Chained Echoes - Review After 100% 

You have quickly become my favorite game reviewer.

This is absolutely one of my favorite games ever. Was stunned that I was actually surprised by the plot, loved all the characters, systems were great...just loved it.

You put so much effort in completing the latest games 100 % and putting up a review as soon as possible . Really appreciate your grit and perseverance .

I have seen a handful of reviews of this, including your initial impressions and you still make it compelling to watch this in its entirety. Fantastic work.

The fact that this game is on game pass is amazing, I loved this game so much and is a rare 100% complete for me! By the end game it does feel quite easy and a few of the party members (robb) seem totally usless but it's such a fantastic experience.

Wow, you're covering all the stuff I'm interested in. Nice to see a reviewer not just chasing the AAA crowd.

Only found your channel a few days ago but I've really enjoyed your content/reviews. Just being someone whos actually played the games you review - while sounding super obvious - makes all the difference. It still baffles me that people churn out 'reviews' based on half (or usually less than half) of the proverbial story. I've personally played and 100%'ed a couple of the games you've reviewed and you pretty much nailed everything in your videos. I appreciate that you present the facts and don't delve too much into personal gripes. I also appreciate that the videos are no nonsense - there's no stupid cuts to irrelevant skits or trying desperately to be funny, there's no fluff or filler, its just on topic stuff. Love it. I've been watching your other videos to see what games might be worth playing and certainly trust your judgement. Thanks for the content. You'll probably never see this post as the vid is a few months old but oh well, lol.

I am VERY tempted to get this - thank you for covering it!

Found this gem called Dungeons of Aether. It's a turn-based dungeon crawler RPG set in the Rivals of Aether universe and has a very interesting art style & gameplay direction. The game has just been released a few days ago and I think it's worth checking out.

thank you for these videos. i always find it to be a safe, fun, smart place to just enjoy the nerdiest of things :)

Thank you for this review!! You and ACG make the best content on video game reviews

Your on fire as always mort. Dont know how you can keep up this pace. hats off!

You are now my No 1 go to when I need a comprehensive review for a game. Thank you for a quality content

Dude you really set the gold standard for reviews imo. Journalists and reviewers should be more like you

Excellent, Mort. Looking forward to playing Chained Echoes myself.

Awesome content as always! Great work.

Thanks for the review. You teased out some areas I had questions about. Onward to 200k. All glory to the algorithm.

Thumbs up as always. I really appreciate the effort you put in the videos!

Just found you and love your videos man! Bought this and started playing today. Just a couple hours in and already I’m happier with it than most other games of this genre that I’ve played in the past.

It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only person who had no clue about how the crystal system worked

I started watching your channel for crpgs you used to review and now you’re my favorite RU-vid channel specially that you mostly review games I love 😍❤️

I really enjoyed the storyline, it's been a very long time you couldn't predict the ending for a game.

Considering the small team developing this title, it's amazing what they have achieved. One of the best JRPGs in the last decade with a bunch of innovations that we certainly will see in major upcoming titles.

I never comment much, but know that I watch all your videos. This for me was one of the best games of 2022 and I am very happy that I have the opportunity to play it and analyze it for us. Anyway, very grateful for your work and content Mortis, I appreciate you as a person and I'm a big fan of your work, keep up the good work. Looking forward to the next videos.

Great video, was waiting for your review. Always good to hear the good and bad qualities of a game so expectations for said game are not too high or low.

Interesting about agility stacking. I actually never did this even against the bonus bosses. I made myself pretty much immune to enemy attacks by using off/def buffs/debuffs and Shielding Maruzaka. Because I never looked online for strategies I just came up with my own way to fight which was different to yours.

Really great review!! Thanks giving this masterpiece the attention its deserves!

Awesome vid!!! Thanks for going in deep with this one, definitely confirms how bad I want to play! Just have to get through some backlog first 😅

There is also a nice sense of humor in the game. Looking at the some of the enemies descriptions in the bestiary are pretty funny for example.

