Whilst offering some neat twists on the JRPG genre in narrative and moment to moment gameplay the biggest thing that differentiates Chained Echoes from its contemporaries is its progression. Gone is the standard system of XP go up (admittedly not a bad system but its nice to find something fresh) to be replaced by Grimoir points. This almost achievement like system of character progression really helps emphasise using the combat system in unique ways and focusing on exploring each of the area to its fullest. With the mutliple ways to obtain these points and the almost mini-game like completion rows grinding never feels like a chore whilst still giving you more than enough wiggle room to experiment with different builds and playstyle.

If I did have one complaint other than the relatively generic cast and story it would be that the mech gameplay feels somewhat finicky and less developed than the main gameplay. Whilst I understrand its made by a solo dev that just makes me question why even include a whole other if only slightly different form of gameplay onto an already pretty fleshed out rpg.