This game is good, but seems overrated...

[Stormlock]

Just for context, I've been playing rpgs since the NES era. Like, all of them. I play way too many games. It's my thing. I've sunk a little over 5 hours into this so far.

This game looks very pretty. And I can tell a lot of effort went into the details. But the overall design whiffs in so many areas.

1: The character customization is dull.
Most of your options here are either no brainers like increased primary stats, or useless garbage like 10% more damage versus one type of enemy or extra stats you can't use. There are no real decisions to be made here. Equipment is likewise boring. You've got 3 slots, and 2 of them are just going to be whatever is strictly superior to the other options. So really, you've only got accessories as a choice to make, and they don't offer much to think about either. Well, there's the class emblems too, but again, no brainers. You give the healer class to the character with the healer stats.

2: The combat is bad.
I've seen people praise this game for the ability to avoid combat. I've been doing that a lot because the combat here is awful. It fails on several levels. First, it's unrewarding. The skillpoints you gain barely matter, same for the loot. What am I going to spend the money on anyways, potions? Secondly, there's no tension. I don't have any resources to manage between battles so ending a battle at 5 hp on one character or in perfect condition makes no difference. So just spam AoE until it ends. Thirdly, for boss fights, it's too random. The whims of the overdrive gauge are way, way too impactful on the fights, and the enemy actions are neither balanced with eachother no scripted to be used in a balanced way. Having a fight start off with 3 massive party wide attacks basically wiping you out and then redoing it to instead see a weak status effect on one person and a pair of weak single target hits... ridiculous. Again, this takes all the tension away. I shouldn't even bother thinking about the fight too hard because it's so random. Finally, the overdrive gauge is way too important in the battles, basically eliminating 90% of your options so all you can really do is pick whatever matches it or whatever you desperately need in spite of it.

3: The exploration is unrewarding.
This mostly ties back to the first two points. Even if I uncover a sidequest or a cool hidden cave or whatever... the rewards are irrelevant. They barely change my combat potential and I didn't need the help to begin with because I can just reload the fight and feel twice as powerful due to luck. I found a class shrine tucked away and in any other game that'd feel awesome but here... meh. It'll maybe save me one or two turns in a boss fight? I found platinum ore way before I'm meant to while stuff is dropping tin! It does literally nothing because everything is gated. I may as well have found joke items.


I feel bad ripping on the game because it's clear a ton of effort went into it and it was made by people who really love the genre. But it's also clear they didn't consider how all their creative mechanics work together, because they clash more than synergize. The game is less than the sum of it's parts.

[Rampage]

Stopped reading when you said the combat is bad

[ninakoru]

Well, game not for you. Combat and exploration are actually two strong points of the game.

[my butt is erect]

The concept of deciding to use a rare megalixir in a final fantasy, or dig into your small pile of ethers let's say, is something I really miss. This game doesn't have that concept which is sad. There's no threat at all when you can always retry and will never have to think about your supplies. Back in final fantasy 1 going into a dungeon is TERRIFYING. You can get destroyed fast and can hold very few items, needing to be smart about what you're doing or feel the punishment, making it tense.

Maybe I'll type up a bit more later. This game has a lot of weaknesses but when I think about it, a lot of them really are due to not being a big team and I have to forgive it.

Pretty much I agree with what you said. I'm about at the end of this game and overall having fun, but have a good handful of significant gripes. Seems almost everyone here will only circlejerk most things except the crystal system. At least people admit that crystal system is a terrible chore, oh god is it a chore and needlessly convoluted.

[Attaxia]

The combat and customisation aren't perfect, there are certainly valid criticisms you could have in this area, but your take on it is very reductive.

You said:
"You give the healer class to the character with the healer stats"
You then later express that you are funnelled into choosing whatever ability matches the overdrive gauge. While it might seem intuitive to give your healer the healing emblem this will mean that less of your characters will be able to satisfy the overdrive requirement when it comes up.
You've essentially admitted to compounding the problem you are complaining about.