I tried this game out on a whim and it's the perfect mix of old and new! Has the same great classic chrono trigger nostalgia feel with alot of quality of life improvements that bog down older titles. It's a great find!

Bro.... your reviews are really good. You've gained a sub from me. Keep up the good work.

I played all the JRGPS way back in the 90s (that I could actually get here in the states) - and have a ton of nostalgia for those games and how they made me feel at the time. Chained Echoes is the only game I can think of that really tapped into that feeling I had as a kid. The unique take on battles were just refreshing... using past lives as part of the story was great. It was all around a fresh take on the whole genre. My only nitpick is probably the close up art of the faces could have been a little bit better - but even here I am not that upset because these games have been anime to death so... maybe a softer western style isn't the worst thing on the planet. All around solid amazing game. Really hope they keep the series up. Well done

best turn based combat system is conditional turn based (ctb) in my opinion. in which you can alter the turn order of both party members and enemies. final fantasy x did it spectacularly with showing how each move would affect the turn order before you execute them. also, not only by buffing or debuffing (casting haste or slow) but each action had its "speed" which affected when that character's next turn would come up. like huge attacks delaying your next turn etc. most bosses were immune or resistant to low level status effects and/or could dispel them. chained echoes seems to go that route but couldn't nail it in the execution, from what i understand from the review.

Most of the issues you had with this game I didn't even notice lmao. I recently finished this game and it quickly became my favorite of all time, I love this game so much

great review. regarding the crystal system, I found it to be pretty fun to slap them into my gear. there's some fun ones that auto apply buffs or add crit etc. no need to min max them though. and the game just recently came out with a 1.2 patch that adds a NG+, though at time of writing, its not updated on Switch yet.

What a coincidence :D I just started playing the game this morning!

I appreciate the objectivity of your reviews. Most people just gush about this game without acknowledging it’s flaws. You highlight the shortcomings while still acknowledging that this is, in the end, still a good game.

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one confused/annoyed by the crystal system. I also ended up just disregarding it.

Thanks, I was waiting for this before I buy.

That is a phrase I have been looking for for years. "Pacing Out the Revelations". That is such an important element of what makes the classic jrpgs so epic, so huge in scope. These small journeys that become a fight for the fate of the world or the survival of all life in the universe, you gotta love it.

Dude a friend of mine just told me the other day that I'd love this game. I wasn't sure about this when you said no leveling, but the systems in place have me intrigued

Great review thank you!

It may be good to note that the crystal system is going to be reworked in an upcoming update, along with the addition of NG+.

Finished it a week ago amazing review

Been waiting on this one, thank you. Been torn between this and octopath 2

I also appreciate the fast move speed in the overworld

Love the reviews and content in general! I'd really love to see what you think about the Persona series since you've been branching off into more JRPGs lately. They're phonemenal games that have earned the reputation they have

as a guy who have finish the final fantasy 1 to 7 this game really hit to me love it i havent completed it tho just happy to see some really positive review keep up the good work man!!

I started this a couple days ago. I agree about the game being rough till you get the party together. Now I'm thoroughly enjoying it

I just finished it yesterday, after seeing your review a couple of months ago. First time playing this genre, I was pleasantly surprised. Not a fan of this type of combat, but it was decent, even for me ( on low). I really enjoyed the story, dialog and exploration. Thank you for your content, it helped me try different types of games that I didn't know I would like. Off to find the next game to play, the search continues...😊

I’m eyeing this game. Working on a few backlog stuff and recovering from rpg fatigue.

I wanted to play this game. Some guy on RU-vid referred this game to be one of the best games. you played it and now I want to play it for sure!

