Chained Echoes is deceitful at first glance, making you wonder if you missed it when contemporaries such as Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger were all the rage. The reality, of course, is that this gorgeous, imaginative RPG is brand new, and while it’s healthy infused with new concepts, it’s largely a development of one of his, both as an homage to and celebration of older games. created by a person. The resulting adventure may look like his 30-year-old counterpart, but it plays with sophistication that it’s worthy of the attention of fans of all genres.
Developers enjoy playing with your preconceptions. Sometimes it meets those expectations, sometimes it subverts them, at the exact pace and moments you are most prepared for, both in story and gameplay. Ready for a new twist on combat? This is a new addition system that controls mechs with engaging alternative fighting styles reminiscent of classics like Xenogears. Do you think you understand the storyline arc of the Doomed Hero? Maybe things are more complicated than you first imagined.
Along the way, classic JRPG-style adventure staples emerge in a balanced and rewarding loop. A well-designed combat system reduces grueling and repetitive combat. Instead, every fight requires total attention to keep your party in the damage-dealing sweet spot by leveraging enemy weaknesses, character abilities, on-the-fly party composition changes, and a unique Overdrive mechanism. am. It’s always important to throw everything at the enemy, as the party will be fully healed between battles. Penalties for failure are negligible, especially since bad decisions and game overs quickly led to the choice to start the fight over.
The upgrades, gear, and leveling system are all engaging and full of compelling decisions. Wearing class emblems enhances each character’s selected skills and allows you to specialize each hero in powerful ways. Weapons and armor can be improved and tweaked with gems that apply new bonuses. A fun way to encourage extensive exploration and discovery, offering valuable materials and leveling options to complete specific tasks around the world. There is also a “reward board”.
Playing within the constraints of the established genre, Chained Echoes tells a mature and nuanced story, touching on themes like destiny and free will, recovering from trauma, and the weight of guilt. Those and other tropes have plenty of room to explore across the dozens of hours of story and sidequests available. It is full of complex geopolitical structures. Sometimes the last element of the political element becomes so overwhelming that it’s hard to keep up, distracting from the more compelling character drama. It starts to fit.
A beautiful musical score that takes you back in time, accompanied by pixel-style visuals that convey nostalgia rather than games you’ve played before. Still, the narrative scope and maturity of character interactions can sometimes feel at odds with the retro aesthetic. But at certain dramatic moments, visual constraints hamper the narrative.
Chained Echoes has the advantage of being decades away from the games you’re looking for inspiration from, but it’s often a better experience than the vaunted game it came from. I prefer this approach to combat, storytelling, progression and exploration to many of his JRPGs I grew up playing. This is the highest praise I can heap for a game that has been removed in time from the games it could be compared to. Whether or not you fondly recall the genre’s heyday, Chained Echoes is well worth your time.
