The Switch isn’t short of RPG’s with most of the big hittersprominent on the system. The Persona games were one of the last hold outs buteven they have no succumbed to notion of hand held levelling. Amid the big boysthough is this indie RPG which has somehow sprung from the mind of a singleperson. Indie RPG’s are nothing new of course, but one this detailed certainlyis. Indeed, Chained Echoes is here to really give the big guns amassive run for their money.
Perhaps the one area that the game lacks is in fact itsplot. It’s a fairly tried and tested formula, and not one a million miles awayfrom another of the big RPG’s of 2022 in Xenoblade 3. Basically, there are different nations, a big cataclysm type thing happens and then various heroesfrom each nation decide they don’t want to fight and band together to save theworld. We’ve seen it a lot in the past but it works as a solid framework forthe story.
Chained Echoes has a retro top down style to it. It lookssomewhere between Chrono Trigger, the early Breath of Fire games and therecently revived Live A Live. It would certainly fit in with the look of all theSNES games of the past. It does look lovely as well with pixel art working toreally convince you this is some long lost gem.
What is more unique is that the story does not follow the ‘chosenone’ or a sole hero. This is very much about the group and seeing the worldthrough their different eyes. Of course, the characters you have at yourdisposal vary widely and range from knights to thieves with you needing to bepretty sharp at utilising their skill sets in order to proceed.
This isn’t the only break from the norm as Chained Echoesdoes a fair few things differently to the standard template. First of all, youare automatically healed at the end of each encounter. This means skills andmagic are much more in play and using your standard attacks should be left as a last resort. This does mean though that even standard enemies have a heftyhealth bar to knock down. This isn’t helped by the colour of it being almost impossible to discern for anyone remotely colourblind.
Another difference is that you only level up at certainpoints in the game. After defeating bosses you get points you can use to selectfrom a pre-existing list of buffs and skills picked for each character. Thismeans you’ll have to think carefully about the sort of character and team youare trying to build as you can’t just level yourself out of trouble. This canbe a problem as we found ourselves stuck at various points of the game with noreal way to make our characters stronger in order to progress. You can stilllevel up individual character skills in the more traditional way but these areexpensive to buff so be prepared for grinding if that’s the route you want togo.
The real unique selling point though is the attack system. Asyou carry out attacks a meter builds which eventually will move you into ‘Overdrive’.When in this state you get buffs to your attack and defence. Keep going thoughand you will move into ‘Overheat’ which then dramatically improves the odds foryour opponents. In order to keep the meter in the sweet spot you need to keepand eye on which skills move the meter up and down and use the correct onesaccordingly. This can mean swapping characters in and out or having to use askill you really don’t want to so you have think ahead. On top of thischaracters can also build up a special attack meter to unleash much like FinalFantasy’s limit breaks.
If this wasn’t enough to get your head around there’s also awhole host of other stuff going on. You can craft and enhance weapons, join an adventuresguild for side quests or go on Monster Hunts. There’s also a reward grid thatplays out like a sort of board game where as you undertake certain feets youcan claim rewards. There really is a lot to do and see and that’s before you considerthat simply wandering off the beaten path will normally end up with some kindof hidden boss fight or treasure.
Overall, it is remarkable that a game of this size andambition has come from such a small team. It’s in danger of being overlookedbut fans of RPG’s should go out of there way to make sure to check this out. Itholds up against some of the best games in the genre and will give even themost experienced of players something to get their teeth into.
Overall 8/10
