This is absolutely one of my favorite games ever. Was stunned that I was actually surprised by the plot, loved all the characters, systems were great...just loved it.
don't bother playing this game. its a story of a simp being reborn numerous times for his twitch thot. if you think one life time is enough, how about a dozen life times simping for a mid? also out of your party members, two are homosexuals, one is a lesbian and a pedo. i doesn't get better than this!!!
You put so much effort in completing the latest games 100 % and putting up a review as soon as possible . Really appreciate your grit and perseverance .
The fact that this game is on game pass is amazing, I loved this game so much and is a rare 100% complete for me! By the end game it does feel quite easy and a few of the party members (robb) seem totally usless but it's such a fantastic experience.
damn i gotta disagree there slightly. i liked having a robb-sienna combo to combo the paralyze with that one sienna ability and it worked rly well for me. i didnt use robb at all in the beginning to mid game though
Robb is like the best boss/unique encounter-debuffer after the first arc though. His Nature's skill and basic agility even replaced Victor's buff, debuff removal, etc. He's like the 2nd/3rd best party once you get Micah. Easy to utilize with Sienna as well. It is thanks to him that you can kill bosses/unique encounter within 3-4 boss turns.
I have seen a handful of reviews of this, including your initial impressions and you still make it compelling to watch this in its entirety. Fantastic work.
Found this gem called Dungeons of Aether. It's a turn-based dungeon crawler RPG set in the Rivals of Aether universe and has a very interesting art style & gameplay direction. The game has just been released a few days ago and I think it's worth checking out.
Interesting about agility stacking. I actually never did this even against the bonus bosses. I made myself pretty much immune to enemy attacks by using off/def buffs/debuffs and Shielding Maruzaka. Because I never looked online for strategies I just came up with my own way to fight which was different to yours.
Only found your channel a few days ago but I've really enjoyed your content/reviews. Just being someone whos actually played the games you review - while sounding super obvious - makes all the difference. It still baffles me that people churn out 'reviews' based on half (or usually less than half) of the proverbial story. I've personally played and 100%'ed a couple of the games you've reviewed and you pretty much nailed everything in your videos. I appreciate that you present the facts and don't delve too much into personal gripes. I also appreciate that the videos are no nonsense - there's no stupid cuts to irrelevant skits or trying desperately to be funny, there's no fluff or filler, its just on topic stuff. Love it. I've been watching your other videos to see what games might be worth playing and certainly trust your judgement. Thanks for the content. You'll probably never see this post as the vid is a few months old but oh well, lol.
It still has problems even if you do know how it works. The main thing being that removing gems from weapons makes those crystals no longer upgradable. So they're then stuck at whatever level permanently, as well as become 3 slot crystals making them even less useful. And since you get new weapons pretty regularly, it quickly makes the system pointless until endgame. And even at endgame, the gains from the crystals are so negligible that there still isn't much point in using them. Thankfully the system is going to be retweaked in an update.
@@EpicFailureFive you can feed the old gems into new gems. It's still a bad system but I liked using up all the purity and the 3 slot ones to make a big useless gem, put it into gear, and then remove it. Then use a 1 stone gem and fuse those and then it becomes a 2 stone gem. I'd generally put 2 gems into each piece of gear and throw a 1 stone gem to max out the gear slots. I might be the minority who spent too much time playing around with the gems.
@@adamritton5820 Only if the gems weren't fused before slotting them. At least in my case I was getting mostly level 1 and 2 gems for the majority of the game.
@@EpicFailureFive I agree that the system is super confusing and hard to figure out. However I can’t say it’s useless… Gems or you can increase your attack or agility especially, are not useless whatsoever if they are high level gems. You can also make passive abilities more diverse by using a gem instead, like evasionist. Also elemental gems make regular attacks hit weaknesses without needing to apply cotes or use skills. I love the idea… But not the execution. I spent way too long figuring it out and it is tedious with the current way. The game developer is working on that upgrade for March and a new game plus in May
The system may be a bit obtuse, but for me it's been very useful. You just need to wait and fuse crystals until they're level 10, then use them for your weapons (and you can now take them out a weapon and put on another without penalty). Buffing Sienna's agility with it is awesome, and I managed to paralyse almost every enemy with Glenn (since his main attack, Cross Slash, counts as 3 attacks, it increases the chance of status applying).
I played all the JRGPS way back in the 90s (that I could actually get here in the states) - and have a ton of nostalgia for those games and how they made me feel at the time. Chained Echoes is the only game I can think of that really tapped into that feeling I had as a kid. The unique take on battles were just refreshing... using past lives as part of the story was great. It was all around a fresh take on the whole genre. My only nitpick is probably the close up art of the faces could have been a little bit better - but even here I am not that upset because these games have been anime to death so... maybe a softer western style isn't the worst thing on the planet. All around solid amazing game. Really hope they keep the series up. Well done
best turn based combat system is conditional turn based (ctb) in my opinion. in which you can alter the turn order of both party members and enemies. final fantasy x did it spectacularly with showing how each move would affect the turn order before you execute them. also, not only by buffing or debuffing (casting haste or slow) but each action had its "speed" which affected when that character's next turn would come up. like huge attacks delaying your next turn etc. most bosses were immune or resistant to low level status effects and/or could dispel them. chained echoes seems to go that route but couldn't nail it in the execution, from what i understand from the review.
