Does the writing / dialog get better?

[jbrd_]

I'm a couple of hours in, and have many positive things to say about the game. Unfortunately, I'm having a real difficult time getting past the bland, clunky delivery of the writing.

Every character sounds the same, and every line is delivered with the vocabulary and tactfulness of a young child. And then there's the ham-fisted exposition...

I understand that Chained Echoes is the work of a single German developer. There is so much to praise about what he has been able to accomplish. But oof, I'm really having a tough time listening to these characters.

Please tell me it gets better.

[Whizzy]

All I can say without any major spoilers: The story ends at a point which you have absolute no clue it will end on when starting the game. During the time with all characters you can see different personalities especially in how they express themselves. The writing and the dialogues are not the worst, I had some really funny moments so just keep on playing.

[TotalBlank]

Originally posted by jbrd_:

I'm a couple of hours in, and have many positive things to say about the game. Unfortunately, I'm having a real difficult time getting past the bland, clunky delivery of the writing.

Every character sounds the same, and every line is delivered with the vocabulary and tactfulness of a young child. And then there's the ham-fisted exposition...

I understand that Chained Echoes is the work of a single German developer. There is so much to praise about what he has been able to accomplish. But oof, I'm really having a tough time listening to these characters.

Please tell me it gets better.

No, it does not unfortunately. It's exactly as you say, written poorly, has no flow and is very inconsistent and breaks any sort of immersion expected of a story driven game.

[Abmahnanwalt]

Interesting, i play the game in german and like the writing so far (act 3). Many typos, tho.

[XCROSS]

Sadly, it does not. Which makes it hard for me to enjoy it. This is where the game falls flat for me. It was written by one person and sadly it shows.

[jenovaschild]

It is pretty good ... for what it is. Yeah the translation need tweeking, and cultural characteristics from the programmer to certain regions needs worked on. The use of cussing in certain parts fare more, adolescent, then edgy.
But, you get the gist of what is going on just fine.
It is like when you hear a BBC or Canadian pronounce aluminum, or specific, or mobile.... it is not the end of the world, even though for a second it felt like it.

[imp]

no

[Inspector Gesicht]

No, but the mechanics and traversal vastly improve when you get the robot.

[Kiln]

NOPE.
If anything it gets much worse.
The central narrative is pretty decent, but the dialogue is just awful, the choice of language is wildly inconsistent, and without getting into spoilers there are some very weird tonal leaps here and there that feel like something out of a completely different kind of game- which are all the more baffling because they don't need to be there- the game would work just fine without them.
It's very much a walmart great value brand chrono trigger.

Edit:it's possible the translation is at fault, but if that's the case the translation is taking some unforgivable liberties; So I'm not inclined to make that call, and my german is not good enough to judge for myself.

[Army of Optimists]

It's not winning any awards for its prose, but I found the characters to have distinct personalities and speaking patterns. Sometimes the tone shifts a bit abruptly and there's some lines that feel off (e.g. an early quest has a character exclaim "You f*cked us!" which I felt came out of left field), but overall it's solid.

It's not winning praise like the recent God of War games or Nier: Automata, but it's definitely not as bloated and dull as a Trails game.

[jbrd_]

Thanks, all. I went ahead and refunded the game and may pick it up again later if the dev ever hires a copywriter.

I'm really surprised to see so many reviews on Steam and Reddit praising the quality of writing. Either it's better in other languages or the bar for JRPGs is so low that Chained Echoes is somehow considered above average.

Oh well. Best of luck to the dev!

[Panic! At The Costco™]

The quality of writing is on par with most games, it's just that voice acting helps cover bad writing. When you read everything it stands out more, but that's just the standard for video games.

[Nero]

What is this thread even about? The story? The way the text was written/dialogue ?

The narrative is actually top-notch.
There are some really great twists and a bitter sweet, even infuriating ending.

The dialogue... well, call me an outsider but I really liked the way the people were talking from time to time, droping those tropey nice-guy lines for cursing and such.
It felt more "real" that way. It's a hard to describe thing, but maybe some will get what I mean

[jbrd_]

Originally posted by Nero:

What is this thread even about? The story? The way the text was written/dialogue ?

The dialogue. Every character sounds identical and uses basic vocabulary, as though they went through some sort of simplification translator.

If it weren't for the sprites, I wouldn't be able to tell apart the princess vs the big burly creature selling train tickets. There are no accents, no regional or special (as in species) dialects. I found it pretty immersion breaking coming from games like Citizen Sleeper, Pyre, Disco Elysium, Persona, and Hollow Knight.

Originally posted by Panic! At The Costco™:

The quality of writing is on par with most games, it's just that voice acting helps cover bad writing. When you read everything it stands out more, but that's just the standard for video games.

"On par with most games" isn't what reviewers were stating, which is why I sought Chained Echoes out in the first place. I don't have time to wade through an average experience, not when Steam offers a seemingly infinite stream of alternatives. Well-written, immersive dialogue is critical in an RPG — at least for me, anyways.

[Zalugar]

I liked the writing and story. The character dialogue itself takes a page out of retro RPGs. Often simple, to the point, sometimes a quip here and there. Compared to modern RPGs, which have excess amounts of fluff and filler dialogue, which, contrary to popular belief, is not character development. Plus there's all the thorough exposition explanations for the player rather than the characters as it'd be a shame if you had to think. Persona 5 especially drags on in these regards. Plus none of the main cast really falls off from the story (like Haru and Yusuke). The optional recruitable cast does, but hey, it's hard to make them relevant to a main plot when they might not even be there.

Does Glenn's stuttering and overall country bumpkin behavior not sit well? Is Robb an annoying a-hole? Is Lenne too naive and prim? That's all groundwork for character development called character flaws.

Originally posted by jbrd_:

If it weren't for the sprites, I wouldn't be able to tell apart the princess vs the big burly creature selling train tickets. There are no accents, no regional or special (as in species) dialects. I found it pretty immersion breaking coming from games like Citizen Sleeper, Pyre, Disco Elysium, Persona, and Hollow Knight.

I could see a difference in their dialogue. You couldn't? Or do you mean you want them to have consistent speech quirks like some cartoon? Because those are there too, shishishi.

But man, while I haven't played the first two, I'm surprised Disco Elyiusm, Persona and Hollow Knight would get lumped together; they have very little in common in almost every way. Only thing they have in common is they all have varying degrees of silent protagonists (yes, Harry is one too).

All in all, I don't think you played enough of the game to judge it poorly compared to anything.

[Nero]

I really think the refund guy is trolling. Ba'Thraz and Co have very unique speaking patterns. Victor's laughing even annoyed some people.

So he played like an hour and jumped to conclusions.
Maybe he was expecting some FF IX stuff, shishishi...