Regardless, the opposite of both those points is true anyway. There are plenty of characters you give healing to that work well (Glenn is a good choice at the start, especially against multiple enemy packs, since he lacks AoE) and the overdrive system does a good job at forcing you to diversify your selection of actions - selecting them early and anticipating the overdrive gauge's change will permit you plenty of freedom in most cases.

You then go on to make a few points about RNG, when in fact this game has less RNG than almost most other games of it's kind. Attacks cannot miss unless you're blind, status effects never miss, encounters are fixed.

[Storm Reaver]

The game was pretty good. Not amazing, but still decent.

I've been wanting a decent classic style JRPG for long time.

[Stormlock]

Having the option to heal people at full health or gamble on heal icon showing up before everyone dies doesn't really compound the problem. Those are bad strategies. Healing is something you need to do ASAP when you need it, and because it highly unlikely to match the icon, you want it to be done powerfully, once, instead of twice as often. You'd have a point with buff or utility skills where stats don't matter... except then the issue is that stats don't matter so giving it to someone with no buffs becomes the obvious choice.

I made a log of the boss fight in the purple flame temple to illustrate my points:

1: Poetic March. Obvious move.
2: Cross slash. Again, obvious. Could pilfer, but I will probably need a purple move later and it'll be less annoying if it's not a total waste.
3: Poison shot. Obvious move. Overdrive is now on and icons will arrive.
4: Heal icon. Power pierce with Kylian. It's either that or defense debuff with Glenn, and Kylian has all my attacks stacked. Obvious again,
-Boss hits me for like... 40 damage? Basically a free turn.
5: Pilfer. Sienne does little damage anyways and he's already bleeding. I got a new armor. Nice. I like missable gear upgrades, even if they are minor.
6: Valour Minuet. Brings gauge back down near bottom. Obvious. Icon is now magic.
7: Power shot with Robb. Could have matched the icon with swap to Nadia here, but would make gauge too low. Obvious.
8: Swap for armor break. Tossup between this or power pierce, same result either way really.
9: Ultimate from Sienne. First real choice in the fight that might matter. High damage and buffs on her seems better than Victor's regen, no way to know at this point.
- Some kind of scripted turn from boss? He summons some things.
10: Heal all. Robb was under 30 hp. Should have used snack instead, but hoarding tendencies. Suboptimal but irrelevant difference.
11: Icon is red. Robb uses Pandemic anyways because it's WAY more damage than power shot would be with his crap bow. Obvious.
12: Swap and use wide swing. Obvious.
Orbs explode. I get damaged a bit and a tp heal on Kylian. Neat mechanics, Orb did ~30 aoe damage. Unsure if need to hit orb harder to kill or ignore entirely. Won't matter, boss hits for kittens. Icon is red.
13: Yoko-giri. Obvious. Gauge is in yellow again.
14: Poison shot. Self heal with snack would be optimal (he's been targetted three times in a row by the boss, bad RNG) would be optimal here, but it won't matter because the boss is too weak.
15: X-Slash. Debuff are back to 5 turns. Obvious.
16: Icon is red. Heal all is obvious.
16: Robb gets hit AGAIN. Is this a bug? Helping hand would be good here, but power pierce is better, one of the 3 weak characters can use a snack on him. Fairly obvious.
17: Snack, obvious.
18: Snack, obvious.
Boss hits victor.
19: Poetic march. Obvious, TP is not a concern yet.
20: Power pierce. Armor break might be better, but I suspect the summons were a halfway point and the fight is almost over.
21: Icon became magic at some point. X-Slash is obvious.
22: Swap for thrust attack. Obvious. Gauge is ideal again, icon is magic again.
- Another scripted move. Boss has regen now and orbs are back. And he hit someone for kittens.
23: Para shrrom has spawned. Sneaky, cute. I like it. X-slash on it is obvious. Except I don't know what paralysis does.
24: Power pierce on boss. Armor slash would have been good here since fight seems longer than expected, but Kylian needs heals therefore needs to stay in therefore obvious.
25: Actual decision time. Victor needs TP, so smacking spirit orb might be good. But healing before fire orb explodes is safer, so I do that.
26: Nadia (Lenne HAH! It's her mom, that's a good reference) uses thrust on fire orb to lower gauge and test if a weak hit makes it explode harder or not at all. Apparently not at all. Why isn't this thing weak to water?
27: Realize maybe should have cleansed regen. Whoops. Anyways, petal storm is obvious.
- Enemy turns. Boss uses a party wide attack that hits as hard as his single targets did. Was I lucky this whole time or is it a phase change? I'll give benefit of the doubt and assume the later. Orbs attack too. Regen was only for 100 hp.
28: Gauge is high and icon is green. Helping hand would be dumb when Victor is next. Swap for armor break is obvious.
29: Heal all is obvious.
30: Icon is blue. Cleanse regen or use explosive trap to lower gauge? I opt for the gauge, regen is weak. Icon is now debuff and gauge is ideal.
31: Yoko-giri kills fire orb. Obvious, since potential for multiple orbs is dangerous and we're at full hp.
32: Swap for power pierce. Obvious.
- Spirit orb tries to poison someone and fails. Boss randomly skips turn due to paralyze? Praise the RNG! Or I would be if this were set to hard.
33: Icon is healing. Victor Orchestra. Obvious due to party health and TP state.
34: X-Slash, obvious.
35: Swap for cleanse. Obvious.
36: Power pierce, obvious.
- Third and presumably final scripted event. Same as last one, minus the mushroom. Didn't summon a second blue orb. Orbs are now irrelevant.
37: Yoko-giri. Obvious.
38: Icon is attack. Swap for poison shot. Obvious
39: Victor uses snack on Kylian. Obvious.
40: Power pierce. Obvious. Gauge is midrange again. Icon is now debuff.
41: X-Slash. Gauge is now ideal. Obvious. Icon is utility.
42: Swap for Cleanse is obvious.
- Boss gives Sienne a love tap. AoE is apparently just a random move he could have been spamming the entire time.
43: Heal all is obvious.
44: Wasting the turn with Pilfer is obvious. Gauge is ideal now, icon is utility again.
45: Power pierce is obvious. Boss dies.