FFXs' combat system was the best i ever played. To be fair, the thing with the status ailments i didnt like that much. I completed the game 100% 3 times in my lifetime (ps2, ps vita x2) and i have to say, that not beeing able to inflict any status ailment to any enemy basically when you start doing the monster farm progression really hurt the whole idea of implementing status ailments in the first place. I mean, why bringt them all to the table, having dozens of abilities wich inflict them, only to make every optional enemy (wich is like 60ish percent of the game really) beeing immune to all of them? I dont get that. But i love FFX nevertheless
Combat in Chained Echoes utilizes buffs/debuffs and status effects really well. Certain attacks combo off of the enemy having a certain status applied, or of course elemental weakness. My basic setup for most of the game was party attack buff > enemy defense debuff > paralyze enemy > attack that deals 3x damage to paralyzed enemy + high crit %. There are many party builds you can set up like this, and all of that applies even to bosses which was a breath of fresh air. Having high agility helps for your main DPS character(s), but is not as necessary as the review makes it out to be for the entire party.
Considering the small team developing this title, it's amazing what they have achieved. One of the best JRPGs in the last decade with a bunch of innovations that we certainly will see in major upcoming titles.
Most of the issues you had with this game I didn't even notice lmao. I recently finished this game and it quickly became my favorite of all time, I love this game so much
Just got 100% on this myself. Definitely worth playing for old school RPG fans even if there were several points in the story where I caught myself going "Ah, so they're homaging this now" several times, lol. The story also was too convoluted for its own good, imo. A few too many twists. But still, totally worth it.
I appreciate the objectivity of your reviews. Most people just gush about this game without acknowledging it’s flaws. You highlight the shortcomings while still acknowledging that this is, in the end, still a good game.
I tried this game out on a whim and it's the perfect mix of old and new! Has the same great classic chrono trigger nostalgia feel with alot of quality of life improvements that bog down older titles. It's a great find!
On the steam deck lag issue, I thought the game was unplayable at first because it froze for 1 minute. It turns there’s a setting in the bios that keeps changing the VRAM from 4 gigs to 1 gig. I changed it back to 4 and the freeze only happens for about 2 seconds. Looking at steam deck statistics, you can see that vram shoots up past 2.8 gigs in use during first actions of combat. When the deck is in 1 gig VRAM mode, the combat code has to churn through whatever calculations a lot slower as it has to wait for memory to free up.
Practically everyone does. It’s one if the few flaws in a great game. It is good that you can just ignore it, but put some crystals on if you need help with a boss.
I never comment much, but know that I watch all your videos. This for me was one of the best games of 2022 and I am very happy that I have the opportunity to play it and analyze it for us. Anyway, very grateful for your work and content Mortis, I appreciate you as a person and I'm a big fan of your work, keep up the good work. Looking forward to the next videos.
Just found you and love your videos man! Bought this and started playing today. Just a couple hours in and already I’m happier with it than most other games of this genre that I’ve played in the past.
That is a phrase I have been looking for for years. "Pacing Out the Revelations". That is such an important element of what makes the classic jrpgs so epic, so huge in scope. These small journeys that become a fight for the fate of the world or the survival of all life in the universe, you gotta love it.
This was a game I didn't jazz with at all that I thought would be a long awaited return to one of my favorite genres. Everything felt a little off, like the combat, skill progresion, selecting abilities at level up, but I really couldn't stand the dialogue which killed it for me. Thanks for showing off some of the later systems I never got to though.
My only issue with the game (and why I burned out around act 4 which isn't uncommon for me in games), was just too many systems.I would have loved it if the game was just the party-based rpg. I would have muddled through the crystals even if optional. However, I really did not enjoy the mech combat. I would drop the game difficulty from normal/high/high to normal/normal/normal when going between mech and party. However, the combat was interspersed enough that doing so got tedious. It also bothered me how insanely good agi was which in turned made the characters with low innate agi not great. All in all, I made it 75% of the way through a JRPG for the first time in a long time so it was a pretty great game. I'll probably go finish up the rest of it (I'm at Good Faith) in a couple weeks or so. Life is just stressful enough for me right now that I'm playing a default game that doesn't take brain power to play/consume the story.
I would finish it. The story arcs are well worth it for all characters but especially Glenn. For most all the game I thought Glenn was just an okay main protagonist, but once the credits roll I have a lot of respect for his individual story
This game was awesome and was able to remain faithful to the jrpg spirit, inspite innovating various aspects of the genere, without needlessly twisting its core. SE should learn from it. One of the best indies I have played so far.
Great video, was waiting for your review. Always good to hear the good and bad qualities of a game so expectations for said game are not too high or low.
You can get very OP in this game. I was surprised by his gameplay he showed of an endgame boss, where one of his characters almost died. By the time I fought that boss, the bosses didn't get to have turns anymore. There are some really wild builds available, people have solo'd every boss with some characters.
