Chained Echos solves that monotony, giving me a fun new toy to manage while improving the old one. It was cool for the time, but the formula of mostly meaningless random battles overstayed its welcome.

I mash the same attacks on three other party members while Vivi burns down a line of foes. In the JRPG heyday, I loved Final Fantasy 9's Vivi ending battles with his magic spam, but that was always it-spam. We don't wanna talk about red.Ĭhained Echoes doesn't make this needlessly complex: it's pretty damn clever for a layer of added depth on an old-school back and forth. If the symbols don't match, I'm closer to red. If the symbols match, the arrow moves back. I can't use Armor Break just because I think a baddie needs their armor broken I've got to check the symbol beside the skill and see if it corresponds with my ever-changing overdrive rules. My goal is to keep things steady in the middle, so the fun comes from how the arrow pivots between colors. Green rewards the party with optimal damage.

A handful of other small tweaks fold into the fray later, but it's still simple in a subtly brilliant way.įights begin with the overdrive arrow in orange, which doesn't bestow snazzy buffs. It’s kind of like an Active Reload mechanic but for your skill choices make the right actions every turn and you're rewarded with extra powerful hits. The crux of combat boils down to keeping a little arrow in the upper left corner within the safe zone, green, slotted between orange and red. Chained Echoes plainly lays it all out, but my habitual overthinking refused to let the system be as simple and uniquely compelling as it is. Something something 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' remains evergreen advice, but that's no excuse to stop iterating on traditional turn-based formulas and heavy-handed punishments for picking the wrong fight.Īs enemies lined up to deliver their first few butt-whoopings, I found myself miserably confused by the overdrive system and irritated by UI elements that didn't immediately click. While Chained Echoes' artistic sparkle is captivating, I'm more endeared to the journey thanks to systems not solely focused on the most sacred parts of old RPGs.

Sometimes you just really wanna see how swish a new skill looks, and things go to hell. That's no knock on Chained Echoes being too brutal, though.

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