11/12/2023 0 Comments Nintendo life reviewsFor example, although you can only have four characters on the field at once, each of them can be paired with a partner who can tag in with a button press and act on the same turn. The point is, Chained Echoes knows when to go hands-off and hands-on with the player, and it very rarely feels like it’s missing a step.Ĭombat follows a typical turn-based setup but with some notable tweaks to help keep things feeling dynamic and interesting. While fighting the boss, you also have to keep an eye on where the cart is heading and adjust the controls accordingly to keep everyone alive. Our favorite of these was an early-ish section where the party is broken up and some of the members get caught up in a boss fight on a minecart tearing through a vast tunnel system. Sometimes things narrow down more and railroad you through linear plot-steered sequences. Sometimes things are wide open, and you’re given the freedom to choose where you’ll go next and what you’ll do when you get there. We enjoyed the kind of pacing on offer with Chained Echoes, as it feels like it notably breaks out of the typical Town>Field>Dungeon loop that many JRPGs fall into. As you make longer chains on the board, you’ll unlock more rewards for hitting certain thresholds, which encourages you to get the most out of each area you visit as you chase getting the longest chain you can. Fulfilling any of the spots on the board will allow you to claim a small reward, and any adjacent spots that you can fulfill will begin a chain. It’s laid out like a game board, with each box representing an achievement like finding a certain number of treasures in a specific zone or killing a specific enemy in an unconventional way. The Reward Board, for example, provides a wide array of objectives to chase in any order you want. Sometimes it can almost feel overwhelming having so many things vying for your attention, but Chained Echoes does a good job of steering you towards the locations and quests that are most interesting while still not insisting that you do so. Scouring suspicious-looking routes is sure to reward you with things like treasure chests and secret boss fights, while there are myriad secret paths you can find and caves to explore that are begging to be searched. On the gameplay front, environment design in Chained Echoes feels remarkably open while still not being so wide that you can get too lost. Everyone brings something worthwhile to the table in this narrative, providing some important and sometimes surprisingly personal stakes for much bigger conflicts. Glenn, on the other hand, was born and raised in a prison city as a peasant and eventually rose out of that depressing life when he took on work as a mercenary favored for his keen mechanical skills. Lenne, for example, is the princess of a kingdom, but has chosen to run away from her lavish lifestyle to instead work for the city guard under disguise so she can better understand the life of the average citizen. It makes each character feel equally important, rather than many games which can feel like a leading star who’s stringing along a gaggle of sidekicks, and all the different personalities and backgrounds on offer create plenty of room for interesting exchanges. We enjoyed how there’s not a designated main character here, instead placing emphasis on the team as a whole and the various relationships that develop between everyone. It can get a little dry at times, but we overall found ourselves pulled into this plot. In the aftermath, the three kingdoms come to an uneasy truce, but various political and supernatural forces wish to plunge the continent into war once more, which inevitably leads to your party being formed to prevent this outcome. The story begins a few years before events kick off, with two of the mercenaries who will later be in your party inadvertently setting off the in-universe equivalent of a nuke during a battle in the war between three kingdoms. Set on the continent of Valandis, it follows a motley crew of nobles, thieves, and mercenaries who all find their fates chained together in pursuit of a common cause. Chained Echoes exudes confidence and quality at every turn and quickly establishes itself as one of the finest RPGs you can buy on the Switch right now. Luckily, this one turned out to be well worth the seven-year wait. After a successful Kickstarter in 2019 and who knows how many hours of painstaking iteration, Linda has finally seen his vision realized with the release of Chained Echoes. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Ībout seven years ago, a solo indie developer named Matthias Linda began working on an idea he had for a new RPG, itself likely the product of many years of producing fan games based on his genre favorites in RPG Maker.
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