I just finished it yesterday, after seeing your review a couple of months ago. First time playing this genre, I was pleasantly surprised. Not a fan of this type of combat, but it was decent, even for me ( on low). I really enjoyed the story, dialog and exploration. Thank you for your content, it helped me try different types of games that I didn't know I would like. Off to find the next game to play, the search continues...😊
One thing not mentioned in this review which I think should be is the music. It’s surprisingly varied, and really good. The different areas feel distinct and unique.
I highly recommend Chained Echoes. It's a mechanically amazing. The story is (mostly) great. The world building is well done if a bit dense. That said. Agility breaks the game agile parties can act a half dozen times per baddy action. Midgame jumps difficulty very quickly. The end of the story feels a bit rushed. And the twist at the ending kinda sucks.
I agree with the class abilities system. It should've been a thing that evolved as you leveled with that class or it should have presented a whole new tier of unlocks for that particular class. Also their really is nothing to good to say about the crystals. it just didn't land.
Great review. The early super positive reviews I read for this game overhyped it for me, I played about 18 hours and I'm probably done. It's a solid little JRPG but definitely doesn't come near to "revitalizing the genre" like some were claiming. A lot of the systems like the crystals are very meh or even bad. The story is pretty good but for whatever reason reading text only in 2023 doesn't work as well for me as it did playing classic JRPGs back in the day. I had basically zero attachment to any of the characters, which prevented me from getting into the game. Overall though it's definitely not a bad game, 6/10 for me
Hey brother, in love with this game. Scratched an ich I've had for years while respecting my time as an adult. 1 - Thanks for the crystal tip, interface is horrible, can't auto-remove all which is a b**. Been spending too many minutes trying to trudge through this upgrade and thanks to you I'll only take a look once each act. 2 - Battle lag is systemic but minor. Running mid-high end rig and get exactly same battle lag at 1st battle after loads. Thanks again for the brutal and kind honesty in your reviews. Cheers
I started watching your channel for crpgs you used to review and now you’re my favorite TH-cam channel specially that you mostly review games I love 😍❤️
Yeah, I don't know if this is what everyone else did too, but in the end game I was using Sienna with quickstep and her ultra move, and Mikah with Double Steps, to stack agility on Sienna and then spam Dragonfang on everything, while Glenn debuffs enemies with All Break. I just repeated this strategy until the game was over
great review. regarding the crystal system, I found it to be pretty fun to slap them into my gear. there's some fun ones that auto apply buffs or add crit etc. no need to min max them though. and the game just recently came out with a 1.2 patch that adds a NG+, though at time of writing, its not updated on Switch yet.
goddamn , i never thought im going to feel nostalgic playing an jrpg. it makes me felt like 1st time i play ff7 in ps1 , i freking love it. i just dun like the shards systems lol the crystals stuff also meh, but otherwise. its enjoyable. keep the game like this coming
I totally agree with you on the crystal system. Even with a tutorial, it almost impossible to understand what's expected of you... By trying to make this not too much overpowered, the designer made it useless. Well, the rest of the game is brilliant, so that's not a real issue, tbh.
as a guy who have finish the final fantasy 1 to 7 this game really hit to me love it i havent completed it tho just happy to see some really positive review keep up the good work man!!
The vampire class emblem's active is good, I put it on Sienna because she runs out of tp, on glenn so he can share tp with the team via energy share and the tank so he becomes an unstoping wall. Ofc I change it after maxing the skill and not having to equip the class.
I loved the first couple of hours. The intro was exciting and the art/world is charming. I went back to play more, but they pulled it from Gamepass. I probably I'll buy it though. I think it's worth the $25 asking price. It just feels like an modernized version of what I loved as a teenager, nostalgia double-chocolate cake.
My one issue with the game, and this could be a non-issue if you aren't super savvy with JRPGs, is that much of the story is built on subverting plot points from other JRPGs. Like it will take something I recognize from Xenogears or Star Ocean and then it will go the opposite way with it. Because of that I couldn't really enjoy the story that much.
Just beat it yesterday. I shed a few tears at the end -- what a f'king beautiful game. I can't get the soundtrack out of my head. Been listening to it on Spotify non-stop.
The Cristal system is actually the “grindy” part of the game in my opinion because you discover its full potential in the late game where you can make your party members extremely overpowered thanks to it by farming the Cristal locations. One you understand how it works it’s just fine. The problem is that it’s really badly explained in the game and I had to check the internet to get a full explanation. But one again it’s a nice system, but optional because I could finish the whole game without it.
IMO the only bad thing about the crystal system, is the penalty you get when you remove a crystal from equipment, that just seems like a pointless annoyance to me than anything else.
Totally agree about the crystals... I also did all the side content and I found it just takes soooo loooong to do crystals and then you walk out the door and find a sword that invalidates everything you just did XD The only one I consistently bothered with was crit% for Sienna
How about the endgame/postgame ? I always love to have some more content in my JRPGs after finishing the main story. Stuff like hidden dungeons and super bosses.
