Over the years I have played a lot of Indie-developed RPGs. Most of them try to capture the magic of JRPG classics such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, or other classic franchises. However, many of them tend to fall short of such lofty aspirations. From the moment I saw Chained Echoes’ Kickstarter campaign, I knew Matthias Linda was creating something special.

Chained Echoes puts you in the shoes of Glenn, a young Sky Armor pilot who joins with a cast of other colorful characters to stop a war that threatens the lives of everyone on the continent of Valandis. The game itself is filled with rich lore, colorful characters, and a story that is so well crafted that I could easily see it becoming a classic.

Gameplay is standard for a JRPG in terms of setup. You explore various environments, fighting enemies, collecting items, doing quests, and eventually facing off against bosses. However, Chained Echoes takes a few surprising changes and works them in with flawless proficiency. The biggest changes to the typical JRPG formula come in combat and in the progression systems.

Combat is turn-based, but it utilizes something called the Overdrive system. At the top left of the screen is a bar with a red, yellow, and green field inside. Each action you take moves your position on the overdrive bar. If you are in the yellow field, you take and deal normal damage. If you are in the red field you deal less damage and take more damage. In the green field, you take less damage and deal more damage.

As such, the goal is to use skills that make sure you get to (and stay in) the green zone while making sure you’re also staying out of the red (Overheat) zone. It provides a bit of a unique challenge to the standard turn-based combat that keeps it from feeling stale. It also helps that each character you recruit has a variety of different skills you can unlock, and they all have a unique role to play in battle.

You can carry 8 party members (2 pairs of 4) with you, and each character in a battle can swap with another once per turn. The best part about this is that swapping reduces your overdrive gauge, so if you don’t have something for a character to do, and you’re worried about Overheating, you can swap them out and have their partner do something instead.

It’s this versatility and strategy that makes Chained Echoes so interesting. Each character can fit multiple roles, and you can also equip class emblems that add even more abilities so that you can customize their strengths to suit your needs. I often find myself using every one of my party members during battles, because each one brings something to the table.

In addition to the complex combat mechanics, there are deep progression systems that contain elements of things like Final Fantasy IX and a variety of other RPGs. You gain SP (skill points) from battles, though you don’t actively level up like in other RPGs. Skill points are used to level up your skills, and you learn new skills from Grimoire Shard points, which you get from boss battles or from certain milestones.

The only problem I have with this is that you can only equip a certain number of skills at once. So, you really have to figure out what matters most to you at any given moment, instead of building your characters up with a vast repertoire of abilities. Luckily, you can save anywhere, and adjust your party’s abilities on the fly, so if you don’t have the right skills equipped for a boss you can always readjust if need be.

In fact, Chained Echoes has a variety of options that allow you to adjust the difficulty, including adjustments for enemy stats, how often they attack, and more. Plus, if you have a party wipe and get a game over, you can either reload an autosave (which is forgiving), a manual save, or you can retry the battle without reloading.

This is especially helpful when you are going after certain targets on the Reward Board. The Reward Board is a sort of completion board for each area, that rewards you for doing various tasks. Some of them are simple, while others may require you to take on tougher “Unique Monsters” that are akin to mini-bosses or optional bosses.

There were several times when I tried to take on one of these enemies and quickly realized I had not progressed far enough to be able to take them on. Sometimes all it took was upgrading my weapons and armor or socketing a new crystal into my party’s gear to enhance their stats. Other times I needed to progress the story, get new gear, learn new abilities, and then I could take on that monster again.

My favorite part about Chained Echoes though is easily the storyline. The characters and story somehow manage to weave nostalgic storytelling from classic RPGs with new ideas and concepts. It feels both familiar and fresh at the same time. The gameplay overall is compelling, but everything feels that much better when you dive deep into the storyline.

If we’re speaking conservatively, Chained Echoes will net you about 30-40 hours of gameplay. However, if you’re wanting to complete all the side quests and recruit everyone possible for your clan (in a Suikoden-Esque mechanic) then I’d say you probably could add at least another 20 hours to that. Either way, Chained Echoes not only offers a lot of content, but it offers engaging content, which actually feels interesting.

The problems I’ve mentioned with Chained Echoes’ progression systems are nitpicky at best. Chained Echoes as a whole is a fantastic experience, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves classic RPGs. If you’re looking for a great RPG to sink your teeth into, Chained Echoes is a must-play. I hope people grow to consider it a classic. It is deserving of all the accolades it could get.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Chained Echoes was provided by Deck13 for this review.

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Chained Echoes

$24.99 USD

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Gorgeous Pixel Art
• Fantastic, Engaging Combat
• In-Depth Progression Systems
• Nostalgic Yet Impactful Storyline
• Lots of Content

Cons

• Skill System Can Feel Limiiting