What this means is that there’s no point grinding for experience points. Who goes first depends on the unit’s agility stat, which can be raised in a character’s skill page after beating specific encounters (namely bosses) in the game. Battles consist of each unit taking their turn, either by attacking, using skills or items, or defending.

(Matthias Linda/Deck13) Combat ReadinessĬhained Echoes is a turn based JRPG, which for many of us is self-explanatory. Visuals are vibrant even in the deadliest of environments. That, and you’ll likely be left wondering what to do for your next objective as the game will plop you right to the next gameplay beat with no context or summary of the events skipped.īut of course, the other half of a JRPG is its combat system, which is both great and yet ultimately left me in a bit of a pinch. You can skip cutscenes if you’d like, but I don’t think I would ever bother playing a JRPG if I wasn’t somewhat invested in its narrative. I’ll admit, I didn’t care too much for the writing and dialogue, but I thought the characters were likable enough to keep reading.The tone and word choice used by characters always seemed to vary as you walk about in Valandis and it kept me from truly immersing myself. In comparison to something as rigid as Dragon Quest of yore, this game feels like a dream to play. The game offers unlimited, 100 percent success rates for escaping battles and you never have to worry about post-battle healing because the game always starts off fights with everyone at full health. Enemy encounters are almost always visible on-screen, and you can usually dodge them if you’re just not feeling it. For example, besides a brisk walking speed, each zone is as big as it needs to be and not a metre more. And this is where those quality-of-life features I mentioned are-Chained Echoes feels smooth to play compared to JRPGs of old because of how it paces its content and features. This game is big and yet easy to explore. The world is filled to the brim with lots of tiny details and plenty of characters to have brief chats with (and bookshelves!) if you want to learn more about Valandis. The land of Valandis is a well-made one and much of it reminds me of Ivalice of Final Fantasy XII fame-animal beings, machinations known as Sky Armour, the undead, and etcetera. This changes the course of fate, and you’ll follow the adventures of these characters from their unlikely meeting to preventing another pointless war from occurring. In Chained Echoes, players follow a cast of characters from all over the land following the destruction of the Opus Stone during a great war-done by Glenn in the prologue, your hands to be exact. (Matthias Linda/Deck13) Unapologetically A JRPG The battle system allows for a lot of mix up opportunities with character and skill combinations. It should be so perfect, but this rose has a very strong thorn and its prick can be a bit painful.Īllow me to echo my sentiments. It features gorgeous pixel graphics, tonnes of quality-of-life features to keep its gameplay fast paced, great music, and a lengthy campaign. A game that was Kickstarted back in 2019 as a love letter to old-school JRPGs (“Japanese role-playing game”), Chained Echoes has shaped up to be up there with the best of indies. There is something beautiful about Chained Echoes, a game developed by Matthias Linda and published by Deck13 Spotlight.

Chained echoes