Just finished the game! It was quite good overall, I wasnt bothered by the crystals, my main nitpick was that the timing in battles felt off. It feels like the “moving” animations are always on a fast forward setting, making the battles feel less impactfull
Octopath cast wasn't interesting past their intro. It's why I dropped that game and didn't get the Nostalgia love it got given I didn't get that at all and i wanted to feel it but it never really came close after the very interesting dancer intro and that was extremely disappointing
@@TH-camCensors Asano games are always like that. They make characters with cool backgrounds but they outright tell you through boring, by-the-book exposition, without exposing those characters to various events that are connected to each other. P.S. Triangle Strategy characters are still better than all of Octopath though not by much
Just saw your review the other day for Sea of Stars and saw comparisons to this game in the comments. Lo and behold, you did a review of it was well. My gaming backlog has grown quite a bit since finding your channel but has also helped me avoid some stinkers.
It boggles my mind how someone can 100% the game and still write off the crystal system. It’s not that complicated at all and they are actually pretty useful especially the ones like HP DRAIN, COUNTER ATTACK, and EVADE. In short, they enable your character to have passive abilities they might never get via regular skill learning otherwise. All my characters’ weapons had HP DRAIN crystals and most of the time I never felt the need to heal in battle. They’re a great upgrade to your party and offer another dimension to battle. Just finished this game last night and it was one of my favorite adventures so far. The overdrive system is so innovative. My only gripe is that fixed monster spawns make grinding for materials a bit tedious especially with the complicated map layouts. Overall a great game!
@@MortismalGaming oh, that’s definitely a good thing then. I don’t know if you usually replay games even after they’ve been overhauled but it’s probably a better experience now. I’m glad this game is getting lots of praises because it’s made me wish there were more jrpgs with combat systems like this!
I love this game, and I'm happy to see you review it. I, however don't think the crystal system is bad, or hard to understand. Just auto combine your jewels and equip them. I use it mostly for specialization of my characters. It could definitely be quicker to equip them though
Autocombine is actually the worst thing you can do with your crystals. The low rank crystals with high purity are the most useful and autocombining can randombly get rid of your good ones.
Fantastic game. I just find it funny that no one talked about Rise Of The Third Power last year because, in my opinion, It’s not much inferior to Chained Echoes.
I loved this game but I hated the sky armor battles. You gained so many skills on foot that by the time I got the sky armor. I felt like starting over progression wise. Late game as you got stronger it got easier but most times this system just felt forced and unnecessary.
It might not be your kind of game, but I recommend playing Brutal Orchestra. It has the best turn based combat that I've played and a really cool and weird art style
You have quickly become my favorite game reviewer.
The dude is the best that there is right now
The best.
Straight up. I get excited when I see an upload lol.
Yeah. Very down on Earth, pleasant voice, not too long reviews. Mortismal+Mandalore+ACG is all I need. ;)
@@redshift912 YES
This is absolutely one of my favorite games ever. Was stunned that I was actually surprised by the plot, loved all the characters, systems were great...just loved it.
don't bother playing this game. its a story of a simp being reborn numerous times for his twitch thot. if you think one life time is enough, how about a dozen life times simping for a mid? also out of your party members, two are homosexuals, one is a lesbian and a pedo. i doesn't get better than this!!!
You put so much effort in completing the latest games 100 % and putting up a review as soon as possible . Really appreciate your grit and perseverance .
The fact that this game is on game pass is amazing, I loved this game so much and is a rare 100% complete for me! By the end game it does feel quite easy and a few of the party members (robb) seem totally usless but it's such a fantastic experience.
i always use robb for poison and agility break. especially for bosses. Then again I only use the 8 main characters
mostly depends on how you play . some character are easier to utilize than other tho a certain one is completely shitty .
damn i gotta disagree there slightly. i liked having a robb-sienna combo to combo the paralyze with that one sienna ability and it worked rly well for me. i didnt use robb at all in the beginning to mid game though
Robb is like the best boss/unique encounter-debuffer after the first arc though. His Nature's skill and basic agility even replaced Victor's buff, debuff removal, etc. He's like the 2nd/3rd best party once you get Micah. Easy to utilize with Sienna as well. It is thanks to him that you can kill bosses/unique encounter within 3-4 boss turns.
Yeah Robb is good for debuffs lol I liked Victor Glenn sienna and bathraz
I am VERY tempted to get this - thank you for covering it!
i didnt see light for a week. worth it!
I have seen a handful of reviews of this, including your initial impressions and you still make it compelling to watch this in its entirety. Fantastic work.
Found this gem called Dungeons of Aether. It's a turn-based dungeon crawler RPG set in the Rivals of Aether universe and has a very interesting art style & gameplay direction. The game has just been released a few days ago and I think it's worth checking out.
Interesting about agility stacking. I actually never did this even against the bonus bosses. I made myself pretty much immune to enemy attacks by using off/def buffs/debuffs and Shielding Maruzaka. Because I never looked online for strategies I just came up with my own way to fight which was different to yours.
Only found your channel a few days ago but I've really enjoyed your content/reviews. Just being someone whos actually played the games you review - while sounding super obvious - makes all the difference. It still baffles me that people churn out 'reviews' based on half (or usually less than half) of the proverbial story.
