by This RPG travels through time and space to end the year with a bang
From time to time, a match arrives at the end of the year to surprise us, just as the calendar draws to a close. We’ve seen this with games like Omori, GrisAnd Whirlpool. And this year, it really looks like it Chained echoes it’s amazing people.
Chained echoes is a new RPG from developer Matthias Linda, a communications designer who started working on the game in his spare time after work in 2016. The project went on Kickstarter in 2019 and launched on December 8, 2022 for Xbox , PlayStation, Switch, and PC via Steam.
It would be easy enough to call Chained echoes a love letter to the golden age of SNES. Wearing his inspirations so prominently on his sleeve, it opens with a direct reference to the beginning of Trigger Chrono. There is no denying that this RPG is a passionate project of a fan of the genre.
But where Chained echoes has stood out for me, in the 12 or so hours I’ve played so far, it’s where it forged a new path from the games that came before it. Chained echoes it’s not just a solid love letter, but an entirely clever, charming, and addictive RPG in its own right.
Act
From the beginning, Chained echoes establishes a diverse cast of characters that make up your eventual party. Everyone has their own motivations and drives, with the chaos of history bringing them together and sometimes separating them.
Glenn and Kylian are the last remnants of their band of mercenaries; Lenne is a hidden princess, assisted by Robb; Victor is a legendary artist and bard with an enigmatic past; and Sienna steals the show as the cunning rogue on the run, as if Faye Valentine wields a katana.
These six form the main group early on, banding together when a fragile peace between the nations is disrupted. Chained echoes it doesn’t take long to really understand how dark it will be. Plans are set in motion, plots unfold, and bodies belie other bodies as the war moves on again, with our party as the only force that may be able to stop it.
It surprised me how fast Chained echoes kicks off, actually. RPGs can often have a reputation, earned or not, for having long, drawn-out presentations. And while Chained echoes it certainly builds up with each narrative pace, it wastes no time even getting to the good stuff.
Do you see the seeds of an evil plan in the works? You will see that it will come to a head sooner rather than later. The dialogues are not only snappy, but also well written. Each character slips comfortably into their roles, and there’s a good job of introducing the player to each “group” of characters that make up the collective party. This becomes even more effective when the story divides them, pairing up those who might clash over some interesting moments.
Put it into overdrive
Where is it Chained echoes stands out the most to me though, is its combat system. This is a turn-based RPG, with a turn order and a list of commands you can choose from a menu while sides are idle on either side of the field. It might seem a little simple at first, but that’s because systems will start creeping underneath.
In the top left corner is the Overdrive Meter, both a key to your success and a tool to your destruction, depending on how you play it. Each character can attack, defend, use items, or activate an ability on their turn. Skills are the most powerful option and are what you want to use whenever possible.
Skills also stack Overdrive, which propels your arrow up. When the party is in yellow, they are neutral and everything is normal. Enter the green zone and you are in Overdrive, doing extra damage, taking less damage, and spending less TP (the resource expended to use skills). But push it too far and you overheat, causing you to now take more damage from enemies.
This is carefully balanced by the gauge icon, which allows you to use skills of a certain type to reduce Overdrive rather than increase it. Battles turn into strategic management of this caliber. I established the order of shifts, thinking about what options I had, not now, but in four or five shifts. Could I risk an Overheat and make up for the next turn? Do I want to use a move that will bring me back to neutral or resist a big shot to stay on the green?
Build a party
Chained echoes‘ systems get even more interesting as you start building the party and learn all their skills. You see, there is no proper leveling system Chained echoes. There is equipment, which can give you some useful stats and can be equipped with crystals for bonus effects. Then there are skills, which you can learn from a board with special stones distributed slowly through the story, and SP, which lets you level up the skills you’ve learned.
It might seem a little strange at first, but the idea is that there isn’t a base layer that drives anything. Instead, everything you do comes back in some amount of progression. Hunt down a specific type of enemy and you could wipe their entry on the ransom tab, racking up some progression points to put back to bolster your party. Maybe that monster drops some good loot that you can sell to the merchant; then the dealer unlocks a new deal, netting you some nice consumables or new equipment for a discount.
Add fast travel and surprisingly brisk running speed in the overworld, and Chained echoes it feels streamlined in a way I don’t always expect from a classically minded RPG. Nothing looks too shaved. You just get to the good parts faster. I spend more time on careful, strategic attacks and nice bits of story than wandering around a field, looking for the next city.
Echoes of the past
All of this combines to make Chained echoes a big surprise for me. I was already intrigued by the allure of giant sky mechs in a fantasy setting. But Linda’s role-playing has a lot of heart behind her obvious influences. The art is thoughtfully done with some intense boss and set design. And all the drama is heightened by Eddie Marianukroh’s soundtrack, which contains some fantastic hits.
I teased a Chained echoes every night on my Steam Deck and I love it. This RPG certainly has a rosy, nostalgic tinge to it, but it uses those inspirations to rearrange and rearrange everything into something new. I enjoyed the bonfire scenes, bumped my head against some bosses that prompted me to rearrange my team and game plan, and was drawn in by all the teasing that drops.
Safe to say, if you like old school RPGs and want something to spend the holidays with, you could do a lot worse than Chained echoes. And since it’s on Game Pass, there’s not much reason not to at least give this passionate project a try.
