Chained Echoes

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS The game features beautiful hand drawn 16bit sprites. The whole game is absolutely gorgeous. The one thing I have a bit of a nit pick is that I wish that the character portraits had more reactions to what was happening, having them be just the single face didn't do much when it comes to more serious aspects of the game. Otherwise I think the backgrounds are amazing and kuddos to the people who created them. One thing I forgot to mention. I wish this game would tone it down with the flashes, I went to the options to disable it but it just replaced the white flashes with grey flashes. ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't The gameplay is one of the focus points of this game but also one that disservices it the most. The combat is incredibly deep and somewhat varied. It features a party swap system that I'd never seen before and makes your whole party very dynamic. However, the issue is that the enemies are way too difficult. They're very spongy and take way too long to take down. Sometimes even knocking out one of your party members in a single turn. I had to turn the difficulty down to go past some enemies and I honestly kept it in easy just to enjoy the story. If this team makes a new game I would recommend making the enemies easier and the bosses harder. A lot of the time the enemies were extremely more difficult than the bosses themselves. I liked how your characters gain levels via GS, while it's ok, it really had me focus on HP due to the enemies being difficult. The shard system is a good idea that even though it works, it was way too bothersome to have me, as a player, deal with it whenever I got a new party member or a new weapon. Simplify it or get rid of it altogether for the next game. I also wish that the skill menu was scrollable so I could have more than 6 skills per character. But it was fine honestly. I mostly kept a healer at all times in my party spamming AOE heals. The sky armor sections are fun honestly. I really like their combat mechanics with the gear system. I think that the way the gear upgrades is fine, however a lot of the times I felt like it was a waste of money because I'd find better gear than my currently upgraded gear and replace it. Thank you for adding an optimize button in the equipment system. ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf The audio is great, I never felt like it was off or odd, it managed to blend in correctly and it improved the game in the right way. ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☐ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma This is not a game for children. Maybe teens can appreciate it but I think there might be some complex topics. However, I think adults and teens can enjoy it just fine. ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer The only time I felt like it's sluggish was right after booting up the game and starting a dialogue, it seems like it's loading some library into memory to process the text and it freezes for two seconds but never happens again until after booting up again ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data Nothing to comment. It's a 2D sprite game, not going to be too big. ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☑ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls Like I commented before, I really think the difficulty needs to be reviewed, as I don't think this game lands as an extremely difficult game, but would of a casual JRPG with very fun combat. ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding Sometimes I had to grind for materials and money to keep my healing items and party fully upgraded, but in 10 minutes you can be maxed out because if you transition screens the materials respawn. ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life The story is the best part of this game. I won't spoil it or to into great detail but it makes sense in the universe it's trying to set itself up and doesn't disappoint. The biggest highlight of the game. It seems like most thread points are wrapped up. I think the story makes sense, and clearly points to a sequel, some games have some problems wrapping up the story but this was done tastefully. ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond It took me around 35h and I did most of the game content. It felt just right. Congrats on the developers :) ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money For 25€ it felt like a great price for the experience. ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs Didn't have any bugs. ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10 Well worth your time if you want to experience a great JRPG made in Europe. ---{ Author }--- ☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template

When you take off the nostalgia glasses and look back at classic JRPGs, many of them have glaring problems, ranging from poorly balanced combat to mechanics that simply do not work as intended. Chained Echoes aims to be a classic 16-bit JRPG in its own right, but despite being developed by a single person, it benefits from decades of progress in game design to deliver an experience without any of those shortcomings. Chained Echoes' experience is strongest in its complex combat system. It's unique, well thought-out and surprisingly well-balanced. It throws you into a wide variety of situations you'll have to puzzle-solve your way out of using the large selection of tools it gives you. This is not a game where you can press attack and win, or grind until you're overpowered. It can feel a little overwhelming at times, but it's a very rewarding experience that is especially impressive coming from a single developer. The combat may be the best part of this game, but that doesn't mean the rest of the experience is anything short of captivating. Chained Echoes has a huge world to explore, full of beautiful locations. The art style is pretty classic, but the way it's used and the amount of details put into environments is superior to what you'd typically see. The soundtrack is beautiful and though it may not have super memorable bangers, it is very good nonetheless. All great RPGs have deep narratives and Chained Echoes certainly lives up to that expectation. It checks all the boxes; great characters and character development, strong themes, great world-building, unexpected twists and turns, emotional moments and on and on. It may not be on the level of life-changing stories from other classics, but it is still great enough that I struggle to find anything bad to say about it. This game is of an exceptional value for the price. I wouldn't recommend this as a first-time RPG, but if you're a fan of the genre and haven't played this, you're missing out.

This is a good jrpg that also has plenty of flaws. Pros -Combat system -Nostalgia -Visuals and Music Cons -Pacing -Dialogue -Some cumbersome systems/mechanics It's great on a handheld and will probably be enjoyed by anyone who has a soft spot for old-school RPGs.