Board 8 > Started playing Chained Echoes *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

*progressive spoilers shall follow!*

This is coming up to 12 months on Game Pass in Dec so it might be taken off around then. I've heard great things so I decided to give it a go while it's still here! All I know going in is that it's a throwback to '90s RPGs, maybe specifically Chrono Trigger (or maybe that was just Sea of Stars).

You know you're in for a good JRPG when you commit magic war crimes in the prologue. Silly Glenn! I like how fluid and scattered the opening is, flitting between all the different characters before you can get bored with one. Lenne is a secret princess which is a zzz trope but IDK if this game will adhere to the old formulae or find fresh ways to subvert them. For a minute we head into FFT territory when her and her Algus-esque subordinate Robb come across some bandits, that's very promising. Then we're off to Ser Victor, knighted for his service to the arts. Later we find he's a member of some non-human race and is over 500 years old, but first we have the CT Millennium Fair homage, new and improved with racing turtles. Yes, this game will suit me just fine!

Sienna is a sultry thief, and she could be a very fun or very annoying character depending on how they write her. "You win, sick child" is a good nudge in the right direction. She meets up with our accidentally genocidal protagonist and his somehow still alive mentor Kylian, and we head through a sewer level and kill an octopus before all 6 of us crash together to run from a demon that we eventually fight, then fall back into the sewers. There's basic political intrigue, bits of lore, and an 'OK' combat system so far, but I'm liking the vibe of the game. It feels like a fun time, not too light (detonating the magic nuke understandably weighs pretty heavily on Glenn) but not too wordy or soulless. I'm only a couple hours in but hopefully it keeps up the fun now everybody is together. I'm getting FF6 vibes more than anything, but there's clearly throwbacks to all sorts of games here. I particularly like the minor rewards and alterations to scenes depending on how well you get through the non-combat sections.

This might not turn into a proper playthrough topic, I just like posting thoughts with games like this to help me keep track of what's going on. We'll see how it goes.

Other people here liked this one better than I did but I still thought it was quite good.

I think it's a great experience and would definitely recommend the game. I think it....falls off, for sure, but I am still glad I played it. A mediocre back half doesn't devalue such a solid first half to me.

It's pretty good i think. It has its issues but I think it's one of the better JRPG-inspired retro indies.

Tag. Glad you're enjoying.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think it....falls off, for sure, but I am still glad I played it. A mediocre back half doesn't devalue such a solid first half to me.

wow sounds like they truly kept the essence of 90s JRPGs!

One of my fav recent games and def my fav of the retro inspired JRPGs. The natural pacing is really good but I would still be careful not to linger too much and uncover every stone. The game feels way better with forward momentum, and there's plenty of time to explore.

If you played any SNES JRPGs, this game has homages to basically all of them. In the actual game design, not just narrative. Totally ingenious.

Back half is fine, could be better. It's the correct amount of JRPG you'd want.

I played this game a while back before they fixed up the progression

The front half was a fucking disaster, gameplaywise. Absolute pure pain because of the incredibly bounded progression while also not giving you the fundamental tools to let you actually have fun with the game. I hear they fixed this later, which is good because the back half was far, far more fun to play. I'd call it like a 7.5 or 8/10 game? It commits some extremely standard Indie Game Sins (TM) but it wasn't too bad.

I'm now up to Leviathan's Trench, and still having a good time. I'm enjoying the battles though they're not phenomenal, and my biggest problem so far is probs how cumbersome navigating the menus can be. But the story is getting more interesting: I liked the stuff with the friendly innkeeper who was secretly running horrifying experiments on the living, and how we're gradually getting teased information on the titular Echoes (soul fragments from past lives that can reach new life and be retained as memories, or something). The politics (and our magic nuke) are still ramping up as we're introduced to more pieces and more players, no complaints so far on that front.

I'm very pleased with the character work so far. Robb's snobbish attitude is likely him overcompensating for being treated so poorly as a ward in Lenne's palace (or that's at least how he's been taught the upper class should act). Lenne herself was beginning to annoy me with her 'I'm not a naive princess!!' shtick, but the game is reinforcing how she very much is still naive so that bodes well. I really like Glenn, a good-hearted and not super intelligent lead. Him straight up asking for info on the grimoire as his reward... oh, Glenn. He's still not fully processed his guilt for detonating the nuke, of course. My fav overall moment may be the talk he and Kylian have in Tormund, where Kylian explains his desire to create a better world via nuclear deterrence, and Glenn not mincing words at all when he says his comatose sister would be horrified at him having become a monster.

