It took indie developer Matthias Linda up to 7 years to finish his first game, and – after playing over the Christmas/New Year holidays in 2023 – I can safely say that it was worth every day . At least from the player’s point of view. chain echo Running a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2019, Linda managed to capture the imagination of a group of gamers in their 30s and 40s who have been longing to return to Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Several generations of games such as Wheels.
But this is no simple renovation. It’s not a nostalgic checklist like Octopath Traveler, cynical and dispassionately put together. No, it’s better than that; Chained Echoes looks at the tropes and tricks that made the genre great, and tinkers with the formula — much the same as the first 10 or so Final Fantasy games have done. When you’re not gazing at gorgeous 16-bit-inspired pixel art, you’re fighting a battle over flow.
Scrolling through your commands and pop-up menus, attacking with weapons and magic and selecting items, as usual, may be second nature to you, but you also need to pay attention to your flow and cadence. Once you get into the torrent of attacks, you’ll be able to achieve Overdrive, where you’ll start doing more damage and attacking with more zuzh. Overextend and overplay, and your team will be vulnerable to any oversized enemy you face.
It’s a formula that comes very close to delivering on the promise of the real-time combat mechanics of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII; a combination of turn-based tactical forward planning and the thrill of real-time action, poised to take hold. You can’t go too slow or you’ll debuff, you can’t go too fast or you’ll leave yourself wide open. It’s already tied with MegaTen and Persona’s Press Turn system as my favorite style of JRPG combat – high praise indeed.
Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 are the most obvious comparisons to Chained Echoes, but if you want to dig a little deeper, you’ll probably see more Xenogears in there. According to an interview with Linda by our colleagues at RPS, Linda has tried to replicate games like Xenogears – but not in terms of code, ideas and mechanics of stealing encounters. Instead, Linda tries to build on what he remembers; which is probably why Chained Echoes feels so much like one of the Golden Age RPGs in spirit.
Even better, to me, Chained Echoes showcases one thing that many ’90s RPGs desperately lack: a sense of humor. The game is genuinely fun, and chops off the genre’s conventions in the same way Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace horror flicks or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure ribs…anything. There’s even an inexplicable cameo from ZILF, the UK mathematics core institution, which lasts about 10 seconds in one of the dullest cutscenes I’ve seen in years. That’s when I knew this game was special. This isn’t just another cookie-cutter cash throw in the JRPG line, Unfinished.
If you’re already an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, I implore you to play Chained Echoes. If you’ve been overwhelmed by the dizzying squibs of past generations (I’m Setsuna, Monarch, even back in Infinity Quest), this game might reignite that spark in you and make you remember why you I fell in love with role-playing games before. This certainly works for me.
Chained Echoes is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and PC (free on PC and Xbox consoles through Xbox Game Pass).