes like everything and thus tastes like nothing in particular. It's still recognizably pizza, and you like the pizza genre as a whole... but "it's pizza!" feels like the only intention behind it.
For example, Chained Echoes has mecha, which stand out next to the usual JRPG airship fare in its otherwise Ivalicean setting. Xenogears has mecha. But Xenogears (for all its faults) also has a sci-fi plot about the intersection of man, god, and machine; mecha are a deliberate narrative device to buoy those themes. Why does Chained Echoes have mecha? Because mecha were in Xenogears.
It's that feeling, every 20 minutes, for 35 hours.
I genuinely believe there isn't anything inherently wrong with being an imitative work. Something like Signalis wears its aesthetic inspirations on its sleeve, but makes use of them for its own thematic goals. Crystal Project is transparently a FFV-style job system battle simulator that doesn't pretend to have any lofty narrative ambitions. And Chained Echoes is a perfectly good indie JRPG... but I wish it were a bit more than that.
Chained Echoes
2022
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.
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.
Chained Echoes
2022
Have kinda complex feelings on this one so gonna make a list to help organize my thoughts.
What I liked:
-Battle system was fun, enjoyed the overdrive mechanic and having to balance it. Healing to full after every battle was nice and lets you go all out but it does make encounters take longer but I was mostly fine with that. Always love a good job system too
-Areas were fun to explore and the world was cool
-Characters for the most part were likable and nice to experiment with in battle with different skills and jobs
What I didn't like:
-CE doesn't try to be subtle as far as its influences from other JRPGs, and that's great, but because of that I didn't really find many story moments memorable? Felt like your standard narrative and twists, and while nothing was really bad or anything, it didn't really engage me plot wise much
-Bugs, it happened more than once that during a boss fight the game would lock me out, as the music and idle animations were still going but the game wouldn't move and I couldn't do anything except quit out and it was so frustrating. Idk if this has happened to others but this was really ruining some play sessions of mine.
-Lack of glossary or some sort of menu feature that could save descriptions of people, places, etc. this would have been really nice to have
-Ending is something I'll have to sit on but my initial feeling is not favorable
I enjoyed my time overall with CE as I bought it at launch and have slowly been playing it off and on since then. And its nice to be done, but I really found this one to be overrated. Greater than the sum of its parts is a saying used often but I kinda feel this game is less than the sum of its parts if that makes sense? There's really not much straight up bad in here and everything in a vacuum is good, but when put all together its nothing you haven't seen before, and likely have seen better somewhere else.
What I liked:
-Battle system was fun, enjoyed the overdrive mechanic and having to balance it. Healing to full after every battle was nice and lets you go all out but it does make encounters take longer but I was mostly fine with that. Always love a good job system too
-Areas were fun to explore and the world was cool
-Characters for the most part were likable and nice to experiment with in battle with different skills and jobs
What I didn't like:
-CE doesn't try to be subtle as far as its influences from other JRPGs, and that's great, but because of that I didn't really find many story moments memorable? Felt like your standard narrative and twists, and while nothing was really bad or anything, it didn't really engage me plot wise much
-Bugs, it happened more than once that during a boss fight the game would lock me out, as the music and idle animations were still going but the game wouldn't move and I couldn't do anything except quit out and it was so frustrating. Idk if this has happened to others but this was really ruining some play sessions of mine.
-Lack of glossary or some sort of menu feature that could save descriptions of people, places, etc. this would have been really nice to have
-Ending is something I'll have to sit on but my initial feeling is not favorable
I enjoyed my time overall with CE as I bought it at launch and have slowly been playing it off and on since then. And its nice to be done, but I really found this one to be overrated. Greater than the sum of its parts is a saying used often but I kinda feel this game is less than the sum of its parts if that makes sense? There's really not much straight up bad in here and everything in a vacuum is good, but when put all together its nothing you haven't seen before, and likely have seen better somewhere else.
Chained Echoes
2022
This review contains spoilers
there are things i liked about this game and there are things i didn't like. i want to write a proper review for this game so let’s go.
ART DIRECTION
art direction and character design are great. the sprites are really charming, environments look good, and it controls really smoothly. i loved flying over the world map with the airship (whispered chrono trigger!! to myself when i unlocked that)
speaking of sprites, the portraits not having different expressions to fit with whatever the characters are saying is just a minor gripe, but i don't feel as though it took me out of the immersion that much. overall art-wise i think it does really well.