Sienna is largely comic relief but I'm enjoying her, the new guy who speaks in plurals is fine, and I was finding Victor a bit too omniscient but we've now had the development from Gwayn that he's using us for his own reasons. And that Glenn is the echo of... someone. Interesting! Some good music, and the areas mostly look pretty beautiful. Tormund and the swamp area in particular. I'm ready for the gameplay to expand but we're getting items in the stores for Sky Armors so I assume they'll be coming into play soon.

I can still hear the sound effect for the flowers

Through the trench and in the Monastary (?) we learn... not a whole lot, really. From what we're told I assume the Grand Grimoire collects the ether of those it kills and gets bigger in the process, destroying more the next time it's triggered. We meet a mystery Sky Armor (I don't remember if this is the same one from the prologue), who seems to identify Lenne as the Sacred Mother the religious folks were looking for maybe, and eventually we wind up imprisoned on the Aurora airship. Lenne finally abandons her brother for good and we're betrayed by... Kylian! I thought he was hiding something back when he encouraged Glenn to try and input the magical symbol in the trench, but it seems he's just a merc for hire and not involved in anything deeper than that. His turn is not good for Glenn's emotional state, but we finally get a Sky Armor and beat up a general to save the- whoopsy, we dropped the Grimoire and it blew up thousands of people. Again! D:

Poor Glenn has now detonated the magic nuke twice, and uh yeah he takes that about as well as you'd expect. It may just be me but I think his stuttering gets worse after this, as we head into a timeskip to conclude Act 1. Special shout-out to the cool depiction of this world's gods as freaky eyes in the clouds searching for the one who stole their weapon, and to Gwayn for kickstarting my favourite fantasy trope, Killing Gods. I hope he winds up on our side and isn't the ultimate villain.

Three months later, Lenne dreams of an Echo and I don't have nearly enough context for this yet but it's cool and I'm sure it's important. Meanwhile Glenn is now cosplaying as World of Ruin Terra with his very own imagined orphanage in order to cope with his guilt (slash torment him further). Interestingly, Victor can also see the imaginary children, hmm... I've no idea what Victor's deal is, but I hope he has a good reason for withholding so much info from us beyond 'it would spoil the plot'. The gang, sans Kylian, reunite on a mission to fix what they broke, and for the most part this is a nice set of scenes. Sienna is fully on Team Good now, and Robb is softening a lot towards the lowborn heathen. Though it's good for Glenn to have friends around him, I don't think sending him back into war is the best option for his mental health. He needs to be kept far, far away from the Grand Grimoire!

I hope we get a Kylian replacement if he doesn't return because I liked his skills, but for now we've got a bunch of Sky Armor fighting. I thought Glenn was an especially talented pilot but I guess anyone can fly these things? I wish they were all different colours so I could distinguish between the party members more easily. The battles are slightly different now with the gear switch mechanic, and I assume more layers will be added as we go.

I'm pretty engrossed with the story now, I wonder how big Glenn's body count will be by the end of the game.

andylt posted...

I wish they were all different colours so I could distinguish between the party members more easily.

You can customize them, IIRC.

^Thank you for that!

Act 2 gives us a bunch of sidequests, most of which are actually good and seem important. On our way down to get a sneak peek of Nhysa, we are given a bunch of info about the True Kings. Some of them are described as freaky mysterious horrors that have rarely if ever been witnessed or comprehended by a human eye, and then there's just some big boar who openly wanders around the world in straight lines carving out land. My fav is the freaky moon watching everyone. It's possible these guys will be endgame superbosses, but some of them seem too abstract to fight so I'm guessing they exist more for worldbuilding.

One sidequest gives us an amnesiac pirate for a crewmate, and another sends Glenn into the Maelstrom (a Sea of Stars, if you will) and teaches us more about the Door and the nature of Ether. It's all neat, though I feel bad for the guy who poisoned his own daughter to spare her the horrors of war then tried to kill himself, only for us to reawaken him and send him off to jail.

On the main quest we recruit Amalia, and meet another cool freaky dude who grants death wishes/curses. Not sure what Amalia's was, though it seems to result in her not being able to speak nicely to people. I assume there's more to it than that. Kylian thinks himself Delita from FFT, and time will tell how successful he is but I'm liking his scene with Glenn in New Wyrnshire. Certainly seems like we're not gonna get him back on team, RIP that skillset.

Before you know it Glenn begins to assert himself and we're invading Tormund to steal the Grand Grimoire thanks to Lady Bran, who I have zero faith in. Cameron tells us we can destroy the Grimoire by detonating it somewhere where nobody would die in its radius. The gang seems onboard but I don't know how we could actually do that, given that we know it absorbs ether from stuff like birds too. We might have to toss this thing into space and hope the Moon God doesn't retaliate.

