Chained Echoes
Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, Chained Echoes is an example of a retro-style RPG done right. 7 years in the making and after a successful Kickstarter campaign, we have a fantastically crafted game that pays homage to the genre’s classic titles while setting itself apart with a great battle system.
It’s hard to think that this 50+ hour game was predominantly created by just one person, but I’m pleased to say the developer Matthias Linda knocked it out of the park.
Story
Chained Echoes feels more like an early PlayStation RPG such as Suikoden rather than a SNES game in terms of its presentation, even though the characters are pixel sprites they have many frames of fluid animation and the game is very colourful overall with some really nice parallax scrolling in some areas.
We start out the game as Glenn, Chained Echoes primary protagonist which features a great Chrono Trigger-style fake-out introduction with Glenn in bed being woken up by his mother. Instead of being given some money to go to the Millennial fair, Glenn instead wakes up on an airship in the middle of battle. Glenn along with his mercenary buddy accidentally set off a weapon, which is essentially a nuclear bomb, with two being the sole survivors. Full of guilt and hungry for knowledge about the weapon they unleashed, they sneak into the castle for answers.
This is where our story merges with two other scenarios, Lenne and Robb, a Princess and her childhood friend and protector who have fled from another kingdom intent on waging war ruled by her Brother.
Victor’s scenario is a little different and you do get to spend some time at a fair after all! You can play various mini-games and even bet on a turtle race. Victor is a playwright and a very popular one at that. He is invited into the castle for a peace treaty and after an attack on the castle, that’s where our stories all merge.
The land of Valandis is very turbulent politically and you can feel the tension in some of the scenes, it always feels like one kingdom is out to get the others and you can sense the fear around this city-destroying weapon makes the game feel very sombre at times.
I won’t say much more about the story to avoid spoilers, but I will say it’s engaging right up until the end with quite a few twists and turns along the way.
Gameplay
During my 55-hour playthrough, I ended the game with a total of 11 of a possible 12 party members. Each of the ensemble cast has a traditional job class, healer, knight, mage, tank etc which all ties in nicely with the battle system.
Chained Echoes features turn-based combat with a Final Fantasy X-style character-switching mechanic and attack order system, if a character is getting two low on HP you can swap them out for someone waiting in reserve. The character-swapping mechanic adds a level of complexity to the battle system and making sure you have a balanced party is essential to your success. Many characters have complementary skills, such as a paralyzing debuff followed up by another party member’s attack that deals triple damage to paralyzed enemies. This can be really satisfying to pull off and adds another layer to the battle system.
Trust me when I say, It’s wise to keep a healer on reserve when possible as some of the battles you’ll face are quite challenging and I found myself at the Game Over screen on more than one occasion.
The difficulty in Chained Echoes Stems from two things, The Overdrive mechanic and how your character levels. The overdrive meter is ever-present in battles and, as I quickly learnt, is the difference between victory and defeat. The Overdrive meter charges once per attack, be it your own or your enemies, some skills can cool down the meter with you ideally keeping the meter in the middle green section at all times. Often, you end up in the red and deal out less damage and receive more. I cannot stress how crucial it is to learn this system, especially as you progress through the game.
In terms of character level, there’s no traditional ‘EXP’ to grind up your levels, instead, you are awarded Grimoire Shards (GS) usually after a boss encounter. You can use Grimoire Shards to level up your characters and to unlock skills with one shard increasing the level of every party member.
The Grimoire Shard levelling system essentially squashed any dreams of power levelling, which is my usual playstyle during RPGs. This took some getting used to but also made the game fairly challenging throughout and meant I had to actually learn Chained Echoes Battle mechanics, rather than just spamming the most powerful attack over and over again.
Additional Grimoire Shards can be gained by completing parts of the reward board which is essentially an in-game achievement system resembling the License Board from Final Fantasy XII, however, squares are unlocked depending on numerous feats such as exploring most of the map, clearing fights with certain conditions like using an all-female party or simply slaying some enemies. You have to chain these rewards together on the board with Grimoire Shards being unlocked after a certain chain length.
Although I was a little resistant at first, I do like how Chained Echoes forces you to learn and use these mechanics whether you like it or not, by the end of the game I enjoyed thinking carefully about how to manage my overdrive meter and it kept me on my toes right up until the games closing credits.
About a third of the way through the game you’ll unlock Sky Armor, which essentially allows four party members to wear these mini Gundam-esque battle armour suits which deal massive damage compared to on-foot combat and allow you to traverse certain sections of the game world you could not otherwise reach. There are certain boss fights etc where you are forced to fight in Sky Armor and Sky Armor is upgraded by weapons and armour parts you find instead of Grimoire shards.
The continent of Valandis is massive and eventually, you’ll unlock an airship to find even more areas. General exploration is done in your traditional top-down RPG fashion and you’ll visit many different locales during the story, with whole optional areas for you to explore in some of Chained Echoes’ various side quests.
While exploring, you come across crystal deposits, these can be used at any of the game’s various anvils to upgrade your weapons. The crystal each have their abilities which can be applied to your weapons such as additional Attack Power, or reduced magic costs. Crystals can even be combined to increase the level of effect. This is a fun system, although I did find it a little tedious removing crystals as I found more powerful weapons and armour for my party.
Another system in Chained Echoes is the Deals section as most of the game’s merchants. This is essentially Final Fantasy XII’s Bazaar goods mechanic, you collect Loot from defeated enemies which can, in turn, be traded into the merchant, which will unlock a small group of items to be purchased. This is a fun mechanic and there are some really cool items you can unlock for your party. It will keep you busy trying to track down the final item to hand in and encourages you to backtrack and hunt down certain enemies.
To complement the vibrant gameworld is the music score and I’m pleased to say it’s very good! Some of the tracks in Chained Echoes almost have a Dragon Quest-like feel to them. There’s a fair bit of variation throughout the world keeping things fresh and some stellar tunes along the way, especially with some of the final Bosses, which have ‘proper final boss’ music (if that makes sense?).
My only real gripe with the sound design is the cursor select sound which was a little too loud for me, that said, 55 hours later and it kind of grew on me like a form of Stockholm syndrome perhaps?
On a technical note, I played Chained Echoes split between Steam Deck and PC and performance was great on both as you would probably expect from a game with this kind of art style. The only issue I encountered was a small stutter during the first battle I would have after reloading the game, this happened regardless of what hardware I was playing on but only ever happened for that first move selected, after that the game ran very smoothly indeed.
Conclusion
Chained Echoes pulls off the Retro RPG aesthetic without heavily relying on nostalgia. A lot is going on in terms of systems and mechanics and at first, I felt a little overwhelmed, but Chained Echoes teaches you over time and before you know it, they are all second nature.
The battle system is by far the highlight of the game for me and I hope we see a sequel in the future which keeps the tight combat while building upon it. In fact, I loaded up my save to capture a few additional screenshots for this review and ended up completing several of the game’s side quests, which is something I rarely do in RPGs, so be warned, Chained Echoes can be a little addictive!
If you are a turn-based RPG fan, you really owe it to yourself to play this game.
8.5
Steam review code kindly provided by PR Hound on behalf of the publisher