COMBAT
the fucking overdrive bar. i know that there are people who like it but i hated this thing LOL it felt so limiting. i don't feel like it added any strategy to the combat at all. thankfully you can make it wider in the difficulty options though.
combat wise... i did go into a majority of the encounters with the same strategy (crit buff + attack buff + defense debuff + go crazy). i liked that it was so fast-paced but combat was not a fave if i'm honest. balance was also an issue. i don't know if i'm just bad at games or whatever but normal enemies felt WAY harder than they should've been. i ended up turning enemy stats to low so i could beat the game quicker but then every battle turned into a cakewalk... in my opinion the normal difficulty should've been between the game's low+normal settings. i am glad the difficulty settings exist though (also might be worth mentioning that i’m not the type of person who likes to optimize equipment).
i know a lot of people liked the levelling system but going into menus to learn new skills got reaaally tedious after a while. crystals were also annoying and probably the worst mechanic in the game but thankfully you can just ignore them. unfortunately you can't ignore the amount of mech battles you're forced to do in the later half of the game. i really did not like those mech battles LOL they felt like scripted fights. let me use the characters i've been investing in!!! big numbers is fun and all but most of the mech battles just felt like a slog.
WRITING
now. the writing. i won't lie my biggest gripe with this game is the writing. firstly, i know the developer/writer is german and that english isn't his first language. but i really do think a couple more drafts + an editor would've done wonders. a lot of emotional scenes lack punch because of the stilted way characters speak (the beginning especially... 0 contractions). swear words are thrown in haphazardly and feel more "12year old who just learned about swear words" than "mature story with dark undertones." dialogue is very on the nose and lacks subtlety most of the time too. characters just say what they think. the worst one for me was (act3 spoiler) when frederik dies and lenne just says "he wants me to forgive him but he's done too many bad things so i can't, even though he's my brother." like at this point you need to have some faith in the audience's ability to parse the significance of events/character relationships (though with the state of so many people's media literacy/comprehension i guess i do get it lmfao).
i don't HATE the writing though. i think the main plot is interesting and is paced well throughout. i do think an addition of a journal that covers the events would be helpful though - the game just throws you right in and lobs a bunch of names/factions/important npcs at you without giving you a ton of time to grasp it all. by the end of the game i was still confused about a bunch of the countries lol but maybe that's on me.
wait ONE MORE THING. why did we never even get to fight the megaloworm thing?! all that buildup and for what?!?
CHARACTERS
this is getting kind of long oops. i do want to talk about characters though.
kylian first because he really reminded me of delita from final fantasy tactics (wotl). is he as compelling as delita? no... but i think he's still an interesting character. i think he would've benefitted from some more screen time after he leaves the group so we could've seen more of his motivations and ambitions. the ending... i will get to it.
gwayn (and june) were my favs so not much to say about them other than that but i really enjoyed gwayn as a character. i like the morally grey chessmaster types i guess. i think he was utilised well and his endgame reveal was VERY GOOD. loved that.
sienna is a lot of people's favs for good reason. i think she's written decently well and it helps that she's so good in combat too. i liked the reveal of her backstory and her growing attachment to the party. i'm a sucker for the "guy who joins for convenience accidentally gets attached" trope i guess. her design is great too (loved the gag where the soldiers remember nobody except her down to the smallest detail). divorced failwomen W
honourable mentions: ba'thraz and amalia. i hope they find a way to break amalia's pact :( robb's growth was nice to see but i feel like it maybe had some pacing issues. oh also i enjoyed victor as a character. shishishi
lenne and glenn (lol) were the most uninteresting to me i won't lie. some more attention given to the way lenne speaks would've been good for her character considering her background... the game wants us to think that she's working hard to fit in with the common people but she already talks like everyone else off the bat. her character arc was pretty decent though.
glenn... i liked him in the beginning but that slipped into indifference towards the end. i will say that the plot twist regarding his identity was good and foreshadowed well though. other than that... i have nothing against protags who are unsure and don't know what they're doing, but for some reason glenn just didn't click with me. i can't really put my finger on why.