I've personally played and 100%'ed a couple of the games you've reviewed and you pretty much nailed everything in your videos. I appreciate that you present the facts and don't delve too much into personal gripes. I also appreciate that the videos are no nonsense - there's no stupid cuts to irrelevant skits or trying desperately to be funny, there's no fluff or filler, its just on topic stuff. Love it. I've been watching your other videos to see what games might be worth playing and certainly trust your judgement.
Thanks for the content. You'll probably never see this post as the vid is a few months old but oh well, lol.
Wow, you're covering all the stuff I'm interested in. Nice to see a reviewer not just chasing the AAA crowd.
I really enjoyed the storyline, it's been a very long time you couldn't predict the ending for a game.
There is also a nice sense of humor in the game. Looking at the some of the enemies descriptions in the bestiary are pretty funny for example.
The death metal turtle race was a hilarious surprise.
honestly, have read most of item descriptions. They are all awesome imo
It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only person who had no clue about how the crystal system worked
It still has problems even if you do know how it works. The main thing being that removing gems from weapons makes those crystals no longer upgradable. So they're then stuck at whatever level permanently, as well as become 3 slot crystals making them even less useful. And since you get new weapons pretty regularly, it quickly makes the system pointless until endgame. And even at endgame, the gains from the crystals are so negligible that there still isn't much point in using them. Thankfully the system is going to be retweaked in an update.
@@EpicFailureFive you can feed the old gems into new gems. It's still a bad system but I liked using up all the purity and the 3 slot ones to make a big useless gem, put it into gear, and then remove it. Then use a 1 stone gem and fuse those and then it becomes a 2 stone gem. I'd generally put 2 gems into each piece of gear and throw a 1 stone gem to max out the gear slots. I might be the minority who spent too much time playing around with the gems.
@@adamritton5820 Only if the gems weren't fused before slotting them. At least in my case I was getting mostly level 1 and 2 gems for the majority of the game.
@@EpicFailureFive I agree that the system is super confusing and hard to figure out. However I can’t say it’s useless… Gems or you can increase your attack or agility especially, are not useless whatsoever if they are high level gems. You can also make passive abilities more diverse by using a gem instead, like evasionist. Also elemental gems make regular attacks hit weaknesses without needing to apply cotes or use skills. I love the idea… But not the execution. I spent way too long figuring it out and it is tedious with the current way. The game developer is working on that upgrade for March and a new game plus in May
The system may be a bit obtuse, but for me it's been very useful. You just need to wait and fuse crystals until they're level 10, then use them for your weapons (and you can now take them out a weapon and put on another without penalty). Buffing Sienna's agility with it is awesome, and I managed to paralyse almost every enemy with Glenn (since his main attack, Cross Slash, counts as 3 attacks, it increases the chance of status applying).
I played all the JRGPS way back in the 90s (that I could actually get here in the states) - and have a ton of nostalgia for those games and how they made me feel at the time. Chained Echoes is the only game I can think of that really tapped into that feeling I had as a kid. The unique take on battles were just refreshing... using past lives as part of the story was great. It was all around a fresh take on the whole genre. My only nitpick is probably the close up art of the faces could have been a little bit better - but even here I am not that upset because these games have been anime to death so... maybe a softer western style isn't the worst thing on the planet. All around solid amazing game. Really hope they keep the series up. Well done
best turn based combat system is conditional turn based (ctb) in my opinion. in which you can alter the turn order of both party members and enemies. final fantasy x did it spectacularly with showing how each move would affect the turn order before you execute them. also, not only by buffing or debuffing (casting haste or slow) but each action had its "speed" which affected when that character's next turn would come up. like huge attacks delaying your next turn etc. most bosses were immune or resistant to low level status effects and/or could dispel them. chained echoes seems to go that route but couldn't nail it in the execution, from what i understand from the review.
FFXs' combat system was the best i ever played. To be fair, the thing with the status ailments i didnt like that much. I completed the game 100% 3 times in my lifetime (ps2, ps vita x2) and i have to say, that not beeing able to inflict any status ailment to any enemy basically when you start doing the monster farm progression really hurt the whole idea of implementing status ailments in the first place. I mean, why bringt them all to the table, having dozens of abilities wich inflict them, only to make every optional enemy (wich is like 60ish percent of the game really) beeing immune to all of them? I dont get that. But i love FFX nevertheless
CTB is my favorite FF battle system as well. Check out the Trails series if you haven't, the system is pretty similar.
@@firebreather4192 uh thank you for the recommendation!
If you havent played it already I would recommend *Battle Chasers: Nightwar* . I believe that you will enjoy the turn based style of this game alot.
Combat in Chained Echoes utilizes buffs/debuffs and status effects really well. Certain attacks combo off of the enemy having a certain status applied, or of course elemental weakness. My basic setup for most of the game was party attack buff > enemy defense debuff > paralyze enemy > attack that deals 3x damage to paralyzed enemy + high crit %. There are many party builds you can set up like this, and all of that applies even to bosses which was a breath of fresh air. Having high agility helps for your main DPS character(s), but is not as necessary as the review makes it out to be for the entire party.