TLDR: In a fight where I had 45 turns taken, I felt like I made a real decision in 3 of them, and in 2 of them I made minor mistakes that didn't impact the fight. That is... very bad.

The fight against the leaping frog was definitely harder, but it wasn't much better in terms of actually having options. It just meant all those RNG moments actually had serious consequences. Reward for that fight was super lame btw. Was expecting at least a piece of gear or a crystal.

Just like I said in my original post, there are parts of the fight I liked. The mushroom, the pilfer reward, the summons. And it looked awesome. But it was not engaging gameplay at all. It felt very 'on rails.' Things that would have made it better:

Hidden elemental weaknesses. Do I test for them or go for reliable options? Obviously this wouldn't mesh with fights you can restart painlessly.

More difficulty paired with less RNG. Having the boss randomly hit my weakest dude 5 times in a row with single target attacks would have been aggravating if his stats were better. If he had some sort of logic to his attacks I could play around, you could tune his stats up, resulting in a fight that requires more thought and planning without requiring better luck or stats.

More interesting character abilities. Lenne having a suite of moves that just do elemental damage with no other effects is... such a waste. Make them do cool stuff! Make one do extra damage if she's at full hp, another one raises her agility with a small stacking buff each time, another costs her some hp to cast but deals more damage... Abilities in the game are too vanilla.

Overhaul the drive gauge. Suggested tweaks:
Less RNG. Prevent the same icon from showing up more than once every 3 changes, so you can plan around that knowledge. Or every icon shows up at least once every 7 changes. Things that an amateur won't notice but an attentive expert can exploit for small advantages.

Less impact. Taking double damage and doubling TP costs at the end is way too much. 50% more damage would be plenty.

More complexity. Instead of massive outright buffs and debuffs, make it do something like... everyone gets double damage in a certain section, not just the player. Another section doubles healing, or prevents buffs and debuffs from expiring, Maybe each section is attuned to a different type of ability. Combine this with slower changes to the gauge and you would be able to create strategies around keeping the gauge in different zones depending on how you built your team and the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. As it stands, you have one zone to aim for and it's devastating to not be in it.

