Chained Echoes: Ashes of Elrant
I always find writing a review on a DLC quite difficult, especially when I haven’t played the base game in well over two years! That said, I really enjoyed my time with Chained Echoes and couldn’t wait to get stuck into Ashes of Elrant, so here are my thoughts.
The DLC takes place just before the final battle of Chained Echoes. You access the DLC right from Chained Echoes’ main menu, and you can either start out with one of your base game save files or by using the provided premade save file.
I went with the premade save, which starts you off with all abilities unlocked for each character but only at level 2. You have 999 skill points on each character, which is enough to get two or three selected skills up to level 3, so there’s quite a lot of customisation you can do with your party, although it can be a little daunting deciding on what to upgrade if you haven’t played the base game in a while.
To help you slip back into the world of Chained Echoes there’s an included story recap which does it’s best to get you back up to speed, but to be honest, I don’t think these recaps ever really click with me and I’d rather play through the base game again (if I had a spare 60+ hours).
Ashes of Elrant starts with our party members amid combat. At first, I felt a little lost with the combat, but after a few battles, I soon fell back into the flow of Chained Echoes’ quite frankly excellent battle system. The choice to have the party face off against so many battles right off the bat was a good choice, and you’ll soon find yourself getting right back into the swing of things.
I won’t spoil the story here, but I will mention that Ashes of Elrant takes place almost entirely in new areas which are separate from the main game.
The story employs flashbacks of each character’s past to expand the narrative, adding some additional character development without drastically altering the player’s perception of the characters. Lenne gets the most story-heavy flashbacks and additional character building, but each party member has their moment in the spotlight. This is quite a nice way to handle things and fits in perfectly with Ashes of Elrant being DLC. It builds upon the existing characters we’ve come to know from the base game without feeling too shoehorned in, which can be an issue when trying to wedge a piece of additional story into an already fleshed-out story.
A new system in Ashes of Elrant is the addition of Party Points, or PP. As the name suggests, these are shared between the whole party and can be used to unlock skills called Party Talents. These talents can be anything from extending your overdrive bar to more utility-based ones, such as being able to communicate with animals or even unlocking the new fishing minigame, which is actually quite a lot of fun.
An additional digging minigame has been added and will feel very family to anyone who has played Final Fantasy IX’s Chocobo hot and cold minigame. You hunt for treasures in a small area and have to choose where to dig, which will give you a ‘hot or cold’ response in the form of a beep. It’s very simple but gets the job done, and you can even find some class emblems, so it’s well worth the time investment.
There are over 40 new enemy types added in the expansion, which is at least double what I was expecting going in, and they aren’t all just palette swaps either; they are all quite different and quite deadly. In terms of difficulty, things can get pretty tough at times, especially with the new boss battles, which saw my entire team wiped out, and this happened on more than one occasion. I don’t think this is just down to me being rusty either, the bosses here seem much more difficult than the base game, which I guess should be expected from DLC content. Each of the bosses added in Ahes of Elrant seems to have some kind of gimmick which is key to victory, and you can’t just simply brute force your way through.
A new party member is included, the White Wolf, who deals a ton of physical damage and is a little tankier than most of the other party members. A strong physical damage dealer was somewhat missing from the base game, so it’s nice to see one finally included. His fighting system revolves around giving the enemies bites, which stack with the more bites on a foe, the greater damage certain abilities deal. It’s a very rewarding and satisfying character to play as.
Throughout the DLC, you’ll come across Pools of Power. This will permanently increase your Party’s attack power while decreasing all damage received, making them essential finds if you want to tackle any of the harder bosses in the DLC. They are usually slightly off the beaten path, but are easy enough to find with a little exploration, and you can even unlock a skill that makes them easier to track down.
I really do hope there’s a ‘Complete’ physical edition of both Chained Echoes and Ashes of Elrant released at some point and for it not to be handled by 1st Press Games as people are still waiting for their 2 year+ preorders of the Nintendo Switch base game to be sent out, even though 1st Press Games let Chained Echoes ‘jump’ their production queue’. A simple and complete retail release would be greatly appreciated.
Conclusion
Ashes of Elrant is a fantastic DLC package; it builds on the world of Chained Echoes naturally without bloating the experience by adding too many additional systems to keep track of. The fleshing out of the party members’ back stories adds to the experience of the base game and is done naturally, and doesn’t feel forced for the sake of simply drawing out the run time.
While Ashes of Elrant is a great DLC package, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had a more recent playthrough of the base game. This was especially true in my first 2 or 3 hours with the DLC. As I plodded on through the game, though, I soon remembered what made Chained Echoes such a great game. The art style, great music and charming characters all make a triumphant return in Ashes of Elrant, and it’s essentially just more Chained Echoes, which is an awesome thing! Please play this DLC.
8
Steam review code kindly provided by PR Hound