izigame.me

At some point, while I was carefully planning the next 4 turn strategy and synergy against a pack of sentient killer vegetables that all had punny names, I remember thinking to myself "forget about good, this game might be my favourite turn-based JRPG ever". It is up for discussion how much of that was due to the in-depth combat system, and how much was due to the vegetables turning into a megazord combination traversed by a sish-kebab spike halfway through the fight.
Probably 50/50.
But the important thing, is that this is not merely your continent-spanning, 4-disc-long old-school JRPG goodness like the one your grandpa used to play before walking 10 miles to school. No, if it was merely that, it would just be a good game. But Chained Echoes is not merely that.
Chained Echoes is a game that climbed on the shoulders of giants only to end up crushing them. Because when Chained Echoes stands up straight, it is one tall and heavy motherfucker on its own.

Any discussion about Chained Echoes has to start with the combat system and everything that surrounds it, because it is the one thing in the game that refuses to be anything other than excellent for its entire duration. You gotta understand, even it the game was just an array of battle after battle, with only a menu to do the management between them, it would still be good. No wonder it's made by a German, because it is excellently engineered.
There are four main reasons why it work so well. First, the combat is centered around a mechanic that guarantees that every type of move and action will, at one point or another, be a tactically advisable choice. Second, all buffs, debuffs and synergies between characters are turned to eleven. Third, all your mana and health is replenished after every battle. And fourth and most importantly, every single battle is balanced around those points.
But let's backpedal a bit because that requires a bit more explanation. The game has what it calls the "OverDrive" bar. Each turn you are suggested a category of move (physical, magic, buff, utility). If you don't choose a move of that category, the bar rises. Choose a move of the correct category, and the bar lowers and you get suggested a different type of move for the next turn. If the bar gets too high or too low, you get penalized in damage dealt and damage taken (severely). Keep the bar within a specific range, and you get rewarded in those same aspects (significantly).
The ways in which this system is genius are several and not praised enough.
At first, you think that it will railroad you and stifle you, but you eventually understand that it is not a director. It's a dance partner. Eventually you realise, how, when you let it lead, it encourages you to try different combinations of strategies. How it encourages you to not simply choose the damage-dealing move. How it encourages you to use this turn to get a different character "online" for big-boy damage in the next turn. How it encourages you to try all the moves in the movesets. How you can synergise all the combinations of characters and moves and statutes with the OverDrive for an ultimate nuke move that feels extremely rewarding. And you end up understanding when to lead, when to say, this is the appropriate moment to take control and say, no, we are doing this instead.
It's JRPG combat with the energy of that Walter White Cooking meme. There are no words.
And when you combine it with the fact that the whole game is balanced around you being 100%HP and MP every fight? Stellar. There is never a fight where you sleepwalk with simple attack in this game. Every fight is tactical, deep and interesting. Yes it kinda feels weird that some random pig creature in the countryside is almost as lethal as a demon made of pure energy, but when the gameplay and engagement are this good, who gives a fuck?

And that leads me to something else that's great about the game, the world and creatures and its charm. Although the world is in a bit of a sorry state (there's quite a bunch of war and misery going on) the game is not afraid to add a lot of humor and charm to everything that inhabits it. I can't tell you the amount of times that the description of a trash item that's only for selling got a laugh out of me, or the times that I snickered while shaking my head at some of the concepts and descriptions for the creatures. Many a boss will make you laugh incredulously, at least until it breaks your face because the game is, after all, not playing around.

I've seen some complaints about the fact that the fights are too hard, compounded by the fact that the only way to get sifgnificant power ups is to defeat bosses and subbosses. To those people, I would say that wanting to beat this game by simply overleveling through fighting minor creatures and playing on autopilot, would be like wanting to beat a sudoku by writing random numbers on the side. The fact that you have to engage with such well crafted strategy systems and can't significantly throw them off balance is to be welcomed.

There is one negative commonly thrown around that I do agree with however, it is related to the story. A large part of that, I feel is due to Chained Echoes' inability to rise above one of the most common problems in JRPGs: making the main character and the driver of the story the most vanilla milquetoast motherfucker in the cast. Seriously he's called GLENN. Do I need to say more? Your character roster has Gandalf-meets-Obi-Wan-meets-Shakespeare, a lizardman with metal limbs, princess Nuke, a witch that has magic Poker powers, a BIRDMAN WITH A GUNSWORD, and your protagonist is a ginger called GLENN? His defining trait is "good with machines"! He couldn't be more of a boring nerd! What the fuck?
When the story follows other characters and their conflicts, it's good. When it follows this piece of stale white bread, it stumbles. Since he's the main driver of the story, that means it, ultimately, stumbles overall.
But for me at least, it wasn't enough to outweight the good will that the game had built in almost every other area.

For me, above all else, Chained Echoes is the benchmark that I will judge every other turn based system against from now on, wrapped in a delightfully charming package with memorable creatures and side characters that make it hard to not play it with a smile from beginning to about 90% towards the end. And that's, I feel, a good thumbs up.