[sorethroat]

I think this game should just go overboard with copying aspects from other JRPGs that I liked:

-Maybe make the class emblems have some sort of progression, not just equip it and gain new skills. If you remember in FF6 about magicites, they also influence your stat growths, add an esper special summon, and allows the equipped character to learn new skills as they gain AP
-Interactive skills that require specific timing & button input (FF6 Sabin, Cyan, etc)
-Sprites should reflect character being inflicted with statuses (sleeping, poisoned)
-Varied elemental weaknesses, not just this enemy is only weak to fire etc
-Some people like that bosses don't resist status effects, but I think a bit resistance can make the bosses more unique and flavorful. But not every status should be resisted, make sure it makes sense with the boss designs
-Friendly fire, with fun interactions (Final Fantasy)
-Weather, field conditions affecting the battle mechanics (Pokemon)
-Crystal system UI improvements
-Different type of weapon for each chars, like a character can wield sword / bow. Might cost long time to make the sprites and poses though
-Sky Armor should have more customization.
-Skills that function differently when the Overdrive gauge is green / red.
-Reward boards should give more varied rewards not just materials
-Armors & weapons have unique effects, not just +ATK / +DEF when you buy higher tiers. (FF in general, I like the way they make every equipment unique)
-Ability to Skip cutscenes. Lol

Edit: Also more unique effects for items, not just hp/sp recovery and overdrive manipulation.

[Jo]

Sienna does little damage.
Yeah right

Robb does more damage with pandemic than power shot.
Okaykaykay

Hopefully this game is simple and obvious because you've not understood anything about it.

[Stormlock]

Pandemic does about 1x damage to the target and spreads poison to 2 more targets for 2 more turns. That adds up to well over the 1.8 multiplier from power shot.

Sienne only does 1.1x damage wiki yoko-giri. Between that and all the extra upgrades Kylian had over her, she was doing like a third of his damage.

If you're going to try and make me look like an idiot, do a better job.

[Amitaya]

I mean, other opinions are fine. If you think it's not good - for you - that's fine. Saying combat is bad is wrong but if it's your opinion, then it's bad for you - fine.

Saying the game is overrated is wrong too. Octopath Traveller 2 is overrated. It's really easy to see the difference between a 60€ game from a publisher that doesn't make good games anymore, just some quick bucks with easy and shallow games and then compare that to a game like this for half the price but 10 times the love that went into making it.

[extrakun]

Looks like what you want from a good JRPG is different from what I want. That's a different way of enjoying games and I respect your opinion.

First, JRPGs are rarely known for their customizations, especially those in the classical NES Era. Final Fantasy 6 and 7, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, the Tales series, Shadow Hearts has all really limited customization. The jumps between each level of skill is massive, unless the slow incremental found in most games.

Second, you seem to prefer tension stretched across an entire dungeon or map. Guess what, most classic JRPGs remove that tension by placing save points at the end before a boss fight. What happened is the dungeon designer will use small encounters, usually random, in a war of attrition. That is annoying; I rather have various small fights but each fight is meaningful. Also, as each fight in Chained Echoes require you to use all your resources, it doesn't pull any punches. Maybe I am missing some side paths that give insane rewards or something, but up to the point before Tormund I am having some of my most tense fights in a JRPG game.

Third, the overdrive system is what make the combat system works. If it is not for you then the game is not for you, though I do wonder if it is objectively worse than the majority of JRPGs system where you just spam normal attacks (because you don't want to waste MP) or go for spend MP to burn down the enemies, and those are the majority of decisions I make in those games (and who to target first). The Overdrive system requires thinking and planning. There are tools to handle the Overdrive system: items (which admittedly can be given more useful icons), skills (Glenn at least has one), switching characters (don't put two characters who has the same role together or else you won't get to switch) and the Ultra Attacks (don't be stingy with those). You have to treat each and every fight as a mini-boss fight. I haven't been seriously so engaged by a combat system since Chrono Cross and Night Wars.

Granted, each fight is a mini-puzzle, and usually only have one or two solutions. That can feel limiting and contributes to the frustration. If so, maybe the game's not for you. But objectively the combat is bad? Hard disagree here.

