three and a half, uh... chained.. echoes.. out of five. second time i'm trying to do this gag and i'm already running out of ideas.
anyway, very good game. i think it's definitely not without its issues, but for (basically) a one man creation it's such an astoundingly impressive achievement that i really don't feel like going TOO deep into them. the two things i will mention specifically are the portraits, and the dialogue. i just frankly don't like the portrait art very much, i think many of the characters look quite goofy which often clashes with the tone of the scene. i think i would have preferred just.. no portraits at all, maybe some character art in the menu. the rest of the art is just fucking beautiful, man, which is why the portraits stand out.
the portrait thing also feeds into the second issue, which is dialogue and specifically, how a lot of the characters seem to lack a distinct voice most of the time and how hard discerning tone could often be. many characters have their own fun little quirks (i could never get used to victor's "shishishi" though it just READS SO WEIRD BRO) for sure, but idk, when talking like, whole conversations, something about it just felt off a bit too often for me. could be a function of the game being made by someone whose native tongue isn't english, could be a lot of little things.
but yeah, otherwise it's really damn good. while, granted, i did lower the difficulty to the lowest about halfway through and kept it there for the rest of the game because i am apparently--unfortunately--completely over regular turn-based jrpg combat at this point, i loved the idea and most of the implementation of the combat and character progression systems. the grimoire shard system made level ups feel just right when it comes to rewards, a really nice middle point between your typical jrpg numbers bump and a considerably more involved crpg, and the low fight frequency and replenishing resources made every fight feel meaningful. everything about the gameplay in general felt snappy, which is just fantastic.
i enjoyed the hell out of the story, too. i thought it was a really wonderfully executed take on the whole "revive the classic jrpgs" sub-genre of indie rpgs, like it's blatantly doing that but also it does such a good job weaving all these tropes and cliches and beats into a tightly plotted storyline that also feels genuinely fresh. lots of fun little twists to said beats along the way which definitely helped there. lacks a bit of emotional impact for me since i wasn't SUPER into the cast due to the aforementioned dialogue issues, but it had its moments and the ending in particular made me go :') a bit.
p damn excited to see what matthias does next. i read that he initially wanted chained echoes to have a more real-time combat system, so i'm definitely hoping he'll get to fulfill that dream with his next game--something more along the lines of ff12 or xenoblade but with chained echoes' philosophy on combat frequency and character progression could be incredible.
anyway, very good game. i think it's definitely not without its issues, but for (basically) a one man creation it's such an astoundingly impressive achievement that i really don't feel like going TOO deep into them. the two things i will mention specifically are the portraits, and the dialogue. i just frankly don't like the portrait art very much, i think many of the characters look quite goofy which often clashes with the tone of the scene. i think i would have preferred just.. no portraits at all, maybe some character art in the menu. the rest of the art is just fucking beautiful, man, which is why the portraits stand out.
the portrait thing also feeds into the second issue, which is dialogue and specifically, how a lot of the characters seem to lack a distinct voice most of the time and how hard discerning tone could often be. many characters have their own fun little quirks (i could never get used to victor's "shishishi" though it just READS SO WEIRD BRO) for sure, but idk, when talking like, whole conversations, something about it just felt off a bit too often for me. could be a function of the game being made by someone whose native tongue isn't english, could be a lot of little things.
but yeah, otherwise it's really damn good. while, granted, i did lower the difficulty to the lowest about halfway through and kept it there for the rest of the game because i am apparently--unfortunately--completely over regular turn-based jrpg combat at this point, i loved the idea and most of the implementation of the combat and character progression systems. the grimoire shard system made level ups feel just right when it comes to rewards, a really nice middle point between your typical jrpg numbers bump and a considerably more involved crpg, and the low fight frequency and replenishing resources made every fight feel meaningful. everything about the gameplay in general felt snappy, which is just fantastic.
i enjoyed the hell out of the story, too. i thought it was a really wonderfully executed take on the whole "revive the classic jrpgs" sub-genre of indie rpgs, like it's blatantly doing that but also it does such a good job weaving all these tropes and cliches and beats into a tightly plotted storyline that also feels genuinely fresh. lots of fun little twists to said beats along the way which definitely helped there. lacks a bit of emotional impact for me since i wasn't SUPER into the cast due to the aforementioned dialogue issues, but it had its moments and the ending in particular made me go :') a bit.
p damn excited to see what matthias does next. i read that he initially wanted chained echoes to have a more real-time combat system, so i'm definitely hoping he'll get to fulfill that dream with his next game--something more along the lines of ff12 or xenoblade but with chained echoes' philosophy on combat frequency and character progression could be incredible.