I don't really like being someone who writes a full on review for a game that they haven't completed. I think its disingenuous to the games' creators because there will be plenty of things that you haven't experienced but still will give their review as if they've played the entire game. However, I am one for expressing some thoughts while playing or looking back at what you just experienced with a video game. It helps find things that you might not have thought about while you're playing and just increases your appreciation of the game overall. So that's what I'm aiming to do today with an indie JRPG I'm playing through right now named Chained Echoes. After playing the Sea of Stars demo a month or so ago I had an itch for something new to fill the void until August when I remembered a game that was on my radar for the past year named Chained Echoes. Chained Echoes takes a lot of inspiration from the golden age of RPG's in the mid to late 90's in its visuals, but its very much on its own with some great modern touches. Right now I'm about 11 hours in to the experience, but how have those 11 hours been thus far?
Chained Echoes opens up with continent that is constantly fighting and in war. You start off the story following a duo of mercenaries, Glenn and Kylian hunting a treasure known as the Grimoire that is supposed to hold great power. After fighting your way up to the Grimoire you try to destroy it so that the enemy doesn't have that advantage in battle, but it causes a huge explosion that kills pretty much everyone in the surrounding area except for people that were closest to the blast. Then the story fast-forwards a year to a city that had just signed a peace-treaty ending the long war between them and another faction. Here you get to experience multiple characters perspective before they all meet up before the parade where their fates align. Personally, I love when games do this kind of thing. It really gives a good concept of what characters personalities and backgrounds are before the adventure begins. One example of this in the game is Lenne and Robb, Lenne being a princess undercover who's nation just signed the peace treaty and traveled with her servant Robb who's protect at all cost attitude is amicable at first, but is also very quick to judge and has that classic upper-class harshness. Lenne generally is the opposite, strong yet understanding and really only wants what is best for her people. I won't go too much into the story after this point because there have already been some big twists and turns with it and I expect more going forward.
The main thing that I wanted to talk about today however isn't the story, but rather my love-hate relationship with the combat system and difficulty. The combat system is one of the most unique that I've seen in an RPG and really takes advantage of fans of the genre by pushing it's systems to the limits. In a nutshell, the combat in Chained Echoes is a fine balancing act of attacks, buffs, de-buffs and healing to go along with the main mechanic, the Drive Gauge. Every battle will have your Drive Gauge in the top left hand side showing you your current level. You'll always start at a base level, but almost every action that you take or damage that you take from enemies increases your Drive Gauge until you reach Overdrive. In Overdrive, your special skills do more damage, cost less tech points to do and you'll take less damage meaning you always want to be in Overdrive. However, go past the Overdrive point and you'll enter Overheat where pretty much the opposite of Overdrive happens and de-buffs your entire party. Now lowering this gauge can come in a few ways. The main way is by performing a specific type of skill that you can view in the top left, like elemental magic or a slash attack that will decrease the gauge. Otherwise you'll have to defend, switch out your party members or perform an ultra move to decrease your Drive Gauge. In typical battles, you'll have access to 4 party members at any given turn that you're able to switch out with the press of a button with up to 4 reserve members that are tied to each other. You are also able to view the battle turn order with you and the enemy which is something that I always appreciate. The amount of options that you have on any given turn along with a variety of characters to do so makes for an intuitive system that makes every battle engaging. This does come at a big cost in my mind and why I said I have a love hate relationship in the difficulty. Levels aren't gained through a typical experience system, rather every time you fight a boss, they'll drop a Grimoire Shard that you can then use to level up one aspect of your character whether its a statistic, adding a new special move or a trait that they have in battle. That on paper makes for a cool system that every time you beat a boss it makes you feel accomplished that you can learn a new skill every time. With this freedom comes the difficulty along with it. Normal battles in a new area can be ridiculous sometimes in how tanky the opponents are and how much damage they can deal out. You don't get experience from these difficult battles either, only skill points that you can add on to your traits that you gain from beating bosses, making fighting enemies that aren't bosses feel a little tedious and not rewarding. I've lost more than a dozen times to basic enemies you find on the field in the areas that you're supposed to be going to in order to progress, which I can't say for most RPGs. Normally in that situation, I would sit down and grind an area until I was comfortable with the enemies and continue on, but because grinding doesn't work the same way in terms of raw statistics you gain like in other RPGS, I get stuck dying over and over trying to progress. I don't really consider myself a bad player either, I feel like I'm trying multiple methods of attack battles and ways to get into overdrive, and I still end up losing to basic enemies more than I have any boss. The game is generous in that after every battle your party is fully healed, so at least that's nice. In battles though, even after 10 hours I have no party member that's able to heal the entire party consistently which is difficult because a lot of enemies have attacks that go across the entire party. I have spells that can heal one member or boost defense or shield me for a turn, but nothing to heal me which I think is holding me back from enjoying this game to its fullest. Because of what I've experienced so far, I wouldn't recommend Chained Echoes to the general gamer off of the combat alone, its too difficult for people who don't have experience with the genre. If you are a JRPG fan, this system is breath of fresh air in most areas and brings in a lot of cool ideas for you to play around with if you can deal with the difficulty.
Visually and musically, the game looks and sounds great. Important characters have more detailed portraits that give you a little more insight to what characters look like. Sound effects have a good punch to them and are satisfying to slice enemies with your sword or attack with elemental magic. The music I wouldn't say is super memorable to me right now, I think if I were to play more it would stand out a bit more, but it suits the game well and there hasn't been anything that I would say is bad. I might have to listen to the OST outside of the game as well. One of the only other gripes I had when I first started playing was actually the move speed of my character. I thought it felt way too fast for some reason and wished there was like a walking toggle or button I could hold down. The environments and pixel art is all very well crafted and are distinct. Weather effects look especially beautiful as well. Like when it rains and you can see the drops falling into the pixel art puddles. However if you don't stop to appreciate it, you move so fast that you can miss some of the minor details that got put into the environments.
TL;DR
Chained Echoes is a game that knew exactly what it wanted to be before it was even created. The battle system and presentation makes you think of JRPGs of old, but it doesn't have those same older tropes that were better left off in the past. However, I can only as of right now recommend the game to fans of the genre who are willing to go through with the difficulty of some of its battles. You have to play older games in order to appreciate some of the QOL changes that are offered here and appreciate the game to its fullest.
I don't know if I'll finish the game right now, I might look at it again later on down the line because right now I'm a little frustrated with it and I'm playing Zelda BOTW for the first time and that has my full attention. Thanks for reading I appreciate it!
Another TZ Banger!
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