How about Crosscode review really one of the bests

Hey brother, in love with this game. Scratched an ich I've had for years while respecting my time as an adult. 1 - Thanks for the crystal tip, interface is horrible, can't auto-remove all which is a b**. Been spending too many minutes trying to trudge through this upgrade and thanks to you I'll only take a look once each act. 2 - Battle lag is systemic but minor. Running mid-high end rig and get exactly same battle lag at 1st battle after loads. Thanks again for the brutal and kind honesty in your reviews. Cheers

Hard not to sub to someone so awesome!

This game is such a hidden gem, fantastic game

Just got 100% on this myself. Definitely worth playing for old school RPG fans even if there were several points in the story where I caught myself going "Ah, so they're homaging this now" several times, lol. The story also was too convoluted for its own good, imo. A few too many twists. But still, totally worth it.

Good show sir, sure like this game alot =) nostalgia ftw =)

love the party combat - really cool. I hope other games follow. Sky armor combat on the other hand was pretty annoying

Just saw your review the other day for Sea of Stars and saw comparisons to this game in the comments. Lo and behold, you did a review of it was well. My gaming backlog has grown quite a bit since finding your channel but has also helped me avoid some stinkers.

The vampire class emblem's active is good, I put it on Sienna because she runs out of tp, on glenn so he can share tp with the team via energy share and the tank so he becomes an unstoping wall. Ofc I change it after maxing the skill and not having to equip the class.

We need games like this so pls support and show love!

On the steam deck lag issue, I thought the game was unplayable at first because it froze for 1 minute. It turns there’s a setting in the bios that keeps changing the VRAM from 4 gigs to 1 gig. I changed it back to 4 and the freeze only happens for about 2 seconds. Looking at steam deck statistics, you can see that vram shoots up past 2.8 gigs in use during first actions of combat. When the deck is in 1 gig VRAM mode, the combat code has to churn through whatever calculations a lot slower as it has to wait for memory to free up.

I subbed to you because you complete games 100% I definitely feel I can trust your opinion on games

One thing not mentioned in this review which I think should be is the music. It’s surprisingly varied, and really good. The different areas feel distinct and unique.

The game is basically a love letter to SNES jRPGs, ang often quotes games like Chrono Trigger or FFVI

Pretty on point as always 👌

Thank you so much for reviewing a genre which all mainstream reviewers ignore nowadays.

This game was awesome and was able to remain faithful to the jrpg spirit, inspite innovating various aspects of the genere, without needlessly twisting its core. SE should learn from it. One of the best indies I have played so far.

I had a ton of fun with this game. My only complaint is on the Switch the load times were much higher than they should have been.

After octopath 2 I might need to try my hand at this game. It seems to fit my taste perfectly

4:50 This part is like FFIII Ultros.

Yeah, I don't know if this is what everyone else did too, but in the end game I was using Sienna with quickstep and her ultra move, and Mikah with Double Steps, to stack agility on Sienna and then spam Dragonfang on everything, while Glenn debuffs enemies with All Break. I just repeated this strategy until the game was over

My one issue with the game, and this could be a non-issue if you aren't super savvy with JRPGs, is that much of the story is built on subverting plot points from other JRPGs. Like it will take something I recognize from Xenogears or Star Ocean and then it will go the opposite way with it. Because of that I couldn't really enjoy the story that much.

Totally agree about the crystals... I also did all the side content and I found it just takes soooo loooong to do crystals and then you walk out the door and find a sword that invalidates everything you just did XD The only one I consistently bothered with was crit% for Sienna

I agree with the class abilities system. It should've been a thing that evolved as you leveled with that class or it should have presented a whole new tier of unlocks for that particular class. Also their really is nothing to good to say about the crystals. it just didn't land.

I love this game, and I'm happy to see you review it. I, however don't think the crystal system is bad, or hard to understand. Just auto combine your jewels and equip them. I use it mostly for specialization of my characters. It could definitely be quicker to equip them though

This was a game I didn't jazz with at all that I thought would be a long awaited return to one of my favorite genres. Everything felt a little off, like the combat, skill progresion, selecting abilities at level up, but I really couldn't stand the dialogue which killed it for me. Thanks for showing off some of the later systems I never got to though.

