The best of 90s Squaresoft RPGs reimagined with modern quality of life improvements and nigh-perfect pacing.
I had been hankering for a good RPG in the vein of JRPGs of yesteryear. Chained Echoes was getting good reviews shortly after its release in December, but I hesitated due to it’s impossibly low price of $25. JRPGs are generally quite vast, and I assumed, incorrectly, that this would be another game that begins promisingly enough, but ends up becoming a monotonous, padded-out slog. I’m so happy to be wrong.
The game starts in the thick of the decisive battle of a 150-year-old war. Your main character, Glenn, accidentally triggers a weapon of mass destruction. This leads to a simmering peace time that seems too good to be true. After somehow surviving the blast, he sets out to find answers and make amends for the action that caused so much devastation.
The battle systems – Yes, plural
The on-foot battle system is just complex enough for me to feel engaged, but not enough for me to get mentally fatigued by battle mechanic overload. The overdrive system adds a nice meta-game to the battle that can be used to great (half-cost abilities), or dire (low defense), effect. That, in combination with the turn system, helps to ensure your strategies remain fresh, and the character swap system allows you to easily use your B-team characters instead of focusing only on a core four. Characters are only allowed 8 ability slots, which also encourages you to switch out to other characters with different elemental, debuff, buff, or support abilities. You also don’t have to heal after battles, which removes needless busy work.
Because characters only gain skill points through specific boss encounters (a la Chrono Cross), battles feel challenging enough throughout the game, and because you can see most enemy encounters as they appear on the field, you can avoid battles almost entirely. This also means you don’t have to grind through enemies to level up character stats. Field enemies are also spread out enough that most of the field exploration can feel like a leisurely stroll that encourages seeing all the paths available. Defeated enemies are also remembered while you’re exploring the area, so if you hit a subsection of a map and have to backtrack, that enemy encounter will remain absent.
The crystal system is a decent concept – a sort of send-up to the Final Fantasy 7 Materia system – but I found the UI (as of version 1.3) to be annoying to my min-max mentality, especially when new equipment is found at such a steady clip; for instance, if you have a fully-upgraded weapon with all crystal slots full and you come across a new, better weapon, you’ll need to upgrade the new one in order to keep the same crystal configuration. Combine that with the crystal UI, and the large number of party members, and it felt like a chore in the late game.
The other battle system that comes into play about a third of the way into the story focuses on the Sky Armors that are teased at the beginning and throughout the game. It’s a less complex mode, but it’s also harder which makes turn order and strategy very important. During these battles you can’t swap characters, and healing becomes critical.
With Sky Armors you also get the ability to fly around in previously explored areas to access off-the-beaten-path loot or entirely new areas. It’s a really cool way to reward revisiting the early game.
A bald-faced impersonation? No, inspired remix!
The art style is a great mix of SNES / PlayStation 1 sprite work, clearly inspired by Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and other such gems from that era. The palettes for each area are distinct and limited which helps highlight interactive objects and makes the characters stand out. There are small, unexpected details that really show the care put into this game. Despite being a modern game that can take advantage of higher resolution displays, they rightly confined internal resolution to 640×360.
The modern conveniences of fast-travel, save-anywhere, and always accessible difficulty settings make it quick to jump around the world and try out difficult bosses or areas. The battle system, too, indicates to you an enemy’s strength and weakness, and delineates enemies from which you can steal, and since many ailments – like Blind, Poison, and Bleed – are not chance-based, I found the ailment system to be something I used frequently instead of something I dreaded because I almost always knew that an ailment would work… once I figured out what they actually meant.
One of the less polished aspects of the game is that it is lacking explanations for character stats and status ailments, so there’s a bit of necessary inherent knowledge or trialing to suss out what’s what. You can probably guess the obvious ones, but something like “paralyze” appears to be chance-based, whereas “blind” isn’t and only works against physical attacks.
The music is also really well done. Nothing really overstays its welcome, which is crucial when you’re listening to the soundtrack on repeat during gameplay. They all sound like Real™️ songs put through an audio filter to lessen their detail to fit the 16/32-bit aesthetic, and it works great. The sorrowful “Flowers of Perpetua” is a stand out, especially in the context of the world.
There is a good amount of character intrigue throughout the story, eschewing the modern trend of anemic through lines that barely keep you engaged in the world (Metal Gear Solid 5, Stranger of Paradise, Octopath Traveler).
The world-building detail is doled out at a good, non-overwhelming clip, and the overall story is tinged with war-time angst and consequence. The first half is very serious, while some party members that join in the latter half are a bit more comical. That shifts the overall tone somewhat. The ending was satisfying.
If you’re looking for a modern day Chrono Trigger-like, well, here it is. Overall this game felt like a breath of familiar, rarefied air. And, heck yes, it runs great on a Steam Deck.
Leave a Reply