I didn't realise this would be the Act 2 finale already but man, this is easily the best sequence in the game so far. We learn Gwayn is the voice Glenn hears in his head, and then there's a hilarious fake boss fight with him and June (what is her deal anyway). Then we witness the generals annihilate the invading fleet using the power of the elements, before our confrontation with Lenne's brother. I don't think the game wants us to completely hate Frederik, so it's strange that he insists on making life miserable for Valandis's citizens. He claims there's a reason for this but I don't see how that could work. Anyway, we have a way too easy boss fight (oops, may have spent too much time on sidequests...), followed by a truly awesome set of scenes. Following Gwayn's advice, Glenn opens the door and we get very brief flashbacks of every cast member, showing us some curious new details- Sienna used to work for the military or a king or something (that explains how she can ride a Sky Armor), Ba'Thraz used to speak in singular terms before his family was slaughtered, Victor was in Nhysa as it was sinking, and Amalia poisoned an entire court. I really like these teases, I'm sure we'll get some of them elaborated on but even on their own it's enough to spark the imagination. Anyway, Lenne is killed (!), triggering three giant beings calling themselves gods to rise from the ocean and declare the world doomed, only to sacrifice themselves upon seeing Glenn can still move. Time rewinds a few seconds and Glenn saves Lenne, we steal the Grimoire and flee.

Wow, this was a powerful end of act. The game's artstyle is nice if a bit uninspiring sometimes, but they do the freaky god stuff very well. Great music there, too. Gwayn interestingly mentions that he's saving Frederik's life in his actions, and weirdly seems on the side of the Vaen despite wanting to kill gods earlier. Worryingly for Lenne, everybody (including Ba'thraz!) was mentioning that she wasn't supposed to die "now". Meaning, at some point, she is presumably fated to die and release the gods for whatever plan is going on. And her flashback was to the little maiden Lenne. How much of Celestia is actually Celestia? Ah well, onto Act 3!

good stuff. I want to replay this but I've got a billion other games to play first. This is the next best thing

It's def one of the best introductions to gods in a jrpg, they feel like actual characters

Apologies for not updating this more regularly. Act 3 sends us on a detour up to Shambala. I like Egyl, an honourably honourable bird knight and all-around nice guy. I don't use him much in combat though, I've found it's not usually worth the effort as battles don't take too long and it takes a while to set up his hatred stuff. We witness the church creating monsters and shipping them off around the world, kill one of Frederik's generals, and Egyl's humorous cohort and entire village kill themselves for breaking their oath to the church. Jeez. Well, on the upside we can keep Egyl around now.

We head down to the temple where we are told the Vaen are actually bad guys. It's no shock the gods are our enemy but we're told several times how awful they are, and IDK the writing feels a bit clunky here. I do like the scene where we 'meet' them though, and how they turn upon smelling Glenn. The golems are neat too, with their own philosophical confusions. Some more intrigue with Gwayn and other behind the scenes players ensues, naturally.

After a nice winding down sequence of Amalia helping everyone out by preparing a meal (which I definitely don't ace >_>), we set off on a sidequest and wind up recruiting Tomke's granddaughter Mikah (who has a cool skillset, though kinda fills the same niche Sienna does). We get swallowed by the Megaloworm and hilariously everyone else who has been swallowed is living alive and well down there. We kill the beast... offscreen, without so much as a boss fight. How odd. But hey, new party member!

Without any other sidequests to do, we finally reach Reina's grave. Amalia explains why it was hidden away, but it's still a stretch for me to believe the church couldn't have found this themselves with all their resources. The team are split up, and promptly run through Amalia and Ba'Thraz's vital flashback events that we got a glimpse of earlier. The backstories are decent enough, though it's all a little rushed. That seems to be the theme for this act, which I'll come back to later. The two learn the power of friendship, and before you know it we're whisked away to Marylea, the church's floating capital city.

Marylea is a cool place, I don't think I've mentioned it yet but I really like the church being super technologically advanced in this game, and the lore about their organisation is interesting. Lenne meets Markas, team Frederik launch an assault on the capital, and Ba'Thraz decides for some reason to assassinate the adorable black mage pope. No! I mean, sure, it's a corrupt pope, but a pope who looked so cute! And why did Ba'Thraz go straight for the powerless figurehead instead of the true ringleader who was stood right there?

