Chained Echoes - Review After 100%
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- Talking about my experiences with the title, Chained Echoes, after doing all of the things!
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:51 Overview
01:10 Story Set Up & Thoughts
03:03 Progression Systems
09:38 Combat
16:11 World & Gameplay
19:21 Steam Deck Compatibility
20:26 Positives/Negatives
22:15 Conclusion
23:34 Wrap Up
Intro Music By Juan Andrés Matos, www.juanmatosmusic.com/
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#gaming #gamereviews #chainedechoes - เกม
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!!!
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.
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 .
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.
Anyone with SNES/Genesis/PS1 JRPG nostalgia will probably find something to love in this game
As always, the most practical reviews on youtube. Thank you for all your hard work
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
Wow, you're covering all the stuff I'm interested in. Nice to see a reviewer not just chasing the AAA crowd.
I am VERY tempted to get this - thank you for covering it!
i didnt see light for a week. worth it!
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.
Thank you for this review!! You and ACG make the best content on video game reviews
thank you for these videos. i always find it to be a safe, fun, smart place to just enjoy the nerdiest of things :)
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.
Dude you really set the gold standard for reviews imo. Journalists and reviewers should be more like you
Professional reviewers are all shills. I never bother with garbage like IGN.
He sounds like true gamer from 90s not a youtuber
Your on fire as always mort. Dont know how you can keep up this pace. hats off!
Thumbs up as always. I really appreciate the effort you put in the videos!
You are now my No 1 go to when I need a comprehensive review for a game. Thank you for a quality content
Excellent, Mort. Looking forward to playing Chained Echoes myself.
Awesome content as always! Great work.
Really great review!! Thanks giving this masterpiece the attention its deserves!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for the review. You teased out some areas I had questions about. Onward to 200k. All glory to the algorithm.
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 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 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
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
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 😅
Bro.... your reviews are really good. You've gained a sub from me. Keep up the good work.
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.
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!
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
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.
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...😊
Love the reviews and content in general!
I'd really love to see what you think about the Persona series since you've been branching off into more JRPGs lately. They're phonemenal games that have earned the reputation they have
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.
Great review thank you!
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
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!!
Been waiting on this one, thank you. Been torn between this and octopath 2
Dude a friend of mine just told me the other day that I'd love this game. I wasn't sure about this when you said no leveling, but the systems in place have me intrigued
Thanks, I was waiting for this before I buy.
Pretty on point as always 👌
I also appreciate the fast move speed in the overworld
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.
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.
Finished it a week ago amazing review
What a coincidence :D I just started playing the game this morning!
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.
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
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+.
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.
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!
Dude love your videos
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?
This looks great!
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
This game is such a hidden gem, fantastic game
Hard not to sub to someone so awesome!
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m eyeing this game. Working on a few backlog stuff and recovering from rpg fatigue.
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.
Thank you so much for reviewing a genre which all mainstream reviewers ignore nowadays.
Good show sir, sure like this game alot =) nostalgia ftw =)
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.
How about Crosscode review really one of the bests
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
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.
We need games like this so pls support and show love!
I subbed to you because you complete games 100% I definitely feel I can trust your opinion on games
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
4:50 This part is like FFIII Ultros.
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.
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
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.
this game is awesome! the storytelling , battle mechanics , dialogs , characters are well done! I love it.
Many good takes overall. Game fits well in it's genre and I did enjoyed it. Thanks for the video.
Regarding the crystal system, it is cool min/max system that is not needed for the first playthrough, and, as reviewer said, not even for 100%. Maybe it is usefull on harder diff, didn't tested yet. Sadly feels like devs worked on it and then dropped it, because there is no QoL for it at all: can't properly sort and given sort is below average, crystals have max hidden inventory cap, then throwing away can be done only 1by1.
Character wise, there are funny/cool concepts, but playing with them is pretty hard. Because battles will be longer and the long battle feels like always favors enemies, at least on the normal diff.
Huge dissapointment in canned dude :(
I am surprised that aggro mechanic was fully ignored in the review, but TBH, game does it the same way - "HEY there is an aggro system? why? more mechanics, i guess eksdee"
Swapping characters out felt more like a punish rather than a unique game mechanic. Devs tried to force it like 1 chapter then dropped it. Huge opportunity to make game better imo. I think it feels so because main characters are TOO good, while sides are mediocre at best or do the same as main, but slower. I would say there are 4 main chars (no Red is not one of them :) )
just wanted to put this out here, i love ur voice so much. its very cute. thakns for the reviews
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
Good video.
One more thing, I think the extra systems like crystals and class emblems are mainly for the NG+ higher difficulty.
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
At the 2.17 mark, i was convinced to buy it. Good story games are very difficult to find nowadays.
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.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Just finished 100%, overall insanely addictive and great value, probably the strongest JRPG I've played to date because of my bias for gameplay. I agree with the crystal and class systems being convoluted and pointless, respectively. Only at the very end of my playthrough did i realize the full extent of the crystal system but it was a nice dopamine hit that was fairly forthcoming. In hindsight the crystal system isn't that complex but perhaps the tutorial should have been more in depth. Not only were classes pointless but they are hidden behind items and fights and usually the statues that give them are out of the way: it's like they don't want you to have them. The bounty board and deals systems provided more dopamine which is great. Having eight-character formations seemed like overkill with respect to the difficulty of a normal playthrough. Gear upgrades come very frequently which becomes annoying since putting crystals in gear is clunky and you might decide to skip a gear tier. I just played a standard party while noting that Victor is broken and so is Glenn's Overdrive. Agility stacking didn't occur to me since the game didn't do a good job of showing how agility buffs would affect turn order. Not sure if i liked the anonymity of enemies or not: in many JRPS you can Scan enemies for their HP and weaknesses but in Chained Echoes you can't which means you just have to try and hope if you're trying to zerg something, for instance. The mechs are cool and it was clever to add them for exploration but also to build another party since finding gear feels nice. Only thing that was weird was how 2 of the mechs were broken and the other 2 sucked (i used the mechs given without customizing weapons). I was left wondering why were some mechs' physical damage skills so meager. The overdrive system was fun without being too pervasive and it was intended to eliminate monotone gameplay but honestly every fight felt the same with minor tweaks due to randomness in said system. I tried to start New Game Plus on One True King Mode but it felt forced and the gameplay doesn't hold up that long for me, especially since you'll be playing the same starting characters again most of the way through: if i had early access to all characters perhaps i would replay with a different party. I must say i do think the post game content was well done. I thought the quality of life with not grinding and full recovery after battle was clever. The ultimate weapons were designed in a way that makes them only marginally better than the next lower tier which made them feel cheap.
What kind of monster leaves their mouse cursor in the middle of the screen while playing a game with a controller or keyboard only? Jokes aside, great video. Your points aligned with my own on pretty much every gripe I had.
So you don't gain anything from normal enemies? So it's best to just avoid them or run?
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
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
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.
Man, do you have a team helping you achieve all those 100%? Its really impressive
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