Chained Echoes

 PC
User Score
8.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 156 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 131 out of 156
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 156
  3. Negative: 15 out of 156

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  1. slothjaw
    Feb 5, 2023
    5
    It's okay. The writing is the biggest detractor for me.

    Summary I can tell this game has many inspirations from both older 16 bit JRPGs and anime. You can see elements lifted directly from various mechas, Chrono Trigger, Berserk, Final Fantasy, or their derivatives. But from what I can tell on the surface, the game it borrows most from is surprisingly Final Fantasy 12 from 2006. The    It's okay. The writing is the biggest detractor for me.

    Summary
    I can tell this game has many inspirations from both older 16 bit JRPGs and anime. You can see elements lifted directly from various mechas, Chrono Trigger, Berserk, Final Fantasy, or their derivatives. But from what I can tell on the surface, the game it borrows most from is surprisingly Final Fantasy 12 from 2006. The influences from FF12 are all over with lizardmen and pigmen, teleport crystals, palace heists, the political shenanigans, magical stones of mass destruction, and more. The similarities go on and on. But the best parts of FF12 were it's tight stylized dialogue, the openness of the world (by 2006 standards) and the freeform rpg progression. This game has poor writing and the rpg progression is fairly gated. Despite being inspired by some of the greatest RPGs and anime stories of all time, this game fails to reach their heights.

    Writing
    The prologue got me engaged and excited about where things were going but the writing took a dive immediately after. Many issues with the writing could be improved with another pass through the script, I think. The script's issues are with diction, cliche phrases, and awkward syntax. These problems are most apparent in the English dialogue, which feels clunky and inorganic. You can clearly feel when a character is saying something not because it makes sense in the situation but because the game needs to inform the audience of some fact about the world or plot. Making the dialogue feel more natural would fix the bulk of this.
    The writing unfortunately also has deeper issues. The game has a tell don't show style overall and dumps exposition and character descriptions on you that detract from the experience. The game doesn't trust the player to engage with the story or characters motivations or to comprehend what's happening just from the course of events. Instead it prefers to spell everything out in a way that resolved all curiosity or interest I might've had in the characters or plot at the onset. Exposition appears on screen to tell you exactly who everyone is. Characters explicitly state their motivations in what approaches soliloquy. It throttled whatever interest I started with.

    RPG Structure
    Chained Echoes starts with a pretty barebones rpg progression. You heal after every battle which is nice in theory but in practice makes the battles often feel kind of pointless. Because you aren't getting worn down over multiple encounters, only the most challenging battles pose any real threat, so why even have the easier battles at all? The game doesn't seem to want you to grind either, limiting both the opportunity and the rewards for doing so. Most progression seems to be gated by story content. The design here feels at odds with itself. I appreciate the anti-power leveling measures, many people who hate grinding will enjoy its absence, and removing the tedium of healing between fights is nice, but these ideas need to be executed in a way that make them compatible with each other.

    Combat
    The combat itself is decent. I wasn't too fond of the overdrive meter which felt somewhat random in what it required of me. I have other nitpicks, but they weren't a huge deal. Overall this stuff was passable.

    Conclusion
    I don't hate this game, but it's far from a great RPG. The main thing I look for in a game like this is decent writing (especially if the game is going to spend so much time delivering story). That alone is enough to keep me from recommending it.    … Expand
  2. Pmstz
    Jan 25, 2023
    6
    A pretty nice RPG, but his fighting system is frustrating and limiting.
    +++
  3. Mandulum
    Sep 8, 2023
    7
    Took a while but it grew on me. I liked the retro RPG feel with some nice extras like battle switching, weapon/armor upgrades, crystals, and sky armor.