As one would expect, this turns everyone against the party. Robb continues his slow burn into caring for commoners (which is done pretty well), and then Sienna is confronted by her old pal Raphael and her ex-wife (!) Eva. This is another sequence that feels a bit rushed, it should be monumental for Sienna but we pretty quickly kill (?) both of her former allies and transition the plot back to Glenn and Lenne. Most of the party gets some expansion on their backstory this act, but aside from the main duo they all feel a bit lacking. Maybe it's just me! I did love everyone's 'well yeah duh' reaction to Sienna's secret confession about her past. So she discovered the church's atrocities, abandoned it and then I guess gave up on her ethics due to what she'd seen, and decided to be an amoral thief for a while or something. Hopefully there's more to come with her yet.

Meanwhile, Kylian continues switching sides and winds up with the Grand Grimoire, but a moment's hesitation while recalling Glenn's words puts a stop to his ascent/descent for now. They're doing a good job with Kylian and his struggle to be a cold Machiavellian character coming up against his instincts (and Glenn's) that what he's doing is wrong, though I'm curious what they do with him from here. Gwayn has some use for him, whatever that may be.

The main plot of this area, though, revolves around Glenn and Lenne. At first we're teased into thinking he's Timothy from her past, which would be a super twee development. But instead we get the much more interesting reveal that his Echo is Van, the seemingly irredeemable spoiled rich arsehole who sees Lenne as his property. The revelation sends Glenn into a coma, and the act unceremoniously ends here. I keep playing a bit longer as I can't help myself, and get partway through Glenn's mind where Victor tells us his master Bartholomew is also an incarnation of Van/Glenn. I can't judge this yet as I stopped midway, but I hope they don't go the route of 'Glenn's alright because there's a Good Person in his past as well as a Bad one', rather than him seeing himself as his own flawed (and sometimes accidentally genocidal >_>) individual.

IIRC Magnolia's earlier quest was optional so I wonder how this scene plays out if the player hadn't done it. I'm also curious how many more acts we're going to get, they're flying by now!

You're basically at the end now

Oh huh, thanks for the heads up. I was thrown off by how long Act 1 was compared to the others I guess >_>

Yeah, it could also be that I started rushing towards the end so it went by fast

The stuff in Glenn's mind doesn't really work for me, I think because Van is so far removed from current Glenn that it doesn't feel like they're the same being in any capacity, so him needing to be forgiven and atone for his past doesn't feel earned. Lenne gives a nice speech but eh it doesn't seem to fit our situation exactly. Congrats to Victor on having a legitimately good reason not to tell us everything earlier, though.

On the other hand, the sidequests here are very good! We kill a fairy queen and recruit Magnolia (seriously, how does the Glenn coma stuff play out if you've never met her before, it must be very awkward!). Robb's arc concludes nicely, props to how they handle that. And I really like the Arlette+Raphael combo for their quest, some nice closure to separate unresolved arcs and also some development for Sienna. The conclusion with the band that was after her is amusing, too. Good stuff!

I've gone around hunting monsters and filling my rewards board, but there's several things I'm stuck on. There's two quests on the board I haven't seen, one about a goblin and one about a hammer in the sky. There's some impenetrable vines in the flower fields, a section of Ograne Grottos I can't get to, and a goblin village down there and a secret area in the archipelago that I get turned away from. There's also someone on the Hooge who won't serve me because I don't have the special card, a couple of crew members we haven't recruited, and we still can't access Nhysa.

I think some of this is postgame or still to be unlocked, as the map on Ograne connects to the tower I'm supposed to go to next for the plot, and I assume Nhysa is where we'll head for a final dungeon. Just checking if I can/should do other stuff now, I don't want to lock myself into the endgame unless I have to!

Pretty sure it clearly warns of PONR

it's got an obvious poner

I have never seen Point of No Return abbreviated before and was very confused for a moment

Skipping over andy's posts because I haven't played, but I've always been torn on whether or not I'd enjoy this. I appreciate a good JRPG, particularly from the SNES era, but I don't seem to be as into them as I used to be and I'm not completely sold on the overheating mechanic or the fact that the game switches to being about mechs later. Am I being dumb?

Tried Sea of Stars when it released. Played it a bit and it was...fine, but I ended up not continuing with it, if that's any frame of reference.

Just try it

I played and enjoyed both Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes and they're obviously going to be compared frequently (I've done it myself), but I don't really think your opinion on one is a great predictor of whether you'd like the other. They're fairly different games despite sharing a genre and sources of inspiration.

azuarc posted...

the fact that the game switches to being about mechs later.

This doesn't really happen fwiw. There's still plenty of non-mech battling later on, and they're not a focus of the plot or anything. I'm enjoying the game a great deal! I'd suggest trying the prologue at least to see if there's anything there for you.

azuarc posted...

