The game plays nicely and even has some neat little homages to the classics along the way (there’s a battle with a giant octopus while your party rides a raft, and yes, every JRPG veteran knows what that’s a reference to). Because they so fundamentally misunderstand what made the greats of that era so memorable, these games are generally little more than hollow, empty pastiche.Ĭhained Echoes is different. Without a narrative that has something to say, these games are generally just exercises of running around in a circle, levelling up, and then fighting ever-more powerful enemies. Too many retro homage JRPGs are successful in aping the pixel aesthetics and turn-based combat but fall short in the one thing that really matters. Related reading: Another retro homage from this year that is particularly noteworthy is Rise of the Third Power. ![]() This is what makes Chained Echoes stand out among all the modern efforts to do retro homage JRPGs. ![]() Entire books of philosophical essays have been written about these games. One of the things that made the truly memorable pixel-era JRPGs like Final Fantasy IV-VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Mana and Dragon Quest IV-VI so special was that they backed the classic turn-based JRPG action that people loved with narratives that were genuinely intelligent and had serious things to say.
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