Now some reviewers said they basically spammed whatever they like to get through the game and paid no attention to the Overdrive bar -- I wonder if they are playing the same game as I am (or as I had pointed out, maybe I missed some awesome rewards from a side quest). In short, if you don't like micromanging the overdrive bar, you will hate this game -- but there are difficulty options to tweak it, so...

Fourth, the exploration is unrewarding part. There are crystals and materials you can use to upgrade your gear, which helps in combat. You complete job boards from which you can claim reward. Chests contain items that you can buy later and money in this game is hard to come by. Those do increase your combat potential.

Originally posted by Jo:

Sienna does little damage.
Yeah right

Robb does more damage with pandemic than power shot.
Okaykaykay

Hopefully this game is simple and obvious because you've not understood anything about it.

It's situational. The damage here is total damage, not average damage. At the start of combat, Poison Shot + Pandemic will deal better overall than Yoko Girl. The former take two actions, but it puts a DoT which does damage without you having to spend an action and more importantly in this game, an action you didn't use on attacks is an action that doesn't move your overdrive bar.

This is why in most MMOs, like FF14, you should always put DoT on the boss or whatever and keeps refreshing it when you can.

[extrakun]

Originally posted by Stormlock:

1: Poetic March. Obvious move.
2: Cross slash. Again, obvious. Could pilfer, but I will probably need a purple move later and it'll be less annoying if it's not a total waste.
3: Poison shot. Obvious move. Overdrive is now on and icons will arrive.
4: Heal icon. Power pierce with Kylian. It's either that or defense debuff with Glenn, and Kylian has all my attacks stacked. Obvious again,
-Boss hits me for like... 40 damage? Basically a free turn.
5: Pilfer. Sienne does little damage anyways and he's already bleeding. I got a new armor. Nice. I like missable gear upgrades, even if they are minor.
6: Valour Minuet. Brings gauge back down near bottom. Obvious. Icon is now magic.
7: Power shot with Robb. Could have matched the icon with swap to Nadia here, but would make gauge too low. Obvious.
8: Swap for armor break. Tossup between this or power pierce, same result either way really.
9: Ultimate from Sienne. First real choice in the fight that might matter. High damage and buffs on her seems better than Victor's regen, no way to know at this point.
- Some kind of scripted turn from boss? He summons some things.
10: Heal all. Robb was under 30 hp. Should have used snack instead, but hoarding tendencies. Suboptimal but irrelevant difference.
11: Icon is red. Robb uses Pandemic anyways because it's WAY more damage than power shot would be with his crap bow. Obvious.
12: Swap and use wide swing. Obvious.
Orbs explode. I get damaged a bit and a tp heal on Kylian. Neat mechanics, Orb did ~30 aoe damage. Unsure if need to hit orb harder to kill or ignore entirely. Won't matter, boss hits for kittens. Icon is red.
13: Yoko-giri. Obvious. Gauge is in yellow again.
14: Poison shot. Self heal with snack would be optimal (he's been targetted three times in a row by the boss, bad RNG) would be optimal here, but it won't matter because the boss is too weak.
15: X-Slash. Debuff are back to 5 turns. Obvious.
16: Icon is red. Heal all is obvious.
16: Robb gets hit AGAIN. Is this a bug? Helping hand would be good here, but power pierce is better, one of the 3 weak characters can use a snack on him. Fairly obvious.
17: Snack, obvious.
18: Snack, obvious.
Boss hits victor.
19: Poetic march. Obvious, TP is not a concern yet.
20: Power pierce. Armor break might be better, but I suspect the summons were a halfway point and the fight is almost over.
21: Icon became magic at some point. X-Slash is obvious.
22: Swap for thrust attack. Obvious. Gauge is ideal again, icon is magic again.
- Another scripted move. Boss has regen now and orbs are back. And he hit someone for kittens.
23: Para shrrom has spawned. Sneaky, cute. I like it. X-slash on it is obvious. Except I don't know what paralysis does.
24: Power pierce on boss. Armor slash would have been good here since fight seems longer than expected, but Kylian needs heals therefore needs to stay in therefore obvious.
25: Actual decision time. Victor needs TP, so smacking spirit orb might be good. But healing before fire orb explodes is safer, so I do that.
26: Nadia (Lenne HAH! It's her mom, that's a good reference) uses thrust on fire orb to lower gauge and test if a weak hit makes it explode harder or not at all. Apparently not at all. Why isn't this thing weak to water?
27: Realize maybe should have cleansed regen. Whoops. Anyways, petal storm is obvious.
- Enemy turns. Boss uses a party wide attack that hits as hard as his single targets did. Was I lucky this whole time or is it a phase change? I'll give benefit of the doubt and assume the later. Orbs attack too. Regen was only for 100 hp.
28: Gauge is high and icon is green. Helping hand would be dumb when Victor is next. Swap for armor break is obvious.
29: Heal all is obvious.
30: Icon is blue. Cleanse regen or use explosive trap to lower gauge? I opt for the gauge, regen is weak. Icon is now debuff and gauge is ideal.
31: Yoko-giri kills fire orb. Obvious, since potential for multiple orbs is dangerous and we're at full hp.
32: Swap for power pierce. Obvious.
- Spirit orb tries to poison someone and fails. Boss randomly skips turn due to paralyze? Praise the RNG! Or I would be if this were set to hard.
33: Icon is healing. Victor Orchestra. Obvious due to party health and TP state.
34: X-Slash, obvious.
35: Swap for cleanse. Obvious.
36: Power pierce, obvious.
- Third and presumably final scripted event. Same as last one, minus the mushroom. Didn't summon a second blue orb. Orbs are now irrelevant.
37: Yoko-giri. Obvious.
38: Icon is attack. Swap for poison shot. Obvious
39: Victor uses snack on Kylian. Obvious.
40: Power pierce. Obvious. Gauge is midrange again. Icon is now debuff.
41: X-Slash. Gauge is now ideal. Obvious. Icon is utility.
42: Swap for Cleanse is obvious.
- Boss gives Sienne a love tap. AoE is apparently just a random move he could have been spamming the entire time.
43: Heal all is obvious.
44: Wasting the turn with Pilfer is obvious. Gauge is ideal now, icon is utility again.
45: Power pierce is obvious. Boss dies.