ENDING
before i talk about the ending i will say that i LOVED the worldbuilding in this game. i loved the lore about the true kings (sequel bait?) and the vaen. i thought that was really well done. sidequests were pretty good too, especially the jan & marsia one. that one tugged at my heartstrings... poor jan. i was worried marsia would be stuck like that but luckily you get one last sidequest to fix everything up.
okay. now the ending. i can definitely see why it's controversial after experiencing it for myself. i might be in the minority here but i thought it was an ending that fit well within the themes and context of the overall story. could it have been executed better? yeah. in my opinion the ending mostly suffers from everything being jammed into a short period of time which leads to it feeling kind of rushed. this is why i think the story should've gone through a couple more drafts! but overall i didn’t hate the ending.
tldr: solid 3/5 game for me. in some areas it does what it needs to do well enough, in other areas it falls flat. incredible accomplishment from a (mostly) solo dev though. gwayn you will always be famous.
ART DIRECTION
art direction and character design are great. the sprites are really charming, environments look good, and it controls really smoothly. i loved flying over the world map with the airship (whispered chrono trigger!! to myself when i unlocked that)
speaking of sprites, the portraits not having different expressions to fit with whatever the characters are saying is just a minor gripe, but i don't feel as though it took me out of the immersion that much. overall art-wise i think it does really well.
COMBAT
the fucking overdrive bar. i know that there are people who like it but i hated this thing LOL it felt so limiting. i don't feel like it added any strategy to the combat at all. thankfully you can make it wider in the difficulty options though.
combat wise... i did go into a majority of the encounters with the same strategy (crit buff + attack buff + defense debuff + go crazy). i liked that it was so fast-paced but combat was not a fave if i'm honest. balance was also an issue. i don't know if i'm just bad at games or whatever but normal enemies felt WAY harder than they should've been. i ended up turning enemy stats to low so i could beat the game quicker but then every battle turned into a cakewalk... in my opinion the normal difficulty should've been between the game's low+normal settings. i am glad the difficulty settings exist though (also might be worth mentioning that i’m not the type of person who likes to optimize equipment).
i know a lot of people liked the levelling system but going into menus to learn new skills got reaaally tedious after a while. crystals were also annoying and probably the worst mechanic in the game but thankfully you can just ignore them. unfortunately you can't ignore the amount of mech battles you're forced to do in the later half of the game. i really did not like those mech battles LOL they felt like scripted fights. let me use the characters i've been investing in!!! big numbers is fun and all but most of the mech battles just felt like a slog.
WRITING
now. the writing. i won't lie my biggest gripe with this game is the writing. firstly, i know the developer/writer is german and that english isn't his first language. but i really do think a couple more drafts + an editor would've done wonders. a lot of emotional scenes lack punch because of the stilted way characters speak (the beginning especially... 0 contractions). swear words are thrown in haphazardly and feel more "12year old who just learned about swear words" than "mature story with dark undertones." dialogue is very on the nose and lacks subtlety most of the time too. characters just say what they think. the worst one for me was (act3 spoiler) when frederik dies and lenne just says "he wants me to forgive him but he's done too many bad things so i can't, even though he's my brother." like at this point you need to have some faith in the audience's ability to parse the significance of events/character relationships (though with the state of so many people's media literacy/comprehension i guess i do get it lmfao).
i don't HATE the writing though. i think the main plot is interesting and is paced well throughout. i do think an addition of a journal that covers the events would be helpful though - the game just throws you right in and lobs a bunch of names/factions/important npcs at you without giving you a ton of time to grasp it all. by the end of the game i was still confused about a bunch of the countries lol but maybe that's on me.
wait ONE MORE THING. why did we never even get to fight the megaloworm thing?! all that buildup and for what?!?
CHARACTERS
this is getting kind of long oops. i do want to talk about characters though.
kylian first because he really reminded me of delita from final fantasy tactics (wotl). is he as compelling as delita? no... but i think he's still an interesting character. i think he would've benefitted from some more screen time after he leaves the group so we could've seen more of his motivations and ambitions. the ending... i will get to it.
gwayn (and june) were my favs so not much to say about them other than that but i really enjoyed gwayn as a character. i like the morally grey chessmaster types i guess. i think he was utilised well and his endgame reveal was VERY GOOD. loved that.
sienna is a lot of people's favs for good reason. i think she's written decently well and it helps that she's so good in combat too. i liked the reveal of her backstory and her growing attachment to the party. i'm a sucker for the "guy who joins for convenience accidentally gets attached" trope i guess. her design is great too (loved the gag where the soldiers remember nobody except her down to the smallest detail). divorced failwomen W
honourable mentions: ba'thraz and amalia. i hope they find a way to break amalia's pact :( robb's growth was nice to see but i feel like it maybe had some pacing issues. oh also i enjoyed victor as a character. shishishi
lenne and glenn (lol) were the most uninteresting to me i won't lie. some more attention given to the way lenne speaks would've been good for her character considering her background... the game wants us to think that she's working hard to fit in with the common people but she already talks like everyone else off the bat. her character arc was pretty decent though.
glenn... i liked him in the beginning but that slipped into indifference towards the end. i will say that the plot twist regarding his identity was good and foreshadowed well though. other than that... i have nothing against protags who are unsure and don't know what they're doing, but for some reason glenn just didn't click with me. i can't really put my finger on why.
