The Game That Set a New Standard for Indie JRPGs
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- This is a REALLY good game, and a perfect example of how success can come in the form of getting a lot of small things right, rather than just making a huge innovation.
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Thanks for the great video. Hello from Brazil 🇧🇷
Thanks for watching!!!!
Honestly, I didn't like it all that much. The writing is all over the place and while the plot sets up to become something potentially good later on in earlier chapters... that 'good' doesn't really last for long and it's quickly downhill from there in terms of plot. It just kinda reeks of poor millennial/gen z writing overal and just never manages to give the story or characters proper depth.
That's just story-wise though. Gameplay I think is as much of a mess. The level up system causes a huge difficulty spike in the last 30% or so of the game because you'll have run out of useful upgrades to pick for your characters. So your party is essentially gaining almost no strength while bosses continue to become stronger and faster. The whole overdrive system is messed up as well with bosses that attack 2-3 times in a row and put significant pressure on the bar. You often have no way to set it back once it reaches the red because of it or you'll often have to make a choice between healing and overdrive bar, neither being good options because the abilities that you're required to use are useless for anything other than the bar in that situation, while if you heal your character will get all that damage back or get instantly killed right after. It'd be fine if that happened once or twice, but when you're put into that scenario constantly as if the game's avoiding to give you the right options at the right moment... that's pretty much a sign of poor balancing. And some bosses mess up the overdrive bar itself, making the management of overdrive pretty much complete RNG.
There's quite a few other complaints I have about the game. It was pretty decent, but... in no way does it measure up to the classic JRPG's of old. They weren't perfect either of course, but... they still managed to make a really good impression on me because they had some really great moments with really great/strong writing. I'd say an indie JRPG I really enjoyed is Eternal Eden, but I think it's from like 2008. I love the puzzles in that game. It's a shame the creator never managed to pull himself together to create a sequel and that it was eventually just left biting the dust after constant restarts in different engines. Combat's nothing to write home about, but all the encounters in the game are 1 time encounters. You kill the enemy, that's it... it stays dead for the rest of the game. Clear out a dungeon of enemies? You get a reward. But what made the game stick out to me was the puzzles. They were just very fun overal. Took after one of my favourite games in the genre in that regard, which is Lufia 2. Not as good, but... I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Thank you for the really detailed comment! It's pretty cool how vastly different our experiences were, and I'm glad to see yours explained so well. I'm skipping the writing bit because I don't know what to say, really - the characters weren't super memorable for the most part, but I did feel like the story was pretty well paced. But I can see why you wouldn't think highly of it, even if I do disagree.
Gameplay I ran into the same issues as you did... for a while. Yes, there were a couple of times RNG screwed me, but eventually I learned the tools to solve the problem. The broken thing about this game is that stat effects stack like crazy, so even against the very final secret boss, you can just stack agility on your characters with buffs and inflict agility break on the guy and you get many more turns than he does. Even if he does put on the 3x attack pressure, you will have time to prepare for it. Then you have skills like Glenn's that flatout lower the bar, which were a must for me. And even the bosses that mess up the bar were made a bit easier to compensate, I feel, as those gave me very little trouble. So I guess the same thing that frustrated you was a fun challenge for me, if that makes sense. It's definitely not a battle system for everyone but I really appreciated it for what it was. It felt fresh, and perhaps it's about when I played the game, but fresh is precisely what I needed at the time heh
But you're right that Chained Echoes is not quite there with Chrono Trigger or what have you... but that's why I made it a point to highlight that it's an example for Indie JRPGs in the title. I did say maybe JRPGs in general could learn a bit as well, and I feel that way mainly due to how complete Chained Echoes is in terms of how many quality of life features there are. Why should we be forced to deal with random battles? Why should there be no easy mode? Why should we have to find an arbitrary statue to save the game at? Etc etc. I get in some cases there are valid reasons for those questions, but a lot is just... archaic game design. For me, Chained Echoes wasn't special due to any individual piece, but rather how well it put a lot of things together, if that makes sense. And yeah, in my opinion unfortunately not many Indie JRPGs (that I know anyway) reach this standard of quality... yet (even though lots of them are really good!). Sea of Stars is coming out soon and I can't wait to try it out!
Again, thank you so much for pointing out your thoughts! I loved reading through this comment! I know you weren't commenting to get some clarification on my own feelings but I like writing so you get 3 paragraphs hah. Last but not least, I'll give Eternal Eden a try, you've gotten me super curious now!