Looks and sounds good and the physics and gameplay work surprisingly well in the style they were going for it. But it still felt off somehow and it took me a few hours to pinpoint why:
The tracks are too wide and samey. You will almost always have a path that is 4 to 5 cars wide and it never changes during a stage which feels very unnatural. Art of Rally course design is more akin to a Hot Wheels track with different background and trees and not rally stages in individual countries with their own distinct features. The track width also makes the game play weirdly safe and unexciting, totally different from expectations for a rally hommage to the wildest era the sport has seen.
The career mode is also more of a glorified time attack playlist with hardly anything interesting going on in terms of progression or unlocks.
It's overall alright and if you are looking for a chill time attack racer to vibe with you can do worse.

Decent rhythm game junk food. Good for a few hours but ultimately unsatisfying and not leaving a lasting impression. Songs and beatmaps are decent and short enough to not be annoying. Core gameplay is alright but everything added on top like the battles and trap doors hurt the experience while adding very little. The graphics are cute, the story and humor are very hit & miss, mostly the latter for me. Overall you can certainly do worse to get your quick rhythm gaming fix but it is far from a mustplay.

This was pretty disappointing. Sure the game is impressive for being done by a simple person but that doesn't really help when it is not that enjoyable to play. At its core Chained Echoes is a beautiful and great sounding turn based JRPG with an intriguing world. But there are so many unnecessary subsystems tacked on in terms of party composition and battle it devolves into tedium quickly. The overdrive system would be a fun boss gimmick but as a constant companion it makes random battles a slog. Crystals and equipment upgrades are not really interesting and just serve to bloat the inventary and introduce way too much menuing. Sienna is cool, the rest of the cast pretty bland and the plot felt held back by a stiff script. Overall the game could have used some editing in multiple places to make it shine since there is some great potential hidden within. I'll at least keep an eye out for the developer's next project.