ENDING
before i talk about the ending i will say that i LOVED the worldbuilding in this game. i loved the lore about the true kings (sequel bait?) and the vaen. i thought that was really well done. sidequests were pretty good too, especially the jan & marsia one. that one tugged at my heartstrings... poor jan. i was worried marsia would be stuck like that but luckily you get one last sidequest to fix everything up.
okay. now the ending. i can definitely see why it's controversial after experiencing it for myself. i might be in the minority here but i thought it was an ending that fit well within the themes and context of the overall story. could it have been executed better? yeah. in my opinion the ending mostly suffers from everything being jammed into a short period of time which leads to it feeling kind of rushed. this is why i think the story should've gone through a couple more drafts! but overall i didn’t hate the ending.
tldr: solid 3/5 game for me. in some areas it does what it needs to do well enough, in other areas it falls flat. incredible accomplishment from a (mostly) solo dev though. gwayn you will always be famous.
Chained Echoes
2022
Strong start. Liked the characters and setting. By the time you get to the base I could barely stand the characters, way too many combat systems, and progression systems that just make no sense. Job system fell short in a big way.
It's like the developer knew their favorite aspects from games they've played and wanted to make this a greatest hits. While nothing is broken, it isn't put together well enough to work.
It's like the developer knew their favorite aspects from games they've played and wanted to make this a greatest hits. While nothing is broken, it isn't put together well enough to work.
Chained Echoes
2022
Very solid modern interpretation of a classic JRPG.
Has a whole lot of QOL features, that are sorely missing in more modern releases, focuses on the best parts while removing all of the busywork. The battle system is genuinely pretty fun.
The story is pretty captivating, but at points it gets a tad too slow, especially in the middle. It kinda finishes on a high note, so ultimately I'd say it's good, but far from the greats.
The character writing is ehhhhh.
Beat it in about 42 hours with all of the extra content beaten.
Has a whole lot of QOL features, that are sorely missing in more modern releases, focuses on the best parts while removing all of the busywork. The battle system is genuinely pretty fun.
The story is pretty captivating, but at points it gets a tad too slow, especially in the middle. It kinda finishes on a high note, so ultimately I'd say it's good, but far from the greats.
The character writing is ehhhhh.
Beat it in about 42 hours with all of the extra content beaten.
Chained Echoes
2022
Quite good. It has a potentially very interesting story. Very good characters. Nice mechanics... However, somehow it feels like the pace make everything crumble a bit.
Metroid Prime is magnificent, it's everything I always wanted in a Metroid 3D game: atmospheric, immersive, with a world that's really interesting to explore and most importantly, that kept that magic that makes Super Metroid such a unique game even today and one of my favorites.
I'm really glad this more than being a First Person Shooter adapted to be a Metroid game, it's really a Metroid game adapted to the first person view, both sound similar, but they are actually very different. Everything is translated in a perfect way. Varied abilities that allow you to advance through the world, exploration, puzzles, good soundtrack, and a detailed and well built world with a variety of biomes. I just love it.
Metroid Prime makes some changes in the structure of the world to adapt it to the first person view, since now the environments are very closed compared to how they are in 2D games, you may wonder why I mention something like this, I say this because it was a design decision that allows a higher level of detail and therefore, immersion by putting us closer to the environment. It's amazing how much attention to detail there is in the game, things like the UI actually being information from Samus' visor showing data relevant to her, or things like looking up when it rains makes the drops drip onto Samus' visor and cannon. Additionally, something that complements this experience too well and adds an extra layer of depth to the world is that the visor can switch to scanner mode, which allows you to analyze things like elements in the environment or enemies, using the scanner greatly enriches the world we explore by giving us background and information about what surrounds us. The scanner mode is a main mechanic of the game, so be psyched to read. In short, all of the above mentioned helps to build an excellent setting and atmosphere, which although we know it is a fictional world, will certainly make this game more memorable by making us think that what is happening really has a meaning and a purpose beyond being just mechanics and obstacles in a video game.
