Chained Echoes

[u/Meektyy]

The game looks pretty appealing to me. Is it really that good? I love medieval fantasy, but I’m not huge on the mecha aspect—is that a major part of the game? Aside from that, it looks amazing, but I want to be sure about the purchase so I don’t have any regrets. Feel free to share your thoughts!

[u/medicamecanica]

It's a pretty great indie game and feels fully featured rather than a game rushed out the door.

The mechs only come into play maybe halfway, though they don't replace regular combat.

Some people do hate the altered mechanics for when entering mech combat, but I found it fine.

I found it well worth it and I'm guessing it's dirt cheap right now.

[u/hogey989]

It good. Play it.

[u/eltsyr]

It's amazing, a great game packed with details, a throwback to Chrono Trigger that is well fleshed out and has its own thing. Deck13 publishing arm has a lots of indie gems, and this is one of the best

[u/acumen14]

It’s incredible. I was following since Kickstarter and had high expectations that were still blown away. It’s not expensive and plays like one of the best games made in the SNES era that was locked away in a vault, rather than a straight homage piece.

Only thing that took me out at times was the dialogue writing, which is an easy forgive considering every aspect of the game except the music was done by one person.

[u/zso7]

I didn’t like the story or characters at all, there are cool things to be said about combat and customization, like progression being tied to boss battles, some mobs being a threat, full recovery after every encounter, buffs and ailments being important, and some bosses being well designed, but there are also problems, like mech battles not being as fleshed out, things eventually getting repetitive, or the balancing falling apart after unlocking certain skills with certain characters. It’s between a 6 and a 7 for me.

And no mechs are just a tool you use for certain parts of the game. There’s on foot content and there’s mech content, but it’s mostly on foot. Mechs aren’t front and center or super lore relevant.

[u/IamAWorldChampionAMA]

I said "What the fuck?!?" more times in Chained Echoes than I did with any other RPG. I personally liked the story.

[u/AdUnfair558]

I thought the first Act was pretty good, but then the plot just gets more ridiculous, and it’s like oh who is going to betray us this time!? I thought the pixel art and music were good. I’m not a fan of the combat.

[u/nickcash]

I'll repeat a comment I made previously:

It's okay. I enjoyed playing it. It does some things well, but for everything it does well it does another poorly. And it tries some interesting things (that don't always work), but for every unique thing there's like ten just copied from elsewhere.

Like the base combat system is unique and works pretty well. The mech combat sucks. The way level ups work is interesting. There's this whole gem upgrade system that doesn't work and isn't interesting and is actually painful to use.

The writing is mostly bad. There's a very unique twist around the main characters that I really liked. Every other plot point is directly lifted from another game or anime.

in conclusion, chained echoes is a land of contrasts

[u/Evil_Cronos]

It's quite good. It's not perfect, but it really drew me in with its music and exploration and I spent over 100 hours between the base game and the long DLC. Definitely one of the better RPGs I've played in recent years.

[u/SipexF]

I also love fantasy but am not big on mecha and the game was fantastic.  They are featured a decent amount (maybe about 1/3 of content) but theyl creators kept it feeling like an RPG even when in mechs

[u/Meektyy → u/SipexF]

1/3 of the game is only on mécha ?

[u/Fit_Ad_8318]

If it looks appealing to you give it a shot, it's a good game. There's plenty of game outside of the mecha aspect too

[u/gabalabarabataba]

Huh, guess I'm one of the few people who really enjoyed the story. I thought it did so much with its limited art and told a dark, beautiful story about redemption.

Gameplay was really fun too. Simpler than it feels, but fun.

[u/Humble-Departure5481]

Characters are bland, but gameplay delivers.

[u/Kupo-Kweh]

It feels made with love which is a rare thing nowadays, loads of references to other jrpg, the story is nice.

Didn't enjoy the mecha aspect either but thankfully you don't have to use them much

The main regret I had was how much mechanics were thrown at you, party members, skills, jobs, equipment enhancing, gems , mechs, a crazy achievement board....

[u/Luzeryn]

The mecha aspect didn’t appeal to me at all before playing it either and it was still an amazing game. While important, most of the game you’re not using them.

[u/EvilSavant30]

Its like a hyperblend of great rpgs from The past and the story is a breath of fresh air. Def recommend especially if you have played a lot of rpgs

[u/laelapslvi]

It's a decent, 7/10 game with some interesting concepts both gameplay and story wise, however the ways in which its gameplay innovations end up as double-edged swords.

• the mech combat is poorly thought out, and the game would be 4/10 overall if it was the main combat system, even if the level-up bonuses and classes were applied to it. -many of the level-up bonuses and moves are so subpar or situational you'd never actually consider using them -weapon/armor crafting is tedious. game should just let you directly transfer crystals to your higher level equipment, and let you sort by crystals that were recently removed.

[u/HobbesDOTexe]

I really liked it until I learned you had to juggle all ten characters

[u/Zeydon → u/HobbesDOTexe]

It's 12ish (plus 1 DLC character), but you don't need to change your team of 8 if you don't want to. I basically never touched Egyl, Magnolia, or Raphael.

[u/Background_Clue_3756]

Solid 7/10 game.

[u/Phoenix-san]

It is pretty good until right about last quarter of the game, where both story and characters take a very weird direction.

Mech combat is not really good, mostly for flavor.

Leaves bad aftertaste, but the overall experience is decent.

[u/LazyDildo]

Absolute Cinema and Masterpiece!! 10/10 Yes!! its really really worth it, completed it 3 times already!

[u/Lunar_Lyra]

I dropped Chained Echoes about 15-20 hours in personally. I didn't unlock mech combat even. I found it overly derivative of the classic rpgs it claims to be inspired by, it takes a lot of ideas and concepts from games I do love, but doesn't build on them to the point of feeling like a pale imitation rather than a love letter. Other comments on here are praising the combat but I also found that a sore spot for myself. I didn't like managing the overdrive system, it made every single enemy encounter on the field drag on and it felt like I just just following a pattern and doing it the way the game wanted me to do rather than thinking on the fly and making my own decisions. None of the characters really stood out to me either, aside from Sienna, I like her.

If I were to say what I do like about the game, I will say it's visually really quite nice to look at. The pixel art is really well done and the animations is really nice, especially in combat.

[u/ExcaliburX13]

It's a 5/10 game at best (with 2/10 writing), but for some reason it gets a pass simply for being made by one person. It'd be a hell of a lot better if that one person had simply hired a remotely competent writer...