When I first saw it, my prejudice was “Aha, someone has done something mediocre with pixel art again”, no lie now. However, after downloading the game and playing for the first hour, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was dealing with something completely different.
But the blame was also partly on me, now to be realistic. One of the things I didn’t look at while downloading the game was the company that distributed the game. The Deck13 team had also undertaken the distribution of CrossCode, another pixel-art game inspired by 2D Zeldas, which I loved very much, and it was a very high-quality game that exceeded my expectations. If I had been a little careful, I wouldn’t have been so prejudiced, but anyway, it happened.
JRYO JRYO, LITTLE BY LITTLE
There’s a good chance you’ll play Chained Echoes a little bit and say, “What’s up, JRYO with flat pixel graphics”? But if you went into JRYOs a little more and spent time like this, you see the effects of those Golden Age period JRYOs at every step of the game and ask, “Did you send this too? ARE YOU INSPIRED BY THAT ALSO?” you can hardly keep yourself from squeezing the cheeks of the game. I don’t know, for example, in one of the parts where the characters are introduced in the first hours of the game, there is a part that is inspired by that unforgettable festival part of Chrono Trigger. Or, besides, it’s hard not to think that the title of one of the game’s first missions, “The Alpha, not the Omega”, is a clear reference to Xenogears. Lots of manga/anime references as well as JRYOs,
But as I said, this influence is not limited to names and references. They also have a lot of influence on the storytelling of the game. Parts of each character in our party where we play solo to see who they are and how they play before they join, or parts of the party where we split up into groups at a certain point in the game and play with each group one by one are also clearly inspired by Final Fantasy (especially FF VI). And you know what the best part is? Our brother Matthias has also succeeded in making them without making you say “He stole it”. By adding his sauce and combining it with today’s possibilities, he fed all of these inspirations very well.
The story of Chained Echoes is also quite beautiful. The story, which starts with trying to control the peace brought by force after a war that took years, a big explosion, and the loss of innocent lives, turns into a more sedate and heavy scenario as it progresses. Most importantly, for a game with such a lot of party characters, every character is written as well as possible. Sometimes it feels like it’s failing in the dialogues at some points, but the fact that almost every party character has a personality, purpose, and development throughout the game is one of the qualities that we sometimes do not see even in today’s JRYOs.
DON’T THINK OF TAKING TURNS?
Chained Echoes has a turn-based combat mechanic, as you can imagine from so much JRYO Golden Age inspiration. Even just having said that, it might assure some of you that you won’t be looking at the face of the game. Sorry, I’m a guy who likes turn-based combat (ehm), and I’ll give Chained Echoes a little more praise by explaining how he implements his turn-based system.
When you look at it from the top, there is nothing different in combat mechanics. One you, one enemy; sometimes you are making moves in order as two times the enemy, you none. The difference that Chained Echoes brings here is the “Overdrive” bar that you will see in the upper left corner while fighting. Trying to keep this bar, which is divided into yellow, green, and red colors, green throughout the conflict, that is, in the Overdrive section, make your job much easier. While you are in Overdrive, you take less damage and deal more damage from enemies, there is no change in yellow, you take more damage in red. The moves you make also determine the direction of the bar.
Yes, on the one hand, this is a nice feature. It prevents you from spamming the A-key straight ahead and makes you think more tactically. Thanks to this, the game prevents you from staring at the blank screen by thinking about which attack bar will turn green, do you need to change the character, or should I use my Ultimate feature just to drop the bar now. In fact, unlike most JRYOs in the game, you get immersed in the conflicts because there are “long but few” conflicts. But the downside is that sometimes you find yourself focusing on the stick rather than getting caught up in the conflict. I know I’ve been trying to steal something from an enemy with nothing on it for three turns in a row just so the stick doesn’t turn red. The idea is good, but the execution could have been better.
However, if there’s anything good in handling, it’s the game’s class and level system. In Chained Echoes, the characters have no levels. Instead, there’s a system inspired a little bit by Final Fantasy and a little bit by Vagrant Story. The first step in strengthening your character in the game is to improve your equipment. If you entered a new area and saw new equipment in the vendors, buy it, increase its level, and add crystals to give additional features.
Character traits and abilities are also similar to the Job system we see in Final Fantasy. Each character has special abilities and you can upgrade them with the SPs you earn by fighting with enemies or doing the game’s side missions, and the levels increase as you use them. To unlock new abilities, you need to progress in the game. You can easily see that each character’s abilities, types, and attitudes in the game are all inspired by a Final Fantasy Job (or D&D class). Glenn is a classic Warrior, Sienna is a Thief who could be the new waifum, Victor is interestingly a heavy character but an obvious Bard…
But besides these, there is an event we call “Class Emblem”. You find these by navigating the game’s open world, and all of them give new abilities and attribute upgrades to the character you’re wearing. The best part is that you can wear them on any character you want, there is no restriction such as “Character X can only wear the Y emblem”. One of my favorite aspects of Final Fantasy V, even the fact that it has this unrestricted customization option, is one of the reasons I love Chained Echoes so much. In other words, it is not as much as Final Fantasy V, but it is still well thought out and one of the features that make you say “Good thing it’s been added” for me.
OLD FASHION, FRESH AIR I can sum up Chained Echoes in exactly this sentence. You must have understood enough that the Golden Age JRPGs stink from everywhere in the game, but the biggest mistake of the independent RPGs, most of which say “We were inspired by the old ones, eh”, is to do exactly what the old ones did, they come with their quality side and mistakes that do not fit today.
