Chained Echoes Review – What’s Old Is New Again

Chained Echoes is one of the year’s best RPGs and comes with an engaging combat system, compelling characters, and stellar worldbuilding.

Chained Echoes, an indie JRPG from Matthias Linda and published by Deck13, is a pleasant – and pretty much perfect – surprise. On the surface, it may look like yet another indie RPG obsessed with the SNES era, but thanks to an engaging combat system, compelling characters, and stellar worldbuilding, it proves to be much more. Available now, Chained Echoes is one of the best games of 2022.

From the opening seconds – a nice homage to Chrono Trigger – Chained Echoes proudly harkens back to a nostalgic time of wired controllers and chunky game cartridges. However, it quickly subverts expectations (like in that same Chrono Trigger homage). The game walks a fine balance of celebrating some of the best JRPGs of all time while toying with conventions. There are plenty of familiar themes and character archetypes, of course, but one of Chained Echoes‘ biggest successes is that it never feels lazy when calling back to SNES classics, and it never feels pretentious when it’s poking fun at JRPG clichés.

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Of course, all this cleverness might mean very little if the gameplay wasn’t great. Thankfully, Chained Echoes‘ combat is excellent – its turn-based combat has a lot to love: Skills to consider, TP to monitor, and the Overheat and Overdrive gauge means a good amount of strategy is required and keeps battles engaging. Because the battle order is displayed at the top of the screen, players have to consider risking Overheating to kill enemies quickly or dialing it back to stay in Overdrive and avoid burning out. There’s also no conventional leveling system, which means relying on getting SP and upgrading Skills to buff characters up in-between battles.

The eclectic cast of characters is mostly built around archetypes – the mercenary, the thief, the princess, and so on – but they’re well-written enough that each personality shines through. There are plenty of twists and turns to go around, all leading to some great character development. The story is sometimes dark and often thought-provoking, but there’s enough humor sprinkled throughout its 30-40 hour runtime that Chained Echoes always brings its narrative back from the edge of bleakness. It’s difficult not to read into the subtext here – Chained Echoes may look like a ’90s game, but it was made during a decidedly dark period of human history.

The music is another highlight, and one of the many ways in which Chained Echoes shows its quality. It perfectly complements the story of warring countries and the game’s high fantasy setting. Anyone who loves the Ivalice games in Final Fantasy should be right at home here among the airship battles and mech fights.

Fans of SNES-era games (and especially JRPGs) will certainly love Chained Echoes, but there are plenty of quality-of-life improvements (like being able to save at pretty much any time) that keep the game feeling new and distinctly 21st-century. For all the aesthetics of games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6, Chained Echoes doesn’t feel like a ’90s game (a trap that many retro-leaning indies fall into). Chained Echoes is a fresh, smart adventure that celebrates classic JRPGs while not being afraid to push into new directions. It’s sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking – and always fun. It’s a must-play.

More: Biggest RPGs Still Releasing In 2022Source: Chained Echoes/YouTube

A copy of Chained Echoes on PC was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.