One more thing, I think the extra systems like crystals and class emblems are mainly for the NG+ higher difficulty.

I really was hoping that the shards were farmable so its fun to overpower everycharacter, you know power fantasy things :P

This looks great!

just wanted to put this out here, i love ur voice so much. its very cute. thakns for the reviews

this game is awesome! the storytelling , battle mechanics , dialogs , characters are well done! I love it.

My only issue with the game (and why I burned out around act 4 which isn't uncommon for me in games), was just too many systems.I would have loved it if the game was just the party-based rpg. I would have muddled through the crystals even if optional. However, I really did not enjoy the mech combat. I would drop the game difficulty from normal/high/high to normal/normal/normal when going between mech and party. However, the combat was interspersed enough that doing so got tedious. It also bothered me how insanely good agi was which in turned made the characters with low innate agi not great. All in all, I made it 75% of the way through a JRPG for the first time in a long time so it was a pretty great game. I'll probably go finish up the rest of it (I'm at Good Faith) in a couple weeks or so. Life is just stressful enough for me right now that I'm playing a default game that doesn't take brain power to play/consume the story.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

At the 2.17 mark, i was convinced to buy it. Good story games are very difficult to find nowadays.

I like this game but I’m struggling with the battle system, I don’t think I was paying close attention to the battle system tutorials

Man, do you have a team helping you achieve all those 100%? Its really impressive

Dude love your videos

What kind of monster leaves their mouse cursor in the middle of the screen while playing a game with a controller or keyboard only? Jokes aside, great video. Your points aligned with my own on pretty much every gripe I had.

Good video.

So you don't gain anything from normal enemies? So it's best to just avoid them or run?

How about the endgame/postgame ? I always love to have some more content in my JRPGs after finishing the main story. Stuff like hidden dungeons and super bosses.

It might not be your kind of game, but I recommend playing Brutal Orchestra. It has the best turn based combat that I've played and a really cool and weird art style

goddamn , i never thought im going to feel nostalgic playing an jrpg. it makes me felt like 1st time i play ff7 in ps1 , i freking love it. i just dun like the shards systems lol the crystals stuff also meh, but otherwise. its enjoyable. keep the game like this coming

Many good takes overall. Game fits well in it's genre and I did enjoyed it. Thanks for the video. Regarding the crystal system, it is cool min/max system that is not needed for the first playthrough, and, as reviewer said, not even for 100%. Maybe it is usefull on harder diff, didn't tested yet. Sadly feels like devs worked on it and then dropped it, because there is no QoL for it at all: can't properly sort and given sort is below average, crystals have max hidden inventory cap, then throwing away can be done only 1by1. Character wise, there are funny/cool concepts, but playing with them is pretty hard. Because battles will be longer and the long battle feels like always favors enemies, at least on the normal diff. Huge dissapointment in canned dude :( I am surprised that aggro mechanic was fully ignored in the review, but TBH, game does it the same way - "HEY there is an aggro system? why? more mechanics, i guess eksdee" Swapping characters out felt more like a punish rather than a unique game mechanic. Devs tried to force it like 1 chapter then dropped it. Huge opportunity to make game better imo. I think it feels so because main characters are TOO good, while sides are mediocre at best or do the same as main, but slower. I would say there are 4 main chars (no Red is not one of them :) )

Have never enjoyed 100%ing a game. This is the first for me. Good lord everything is so enjoyable to do

4:54 I swear it looks like to sewers in turtle in time.

Just finished Act I and I'm about 25 hours or so, not sure what I'm doing lol. Regarding the crystal system, it seems fairly easy to me though I'm not getting any of the crystals that I need, lol.

I totally agree with you on the crystal system. Even with a tutorial, it almost impossible to understand what's expected of you... By trying to make this not too much overpowered, the designer made it useless. Well, the rest of the game is brilliant, so that's not a real issue, tbh.