Chained Echoes is exactly what you expect it to be. A retro indie game, trying its own take on classic JRPGs from back in the day. In my opinion, it actually succeeds in it, but it just doesn't reach greatness, like the games that inspired it.
The thing that you'll immediately notice when starting Chained Echoes is its charm. It oozes style and nostalgia with its beautiful graphics and solid environmental design. It's definitely a treat, if you like games like this. Characters and their animations are cool to watch, the monsters are quite creative, bosses look threatening, the world looks beautiful, dungeons are cool and the overworld map is just perfect.
In this beautiful world, I loved how fast and freely you and your armor can move, how quick you can explore the fairly linear areas and just how well each event is paced. You pick up things pretty easy and they never overwhelm or stay long enough to bore you. I also liked the focus on the main quest and how they handled the few sidequests you can find. More open world games and RPGs should take notes from this design.
On top of that, you have a very fun and engaging combat. It's quick, clean of grinding, the overdrive system keeps you on your toes and the freedom to swap characters and improvise during battles, creating your own strategy, was very neat. You can see how well the combat works during boss fights. They're not only epic, but require some thinking in order to win, while maintaining everything fast and fun.
It comes at a cost though. Chained Echoes is a very easy game, with very few good challenges. It manages to wipe the need of grinding, maintaining the flow with easy encounters. I actually don't mind it too much, but I know some people will not enjoy it. Also, while dungeons are cool to explore, some of the gimmicks are a hit or miss. They're good, for the most part, but some of them, like the final one, can get really annoying.
My biggest gripe with the game is something that I actually enjoyed. The story. It is good, but it's not great. It's engaging, but also sort of forgettable. The writing is mostly at fault here, along with how I just couldn't develop a good bond with almost any character or villain. It's all thrown at you. Motivations are shallow, with its issues being resolved with ease, sometimes. And that's a shame, because it actually reaches epic proportions at times, but it never really breaks the bubble of just being a decent story. Good, yes, but I wish it were much much better.
Soundtrack disappointed me as well. There are some really good songs in the game, but not a lot them. It's mostly repetitive, failing to immerse you in parts of the story. One other thing that kept distracting me, this time in regards to gameplay, was character progression. This type of leveling up system just did not work for me, as I felt I wasn't getting stronger or improving at all, just learning new things, often not as useful as who I was in the beginning. Leveling weapons and armor suffer from the same problem, since using crystal, upgrading them and then having to do it again and again once you get a different item just didn't cut it for me.
But, at heart, Chained Echoes is a good game! One that mostly succeeds in doing what it sets out to do. It did manage to scratch the itch for a good "classic" JRPG, even if just a little.
So if you really want to play FF6, but not replay FF6, now we have a solution for you now!
The thing that you'll immediately notice when starting Chained Echoes is its charm. It oozes style and nostalgia with its beautiful graphics and solid environmental design. It's definitely a treat, if you like games like this. Characters and their animations are cool to watch, the monsters are quite creative, bosses look threatening, the world looks beautiful, dungeons are cool and the overworld map is just perfect.
In this beautiful world, I loved how fast and freely you and your armor can move, how quick you can explore the fairly linear areas and just how well each event is paced. You pick up things pretty easy and they never overwhelm or stay long enough to bore you. I also liked the focus on the main quest and how they handled the few sidequests you can find. More open world games and RPGs should take notes from this design.
On top of that, you have a very fun and engaging combat. It's quick, clean of grinding, the overdrive system keeps you on your toes and the freedom to swap characters and improvise during battles, creating your own strategy, was very neat. You can see how well the combat works during boss fights. They're not only epic, but require some thinking in order to win, while maintaining everything fast and fun.
It comes at a cost though. Chained Echoes is a very easy game, with very few good challenges. It manages to wipe the need of grinding, maintaining the flow with easy encounters. I actually don't mind it too much, but I know some people will not enjoy it. Also, while dungeons are cool to explore, some of the gimmicks are a hit or miss. They're good, for the most part, but some of them, like the final one, can get really annoying.
My biggest gripe with the game is something that I actually enjoyed. The story. It is good, but it's not great. It's engaging, but also sort of forgettable. The writing is mostly at fault here, along with how I just couldn't develop a good bond with almost any character or villain. It's all thrown at you. Motivations are shallow, with its issues being resolved with ease, sometimes. And that's a shame, because it actually reaches epic proportions at times, but it never really breaks the bubble of just being a decent story. Good, yes, but I wish it were much much better.
Soundtrack disappointed me as well. There are some really good songs in the game, but not a lot them. It's mostly repetitive, failing to immerse you in parts of the story. One other thing that kept distracting me, this time in regards to gameplay, was character progression. This type of leveling up system just did not work for me, as I felt I wasn't getting stronger or improving at all, just learning new things, often not as useful as who I was in the beginning. Leveling weapons and armor suffer from the same problem, since using crystal, upgrading them and then having to do it again and again once you get a different item just didn't cut it for me.
But, at heart, Chained Echoes is a good game! One that mostly succeeds in doing what it sets out to do. It did manage to scratch the itch for a good "classic" JRPG, even if just a little.
So if you really want to play FF6, but not replay FF6, now we have a solution for you now!