Considering the small team developing this title, it's amazing what they have achieved. One of the best JRPGs in the last decade with a bunch of innovations that we certainly will see in major upcoming titles.
thank you for these videos. i always find it to be a safe, fun, smart place to just enjoy the nerdiest of things :)
Most of the issues you had with this game I didn't even notice lmao. I recently finished this game and it quickly became my favorite of all time, I love this game so much
Just got 100% on this myself. Definitely worth playing for old school RPG fans even if there were several points in the story where I caught myself going "Ah, so they're homaging this now" several times, lol. The story also was too convoluted for its own good, imo. A few too many twists. But still, totally worth it.
how was it convoluted?
I appreciate the objectivity of your reviews. Most people just gush about this game without acknowledging it’s flaws. You highlight the shortcomings while still acknowledging that this is, in the end, still a good game.
Thank you for this review!! You and ACG make the best content on video game reviews
I tried this game out on a whim and it's the perfect mix of old and new! Has the same great classic chrono trigger nostalgia feel with alot of quality of life improvements that bog down older titles. It's a great find!
On the steam deck lag issue, I thought the game was unplayable at first because it froze for 1 minute. It turns there’s a setting in the bios that keeps changing the VRAM from 4 gigs to 1 gig. I changed it back to 4 and the freeze only happens for about 2 seconds.
Looking at steam deck statistics, you can see that vram shoots up past 2.8 gigs in use during first actions of combat. When the deck is in 1 gig VRAM mode, the combat code has to churn through whatever calculations a lot slower as it has to wait for memory to free up.
Glad to hear I wasn't the only one confused/annoyed by the crystal system. I also ended up just disregarding it.
Practically everyone does. It’s one if the few flaws in a great game. It is good that you can just ignore it, but put some crystals on if you need help with a boss.
love the party combat - really cool. I hope other games follow. Sky armor combat on the other hand was pretty annoying
I enjoyed the sky armor combat. Felt badass in it, and it's easy to level up your stats, just rotating the weapons among the 4 characters
I never comment much, but know that I watch all your videos.
This for me was one of the best games of 2022 and I am very happy that I have the opportunity to play it and analyze it for us.
Anyway, very grateful for your work and content Mortis, I appreciate you as a person and I'm a big fan of your work, keep up the good work.
Looking forward to the next videos.
Excellent, Mort. Looking forward to playing Chained Echoes myself.
The game is basically a love letter to SNES jRPGs, ang often quotes games like Chrono Trigger or FFVI
It's not. It's a love letter to sci Fi shooters.
Just found you and love your videos man! Bought this and started playing today. Just a couple hours in and already I’m happier with it than most other games of this genre that I’ve played in the past.
You are now my No 1 go to when I need a comprehensive review for a game. Thank you for a quality content
How about Crosscode review really one of the bests
That is a phrase I have been looking for for years. "Pacing Out the Revelations". That is such an important element of what makes the classic jrpgs so epic, so huge in scope. These small journeys that become a fight for the fate of the world or the survival of all life in the universe, you gotta love it.
This was a game I didn't jazz with at all that I thought would be a long awaited return to one of my favorite genres. Everything felt a little off, like the combat, skill progresion, selecting abilities at level up, but I really couldn't stand the dialogue which killed it for me. Thanks for showing off some of the later systems I never got to though.
Thanks for the review. You teased out some areas I had questions about. Onward to 200k. All glory to the algorithm.
Thank you so much for reviewing a genre which all mainstream reviewers ignore nowadays.
After octopath 2 I might need to try my hand at this game. It seems to fit my taste perfectly
It's absolutely worth your time. It's so freaking good
We need games like this so pls support and show love!
I’m eyeing this game. Working on a few backlog stuff and recovering from rpg fatigue.
Have never enjoyed 100%ing a game. This is the first for me. Good lord everything is so enjoyable to do
Need the physical release ASAP!
The Regular Edition for PS4 is now available 👍
Terrific review. Absolutely excellent. This one is on the list.
My only issue with the game (and why I burned out around act 4 which isn't uncommon for me in games), was just too many systems.I would have loved it if the game was just the party-based rpg. I would have muddled through the crystals even if optional. However, I really did not enjoy the mech combat. I would drop the game difficulty from normal/high/high to normal/normal/normal when going between mech and party. However, the combat was interspersed enough that doing so got tedious.
It also bothered me how insanely good agi was which in turned made the characters with low innate agi not great.
All in all, I made it 75% of the way through a JRPG for the first time in a long time so it was a pretty great game. I'll probably go finish up the rest of it (I'm at Good Faith) in a couple weeks or so. Life is just stressful enough for me right now that I'm playing a default game that doesn't take brain power to play/consume the story.
I would finish it. The story arcs are well worth it for all characters but especially Glenn. For most all the game I thought Glenn was just an okay main protagonist, but once the credits roll I have a lot of respect for his individual story
This game is such a hidden gem, fantastic game
This game was awesome and was able to remain faithful to the jrpg spirit, inspite innovating various aspects of the genere, without needlessly twisting its core. SE should learn from it. One of the best indies I have played so far.
Great video, was waiting for your review. Always good to hear the good and bad qualities of a game so expectations for said game are not too high or low.
Thumbs up as always. I really appreciate the effort you put in the videos!
Really great review!! Thanks giving this masterpiece the attention its deserves!
