Chained Echoes Review
Indie JRPG Chained Echoes brings together classic touchstone inspirations of the genre while creating an incredible, well-crafted original experience.
A red-haired thief looks out over a vista of a dense medieval city in the game Chained Echoes.
Attempting to harness the nostalgia of past generations to craft a gaming experience that feels familiar yet new is a monumental task. Many developers have tried in recent years but few so rarely stack up. Though much of Matthias Linda's early development came from cutting his teeth on unfinished RPG Maker homages, roughly 4,600 people put their faith in the developer. His project raised EUR163,222 (about $174,219 as of this writing) for the promise of a pixelated JRPG that captures everything people love from the best the SNES and PlayStation era of the genre has to offer. Since the fundraising campaign for Chained Echoes wrapped up in May 2019, Linda and his assembled team have been toiling away to deliver on that promise, and now gamers finally see the fruits of that labor pay off.
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Considering the hubris of Chained Echoes, it should not work, but it does, and beautifully. Matthias Linda has created a broad world that is ripe for further exploration. The only worry now is that the bar is set too high, but it's hard to imagine the team creating anything with less passion and polish. After playing through a creative, familiar, yet distinct game that engages players in nearly every way, one can only hope that there will be more from the brilliant team behind Chained Echoes.
Score: 4.5/5