However, Metroid Prime is not perfect, as there are some things that could have possibly been better. For example, I sometimes felt that the backtracking was excessive at times. Another example of something that could have been better is at the end, where the game asks you to find 12 Chozo Artifacts in order to access the last area. It's an idea that I really like, going through the map that you already explored to try to find hidden objects, the bad thing is that some artifacts are too hidden, so it will probably be wise to resort to a guide to be able to get a couple of these. Another thing is that the map never shows you which places have an unobtained item yet, something that 2D games do by marking a circle on the map when there is a secret item and replacing it with a dot when there is nothing left to get, I would have liked something to indicate that in this game. Lastly, there is a big plot hole regarding the origin of the final boss, which although it doesn't ruin the story at all or anything like that, it's still a small detail that stands out especially since the whole story, backstory and world details were so well thought out, I'm surprised they missed this flaw in the story.
All in all, the aforementioned problems, to me, only amount to a minuscule error in the grand scheme of things, as this game is really very well constructed. Anyway, Metroid Prime is simply a very good game, I won't dwell any further on the details I like about this game, as I think a lot of the magic of these games is discovering them without knowing much about them. Maybe it can be a bit overwhelming at first as the 3D map can be very weird or the button scheme with how you change beam type or visor type can be confusing, but once you get used to it, it's easy to appreciate and enjoy this game.
Conclusion
This game has made me fall in love with the Metroid world all over again, the same way Super Metroid did when I was a kid. One of the best games I have ever played.
I'm really glad this more than being a First Person Shooter adapted to be a Metroid game, it's really a Metroid game adapted to the first person view, both sound similar, but they are actually very different. Everything is translated in a perfect way. Varied abilities that allow you to advance through the world, exploration, puzzles, good soundtrack, and a detailed and well built world with a variety of biomes. I just love it.
Metroid Prime makes some changes in the structure of the world to adapt it to the first person view, since now the environments are very closed compared to how they are in 2D games, you may wonder why I mention something like this, I say this because it was a design decision that allows a higher level of detail and therefore, immersion by putting us closer to the environment. It's amazing how much attention to detail there is in the game, things like the UI actually being information from Samus' visor showing data relevant to her, or things like looking up when it rains makes the drops drip onto Samus' visor and cannon. Additionally, something that complements this experience too well and adds an extra layer of depth to the world is that the visor can switch to scanner mode, which allows you to analyze things like elements in the environment or enemies, using the scanner greatly enriches the world we explore by giving us background and information about what surrounds us. The scanner mode is a main mechanic of the game, so be psyched to read. In short, all of the above mentioned helps to build an excellent setting and atmosphere, which although we know it is a fictional world, will certainly make this game more memorable by making us think that what is happening really has a meaning and a purpose beyond being just mechanics and obstacles in a video game.
However, Metroid Prime is not perfect, as there are some things that could have possibly been better. For example, I sometimes felt that the backtracking was excessive at times. Another example of something that could have been better is at the end, where the game asks you to find 12 Chozo Artifacts in order to access the last area. It's an idea that I really like, going through the map that you already explored to try to find hidden objects, the bad thing is that some artifacts are too hidden, so it will probably be wise to resort to a guide to be able to get a couple of these. Another thing is that the map never shows you which places have an unobtained item yet, something that 2D games do by marking a circle on the map when there is a secret item and replacing it with a dot when there is nothing left to get, I would have liked something to indicate that in this game. Lastly, there is a big plot hole regarding the origin of the final boss, which although it doesn't ruin the story at all or anything like that, it's still a small detail that stands out especially since the whole story, backstory and world details were so well thought out, I'm surprised they missed this flaw in the story.
All in all, the aforementioned problems, to me, only amount to a minuscule error in the grand scheme of things, as this game is really very well constructed. Anyway, Metroid Prime is simply a very good game, I won't dwell any further on the details I like about this game, as I think a lot of the magic of these games is discovering them without knowing much about them. Maybe it can be a bit overwhelming at first as the 3D map can be very weird or the button scheme with how you change beam type or visor type can be confusing, but once you get used to it, it's easy to appreciate and enjoy this game.
Conclusion
This game has made me fall in love with the Metroid world all over again, the same way Super Metroid did when I was a kid. One of the best games I have ever played.