I really was hoping that the shards were farmable so its fun to overpower everycharacter, you know power fantasy things :P
You can get very OP in this game. I was surprised by his gameplay he showed of an endgame boss, where one of his characters almost died. By the time I fought that boss, the bosses didn't get to have turns anymore. There are some really wild builds available, people have solo'd every boss with some characters.
I just finished it yesterday, after seeing your review a couple of months ago. First time playing this genre, I was pleasantly surprised. Not a fan of this type of combat, but it was decent, even for me ( on low). I really enjoyed the story, dialog and exploration.
Thank you for your content, it helped me try different types of games that I didn't know I would like. Off to find the next game to play, the search continues...😊
It may be good to note that the crystal system is going to be reworked in an upcoming update, along with the addition of NG+.
One thing not mentioned in this review which I think should be is the music. It’s surprisingly varied, and really good. The different areas feel distinct and unique.
I like this game but I’m struggling with the battle system, I don’t think I was paying close attention to the battle system tutorials
I started this a couple days ago. I agree about the game being rough till you get the party together. Now I'm thoroughly enjoying it
Your on fire as always mort. Dont know how you can keep up this pace. hats off!
At the 2.17 mark, i was convinced to buy it. Good story games are very difficult to find nowadays.
I highly recommend Chained Echoes. It's a mechanically amazing. The story is (mostly) great. The world building is well done if a bit dense.
That said. Agility breaks the game agile parties can act a half dozen times per baddy action. Midgame jumps difficulty very quickly.
The end of the story feels a bit rushed. And the twist at the ending kinda sucks.
I agree with the class abilities system. It should've been a thing that evolved as you leveled with that class or it should have presented a whole new tier of unlocks for that particular class. Also their really is nothing to good to say about the crystals. it just didn't land.
Great review. The early super positive reviews I read for this game overhyped it for me, I played about 18 hours and I'm probably done. It's a solid little JRPG but definitely doesn't come near to "revitalizing the genre" like some were claiming. A lot of the systems like the crystals are very meh or even bad.
The story is pretty good but for whatever reason reading text only in 2023 doesn't work as well for me as it did playing classic JRPGs back in the day. I had basically zero attachment to any of the characters, which prevented me from getting into the game. Overall though it's definitely not a bad game, 6/10 for me
Hey brother, in love with this game. Scratched an ich I've had for years while respecting my time as an adult.
1 - Thanks for the crystal tip, interface is horrible, can't auto-remove all which is a b**. Been spending too many minutes trying to trudge through this upgrade and thanks to you I'll only take a look once each act.
2 - Battle lag is systemic but minor. Running mid-high end rig and get exactly same battle lag at 1st battle after loads.
Thanks again for the brutal and kind honesty in your reviews.
Cheers
I started watching your channel for crpgs you used to review and now you’re my favorite TH-cam channel specially that you mostly review games I love 😍❤️
I had a ton of fun with this game. My only complaint is on the Switch the load times were much higher than they should have been.
Which other platform did you experience the game/load times?
Yeah, I don't know if this is what everyone else did too, but in the end game I was using Sienna with quickstep and her ultra move, and Mikah with Double Steps, to stack agility on Sienna and then spam Dragonfang on everything, while Glenn debuffs enemies with All Break. I just repeated this strategy until the game was over
great review. regarding the crystal system, I found it to be pretty fun to slap them into my gear. there's some fun ones that auto apply buffs or add crit etc. no need to min max them though.
and the game just recently came out with a 1.2 patch that adds a NG+, though at time of writing, its not updated on Switch yet.
goddamn , i never thought im going to feel nostalgic playing an jrpg. it makes me felt like 1st time i play ff7 in ps1 , i freking love it. i just dun like the shards systems lol the crystals stuff also meh, but otherwise. its enjoyable. keep the game like this coming
I totally agree with you on the crystal system. Even with a tutorial, it almost impossible to understand what's expected of you... By trying to make this not too much overpowered, the designer made it useless. Well, the rest of the game is brilliant, so that's not a real issue, tbh.
as a guy who have finish the final fantasy 1 to 7 this game really hit to me love it i havent completed it tho just happy to see some really positive review keep up the good work man!!
I wanted to play this game. Some guy on TH-cam referred this game to be one of the best games. you played it and now I want to play it for sure!
Awesome content as always! Great work.
One more thing, I think the extra systems like crystals and class emblems are mainly for the NG+ higher difficulty.
The vampire class emblem's active is good, I put it on Sienna because she runs out of tp, on glenn so he can share tp with the team via energy share and the tank so he becomes an unstoping wall. Ofc I change it after maxing the skill and not having to equip the class.
Bro.... your reviews are really good. You've gained a sub from me. Keep up the good work.
this game is awesome! the storytelling , battle mechanics , dialogs , characters are well done! I love it.
What a coincidence :D I just started playing the game this morning!
Thank god I’m not the only person who didn’t understand the Crystal weapon enchantments. I just stopped trying to use them halfway through
I loved the first couple of hours. The intro was exciting and the art/world is charming. I went back to play more, but they pulled it from Gamepass. I probably I'll buy it though. I think it's worth the $25 asking price. It just feels like an modernized version of what I loved as a teenager, nostalgia double-chocolate cake.
