God what a fucking game it is. The narrative and characters are so unbelievably compelling largely because a group of actual goddamn friends that care about each other solving a series of murders just works. Unlike in Persona 5 where the only characters both the player and Joker have any reason to care about are Joker’s immediate family. Speaking of which, the Dojimas are truly one of my favorite depictions of family in almost anything. Like all persona games, the soundtrack is phenomenal and serves to further enhance the main thing this game nails: atmosphere. From the dungeons to the various locations inside Inaba and its surrounding area the atmosphere fully pulls you into the experience. Even though it’s much older than Persona 5, and a little more rough around the edges, it delivers a much more cohesive and real experience.

A new take on an ancient and tried formula that excels in many areas but has its stumbles. The world and characters feel very much alive and distinct while not feeling alien but that isn’t why I enjoy this game so much. The choices to have health and “legally not mana” refill after each fight makes every fight tense and rewarding, coupled with the facts that they are random encounters, no levels, and plenty of room to experiment with team lineups and skill combos make for a VERY satisfying early game. Those same traits mean exploring and engaging with the world are often the best ways to increase your character’s strength which can make for a very satisfying experience. The game leverages this to its benefit by often telling the player to go off and explore the world. This approach comes with some drawbacks, one minor and one very very annoying. The minor(or major depending on the type of gamer you are) drawback is that you very much are on a treadmill in terms of power for much of the game and you will never completely out-scale early-game enemies. Given how much the game encourages backtracking to earlier areas it can be somewhat disheartening to return to those early areas and have the enemies still put up a fight. The annoying drawback is that limited leveling means that gear is the main way you increase your powers, and Matthias Linda decided to steal the Xenoblade system. I am a fan of that system in that game. I like that system in that game because it feels like it’s the player’s choice to engage with it and there is no penalty for experimentation. In chained echoes, it is the main way you can get an edge on the game’s pretty tough difficulty curve, and there are so so so goddamn many of those fucking stones they throw at you, and slotting them into gear feels bad because you will have to change gear and your gems will be worse once you take them out. Furthermore, this game makes the cardinal sin of adding mechs and not going balls to the walls with customization options. Maybe it’s my fault for playing Armored Core before writing this but the mechs only feel like bigger numbers. This game feels like it was made by a kindred spirit who thinks Xenoblade X had a ton of great ideas and it tried to execute them better, which to its credit it does when it works. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always just work.