This was so fun! Unfortunately, I had to rush through the second half because I have some stuff coming up, but I fully plan on replaying this when there's new DLC out.

+ Creative with its cult theme; lots of things were on point
+ I love when a game allows your non-combat gameplay to affect your combat performance (think Persona series)
+ Fun minigame that is not forced
+ Rewarding boss fights + enemy types
+ Replayability

- Not being able to choose starting weapons was annoying; I hated the axe and dagger
- Difficulty curve is weird (game is difficult at start, then gets really easy towards the end; last boss was completed in a single attempt)
- Not enough upgrade options; I had everything combat-related unlocked before starting the third dungeon, which also disincentivizes base building

Looking forward to DLC!

I am in my "not going to finish games if the systems dont catch my attention fast enough" era. I played this for an hour, then watched pieces of the rest of it, and then watched an analysis of the story. Honestly, this was one of those games that I knew I wouldn't really be into in terms of gameplay, but knew that it would be worth diving into the story and the cultural impact of. I think games like this and Doki Doki are pretty interesting concepts (though the former was substantially more interesting because of its technicalities and 4th wall breaks), attempting to play with psychological horror by making use of mental health story elements. Its something I'd like to see a little more of, but I want them to break away from anime plots. Both this and Doki Doki have very typical horror anime plots, and as someone who watched that type of stuff in high school, I'd like to see something different done with these themes. I guess Hellblade is the closest big-budget thing that kinda does this. More of that would be cool

This was such a surprising release. It came out of nowhere and was so much fun to play. Truly a love letter to old-school JRPGs.

I loved the combat. Balancing the overdrive meter while taking on tough enemies scratched an itch I had for so long. I want more games to force me to use strategy for every single combat encounter.

I had 2 big gripes though:
1. The story is unnecessarily confusing, and none of the characters are compelling enough. I can mostly excuse this, given the game is created by a single person, but it did take me out of the experience a bit.

2. The sky armor combat was not nearly as fun as the regular combat. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it was tedious. There's not much variety in what you can do with them, and I basically just stuck to the same strategy throughout the game. I think I would've enjoyed Chained Echoes way more if the Sky Armors just didn't exist in the game. Give me more regular combat, which is already exceptional!

I hope this game gets a sequel.