I'm not completely sold on the overheating mechanic o

i liked it. I know a vocal minority complains about it online but it's good.

We climb Raminas Tower, and Frederik reveals his plan to unite Valandis against a common enemy- him. I've no idea why he didn't tell his fellow officers when they started to question him, it's a pretty absurd plan to keep to yourself, but a cool development. Then the Vaen send a big monster after us, and all our earlier concerns about nukes disappear out the window as we blow it up and seemingly do no damage to anything else around. Well, ok!

The Vaen then say there's things we've misunderstood and I ready myself for another late twist to turn us against Gwayn, which... doesn't come >_> We head down to Nhysa, a fitting final dungeon, and learn some more about its history through its ghosts, who act like everything is normal. Neat vibes down here, I particularly like the section where we create a boss through the memories of the ghosts. We pass Asnadiel who I bookmark for a surefire superboss fight postgame (again, nope!), and eventually wind up at the door to the Vaen.

Our penultimate boss is against Whyatt, who I have to give props to. Dude goes up solo against 4 sky armors and only loses when he's backstabbed by his comrade. We pass June, Gwayn reveals that he's been passing his power to Glenn, Kylian kills him, and we fight Kylian, and then the Vaen. The fights are fine, if a bit basic. Kylian dies saving us, Glenn inherits Gwayn's power, and Valandis is saved. The ending is a mixed bag of stuff you'd expect (Good Queen Lenne zzz but Robb+Egyl yay), until we get a massive rug pull revealing Glenn died and Kylian took his place. What?!

I don't really buy Glenn as being this ancient being ready for death, he found out about it like two days ago and has barely changed since then but now acts like he's sick of having lived all these centuries. I haven't loved the execution of the reincarnation stuff, honestly. But hey he's a bird now. Kylian though, I didn't see this coming for him at all! Don't get me wrong, I like this twist. He's a compelling enough character and it's a far more interesting ending than him sacrificing himself to kill the Vaen, I just didn't think there was the slightest chance the game would let him live after the way it had been treating other misguided characters. So yeah, I'm disappointed about Glenn and don't buy that he'd want to just die like that, but interested in what Kylian does next.

There's some stuff I'm still confused about. We detonated the Grimoire again and it didn't seem to do anything, for all the buildup of the moral quandary of using this thing it's weird that we use it twice at the end and nothing bad comes from it. I suppose Glenn just loves detonating these magic nukes, and killed himself when he realised he'd never be able to use it again. More seriously, I'm surprised there was no new layer added to Gwayn at the end. The Vaen were hyping something up, and sure they have reason to lie, but Gwayn gets exactly what he wants and all his manipulations bear fruit, sure he dies like two minutes earlier than he expected but he doesn't face any other consequences. And then there's June, who appears as a small child to befriend Kylian in the ending. Oh, what the hell! She's been around the whole game and not only do we get no explanation on her and Gwayn, but they throw a curveball like that in at the last minute. Maybe there's some explanation hidden away, or maybe it's just a sequel tease, but I'm a bit disappointed at these open threads with very major characters.

I've cleaned up most of the postgame stuff now, filled the rewards board and gotten all the ultimate weapons. I beat the superboss God King, who poses less of a threat than a timed fight against an assassin girl in Perpetua. The only achievement I have left is to buy all the deals, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to grind the monsters necessary for that. Either way, that's about it! I know I was more negative on the last act or so, but I still really enjoyed myself playing this game.

The ending to this game is either brilliant or completely dumb, and I can't make up my mind on it honestly

I highly enjoyed the ending, but a lot of people are down on it yeah.

I'm very much looking forward to a possible sequel, though worried I'll forget a lot of what happened in this one by the time it comes...

The ending is enjoyable. I can't really say it's good or made sense, but I'm glad they went that direction.

By far my biggest gripe with the narrative is how often people kill themselves, especially toward the end. It starts to feel cheap and fall flat. There's just so many characters dying in general after they've served their purpose in the story.

Yeah I appreciated that they didn't really answer all of the mysteries even if they don't end up with a sequel.

I liked the weird devil guy who made deals with Bathraz. I wanted to know more about him after the game ended.

The masked dude was great, I'm perfectly fine with him and the true kings being left as unexplained interesting lore bits. It just annoyed me with Gwayn and June because they were such an active presence in this game's plot. Especially Gwayn.

There's also some characters that disappear entirely, like Lady Bran or the guy who betrays Amalia to Frederik. And I thought Markas would figure somewhat into the endgame plot but I guess he simply dips out after the pope dies.