    Date Completed: 2023-09-09
    Playtime: 41h
    Enjoyment: 7/10
    Recommendation: It's worth the time
  4. SLTYSPTOON
    Jan 28, 2023
    7
    The 1st half of the game is almost perfect, 9.7-9.9 for sure. The combat system is unique and engaging with it's overdrive system, amazing animations and characters. The graphics are very good, the story is interesting and the boss battles are very fun and engaging. Even the random encounters are somewhat fun with my only small gripe being very limited characters to select from compared toThe 1st half of the game is almost perfect, 9.7-9.9 for sure. The combat system is unique and engaging with it's overdrive system, amazing animations and characters. The graphics are very good, the story is interesting and the boss battles are very fun and engaging. Even the random encounters are somewhat fun with my only small gripe being very limited characters to select from compared to endgame. The game then introduces a new combat system that I strongly dislike, you get completely new gear with bland attacks and a very different overdrive system that is annoying to manage. There are specific boss battles and enemies that you are required to use this new system for and they are so damn strong that you can't use the more interesting character based system to defeat them. The ending gets even worse and overstays it's welcome with convoluted maps that feel impossible to traverse, more annoying and required battles with the new combat system. The ending is honestly a 4/10 and ruins what could have been a 10/10 game, it is still worth playing for the beginning alone and you might not be as pissed off about the ending as I was… Expand
  5. Hyperfailure
    Apr 29, 2023
    5
    A good JRPG with all the expected combat mechanics, story cliches and character traits. Combat being turn-based but more sporadic and tactical than grindy was good. Character levelling and equipment is deep, sometimes too deep. I skipped most of the story and dialogue in the second half due to genre fatigue of the isekai-anime-esque style of the game.
  6. TheNFROMO
    Jul 26, 2023
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Gameplay (1.5)
    This game has a perk-type system where you select which and how you want to level up (skills,passive,buffs). No level system because they want to keep it balanced but the way you truly level up is by getting a new weapon. party switch feature is nice but barely useful honestly. the dealer feature to via selling your junk to get access to deals where you can buy but only useful for endgame gear. combat is very basic in nature. skyarmor system is basically doing 10x more damage then on foot but allows you access to more areas. most the game then becomes skyarmor battles then.you can speed up the battles somewhat, it felt like 1.5-2x the speed. the boss battle were interesting because they are balanced which you can’t just spam but actually use skills and what-not. the overdrive system was interesting to use, but nothing ground-breaking. use this mechanics to get the arrow inside this range to do more damage, get into the red zone you take more damage. the crafting system was simple enough that anyone can get into. upgrade weapons and armor twice to slightly more but useless until you get into end game. There are 12 potential party members but honestly 4-6 are only viable enough. reward board is an interesting mechanic to make players strive toward collectible grinding. collectible system in this game is very on a simple level. a limited enough post game content that can sate you but not satisfy you. I just feel the gameplay is taking the annoying parts and kicking them out but the game becomes really basic. The gameplay feels very basic compared to other turn-based games.
    Story (1.0)
    I’m going preface this by saying massive spoiler warning for dragons dogma, attack on titan and this game saying the review score early on because I need to deep dive on how badly they messed up.
    The game started as good as any game could get, massive explosion fade to black. legendary status. This game basically pulls a game of thrones esque from the brother does the that I pulled all the hate in the world then kill myself so you have a better chance at peace. Literally their was peace and you wanted war and that’s your excuse when you literally killed all of your generals not even 10 minutes earlier like what in the actual He literally killed 10000s of people and this happens what in the actual Glenn kills himself, wants to be free, gives some excuse of wanting to be a bird, basically pulling a game of thrones esque last season Their was no indication that he wanted to die even though he lived through multiple lives. The place that glenn was born in was only talked about once and talked about how hard it was to live their and wanted to be free. You know who he gave his god like power to, the guy who basically wanted to kill the big bad of the game in which they took over his body because he wouldn’t listen, the guy to killed 1 of the 8 kings because he wasn’t the chosen one, the guy who literally brought down the church location by supply the brother the information where innocent priest and children and workers were at. the guy who tried to capture one of your friends as a hostage. he only reason he gave it to him was “friendship” like what the hell is wrong with you. What happened with the vaen that were still in kylian body. They are not dead then? like what the actual **** the stupid ending with one of the main antagonist, and the ending with kylian is one of most horrible things to do with a game dealing with dark undertones and dark settings. they took a good act1, act2, a good part with act 3, and took a on it. dragons dogma even did it better because to stop the cycle but it in A game with a legendary beginning, mostly good middle and horrible ending. I believe an ending can truly ruin any piece of medium like game of thrones. The story deserves a 1.0 for the they did with the brother and the ending. the only reason is not 0 is because of how they built up in the beginning and act 2.
    Music (2)
    The music is really really good in this game. I was really bopping to the game throughout my whole experience. I could see myself buying the soundtrack if the ending was not horrible.
    Performance (2)
    I had hang-ups a good amount of time once I started a game or a battle which was weird.
    otherwise than that the performance is really really good.
    PricePoint(-1)
    This indie game is priced at msrp at 24.99 in the states. as for an indie game it has a high bar to fulfill. The game fails to fullfill at that mark in my own opinion. It feels like a 10 to 15 dollar game at the utmost because how the story took a **** but the gameplay, music, performance are good. I’m subtracting 1.0 to the total score because it fell off by how bad the story was and how basic in my opinion the gameplay was/is.
    Summary (5.5)
    Character Limit. Video Review Coming Out In the coming weeks.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

5
#5 Best PC Game of 2022
43
#43 Most Discussed PC Game of 2022

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
91

Universal acclaim - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. RPG Site
    May 12, 2023
    90
    Chained Echoes is an extremely impressive game, especially considering the bulk of the game's creation came from just a few people, led by Mattias. As trite as it might be to say, this isn't just a pale imitation of great RPGs, Chained Echoes is a great RPG in its own right. A few small quibbles won't stop me from recommending this game to anyone, especially those fond of the golden era of RPGs.
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  2. INVEN
    Jan 27, 2023
    88
    Chained Echoes is a well-made turn based RPG with 16-bit nostalgia and classic JRPG identity. Although there are some elements that are not quite fitted to the story as it flows, it is a highly recommended title for those who love JRPGs.
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  3. Game Rant
    Jan 17, 2023
    90
    Considering the hubris of Chained Echoes, it should not work, but it does, and beautifully. Matthias Linda has created a broad world that is ripe for further exploration. The only worry now is that the bar is set too high, but it's hard to imagine the team creating anything with less passion and polish. After playing through a creative, familiar, yet distinct game that engages players in nearly every way, one can only hope that there will be more from the brilliant team behind Chained Echoes.
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