Pros:
- Inspired by classic JRPGs, Chained Echoes is a fairly dense game that stands out as a well executed and highly memorable RPG in its own right. Given the amount of content this has and how much effort it must have taken to make, it’s genuinely mind-blowing that it’s mostly done by a single person
- Combat is interesting in that it focuses on an “Overdrive” bar, where you need to manage skills used to balance how effective your attacks are. You also regain all your HP/TP after a fight, which encourages you to always use all your moves since enemies are pretty aggressive to compensate
- I liked that instead of standard leveling, you don’t have XP to gather when fighting normal enemies. You get shards that are used to unlock new skills but only after beating bosses, which means there’s little need to grind in this
- For the most part the early hours are linear, but once you reach Act 2 it opens up in a really cool way. Getting access to Sky Armors as a faster way to travel around (which made revisiting areas more enjoyable), unlocking meaningful side quests, a bigger party, etc
- Great music and pixel artwork!
Cons:
- While the difficulty is manageable with buffs/debuffs, I did feel the balancing was kinda off. On default there were many times where I hit a wall for standard enemies who hit really hard yet I had an easier time with the boss that followed. On the other hand, lowering settings makes it too easy imo, especially as you get stronger abilities
- Crystals felt kinda pointless as a system. Most of the time you can’t combine the ones you actually want, and the ones you did have felt like they made a negligible difference at best
- Feel there’s too many party members to manage by the end, though most are useful (Mikah for instance)
- The lack of a glossary for a world this fleshed out seems like an odd oversight. There is a bestiary though
- Varied expressions for portraits would’ve been appreciated, but that’s a minor gripe
- Kept rearranging my party formation every so often
- Inspired by classic JRPGs, Chained Echoes is a fairly dense game that stands out as a well executed and highly memorable RPG in its own right. Given the amount of content this has and how much effort it must have taken to make, it’s genuinely mind-blowing that it’s mostly done by a single person
- Combat is interesting in that it focuses on an “Overdrive” bar, where you need to manage skills used to balance how effective your attacks are. You also regain all your HP/TP after a fight, which encourages you to always use all your moves since enemies are pretty aggressive to compensate
- I liked that instead of standard leveling, you don’t have XP to gather when fighting normal enemies. You get shards that are used to unlock new skills but only after beating bosses, which means there’s little need to grind in this
- For the most part the early hours are linear, but once you reach Act 2 it opens up in a really cool way. Getting access to Sky Armors as a faster way to travel around (which made revisiting areas more enjoyable), unlocking meaningful side quests, a bigger party, etc
- Great music and pixel artwork!
Cons:
- While the difficulty is manageable with buffs/debuffs, I did feel the balancing was kinda off. On default there were many times where I hit a wall for standard enemies who hit really hard yet I had an easier time with the boss that followed. On the other hand, lowering settings makes it too easy imo, especially as you get stronger abilities
- Crystals felt kinda pointless as a system. Most of the time you can’t combine the ones you actually want, and the ones you did have felt like they made a negligible difference at best
- Feel there’s too many party members to manage by the end, though most are useful (Mikah for instance)
- The lack of a glossary for a world this fleshed out seems like an odd oversight. There is a bestiary though
- Varied expressions for portraits would’ve been appreciated, but that’s a minor gripe
- Kept rearranging my party formation every so often
Reviewed on May 09, 2023