My one issue with the game, and this could be a non-issue if you aren't super savvy with JRPGs, is that much of the story is built on subverting plot points from other JRPGs. Like it will take something I recognize from Xenogears or Star Ocean and then it will go the opposite way with it. Because of that I couldn't really enjoy the story that much.
So your problem is that it wasn't predictable? Lol okay bro sure
I subbed to you because you complete games 100% I definitely feel I can trust your opinion on games
Just beat it yesterday. I shed a few tears at the end -- what a f'king beautiful game. I can't get the soundtrack out of my head. Been listening to it on Spotify non-stop.
Been waiting on this one, thank you. Been torn between this and octopath 2
The Cristal system is actually the “grindy” part of the game in my opinion because you discover its full potential in the late game where you can make your party members extremely overpowered thanks to it by farming the Cristal locations. One you understand how it works it’s just fine. The problem is that it’s really badly explained in the game and I had to check the internet to get a full explanation. But one again it’s a nice system, but optional because I could finish the whole game without it.
IMO the only bad thing about the crystal system, is the penalty you get when you remove a crystal from equipment, that just seems like a pointless annoyance to me than anything else.
Totally agree about the crystals... I also did all the side content and I found it just takes soooo loooong to do crystals and then you walk out the door and find a sword that invalidates everything you just did XD The only one I consistently bothered with was crit% for Sienna
An amazing game. Put 60 hours in and I still want more!
Looks way more interesting than sea of stars
Hard not to sub to someone so awesome!
How about the endgame/postgame ?
I always love to have some more content in my JRPGs after finishing the main story. Stuff like hidden dungeons and super bosses.
3 months late, but yeah, there's a post-game
it's technically accessible before beating the game but it's like three screens off from the final boss
Just finished the game! It was quite good overall, I wasnt bothered by the crystals, my main nitpick was that the timing in battles felt off. It feels like the “moving” animations are always on a fast forward setting, making the battles feel less impactfull
Awesome vid!!! Thanks for going in deep with this one, definitely confirms how bad I want to play! Just have to get through some backlog first 😅
One of my favorite j-style RPGs in years. Better than the octopath games.
Octopath cast wasn't interesting past their intro.
It's why I dropped that game and didn't get the Nostalgia love it got given I didn't get that at all and i wanted to feel it but it never really came close after the very interesting dancer intro and that was extremely disappointing
@@TH-camCensors Asano games are always like that. They make characters with cool backgrounds but they outright tell you through boring, by-the-book exposition, without exposing those characters to various events that are connected to each other.
P.S. Triangle Strategy characters are still better than all of Octopath though not by much
I'm glad i'm not the only one that found the crystal system confusing and annoying to use. I didn't use it until maybe 60% into the game.
Just saw your review the other day for Sea of Stars and saw comparisons to this game in the comments. Lo and behold, you did a review of it was well. My gaming backlog has grown quite a bit since finding your channel but has also helped me avoid some stinkers.
It boggles my mind how someone can 100% the game and still write off the crystal system. It’s not that complicated at all and they are actually pretty useful especially the ones like HP DRAIN, COUNTER ATTACK, and EVADE. In short, they enable your character to have passive abilities they might never get via regular skill learning otherwise.
All my characters’ weapons had HP DRAIN crystals and most of the time I never felt the need to heal in battle. They’re a great upgrade to your party and offer another dimension to battle.
Just finished this game last night and it was one of my favorite adventures so far. The overdrive system is so innovative. My only gripe is that fixed monster spawns make grinding for materials a bit tedious especially with the complicated map layouts.
Overall a great game!
Pretty sure the crystal system was overhauled in a patch after this video
@@MortismalGaming oh, that’s definitely a good thing then. I don’t know if you usually replay games even after they’ve been overhauled but it’s probably a better experience now. I’m glad this game is getting lots of praises because it’s made me wish there were more jrpgs with combat systems like this!
4:54 I swear it looks like to sewers in turtle in time.
4:50 This part is like FFIII Ultros.
I love this game, and I'm happy to see you review it.
I, however don't think the crystal system is bad, or hard to understand. Just auto combine your jewels and equip them. I use it mostly for specialization of my characters. It could definitely be quicker to equip them though
Autocombine is actually the worst thing you can do with your crystals. The low rank crystals with high purity are the most useful and autocombining can randombly get rid of your good ones.
@@lhmsc that's fine.
First impression: the crystal system looks a lot like the materia system from FF7, without the crafting (combining) part.
Honestly I tried loving sea of stars but the basic combat killed it for Me. Still loving this game though
Fantastic game. I just find it funny that no one talked about Rise Of The Third Power last year because, in my opinion, It’s not much inferior to Chained Echoes.
I loved this game but I hated the sky armor battles. You gained so many skills on foot that by the time I got the sky armor. I felt like starting over progression wise. Late game as you got stronger it got easier but most times this system just felt forced and unnecessary.
It might not be your kind of game, but I recommend playing Brutal Orchestra. It has the best turn based combat that I've played and a really cool and weird art style
Thanks, I was waiting for this before I buy.