I just did this fight yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind. I don't remember the sequence of events -- but here's the gist

Begin with Valor: I want the TP regen as soon as possible

Glenn does his Ultra: I usually make sure I maxed out my Ultra gauge before I begin a boss fight. Why Glenn's -- because of all the status effects he inflicted. Whenever Ultra is available, I goes with Glenn because this is a long fight, so damage is secondary, survival is first.

Poison Shot and X-Slash goes next. All the DoTs. Keep refreshing when needed, especially when the overdrive icon matches with it.

The boss had a AOE counter-attack mechanic if you damage it when it has two orbs out. So using Pandemic with Robb might be obvious but might not be for me, because I want less damage done to my party. I learnt this the first time I tried and I switched to single target attacks when the fire and ice elements are out.

I used little snacks in this fight. Glenn's Heal All plus Victor's Valor kept TP up. Plus, when Glenn is low I use him to whack the ice orb for TP heal.

I didn't have the warrior emblem for this fight, so there's no Power Pierce for me. It's always the obvious choice for you but not for me I also considered between Helping Hands and Leg Aim. When I go DPS, my choice is Glenn's Oil and Fire Thrust.

So you see, same fight, almost same party, I have a different perspective for what's obvious. It's obvious that you picked the most DPS route, and I chose the more conservative route. I also kept defending to manage the Overdrive Gauge.

[Stormlock]

I'm honestly baffled you guys feel like the items in this game are rewarding. With the exception of a few weapons in the buried treasure that gave major benefits, and the attack up crystals, pretty much everything else has been so useless I didn't even bother fusing it. SOS Stat up? A TEN percent boost to a stat while my character is on the brink of death? Why would I be excited for that? 5% chance to inflict paralyze? Even in that boss fight nobody hit the boss 20 times and even if they had it seems to have like a 1/3 chance of doing anything? 15% resistance to an element? That won't even make someone die in 4 hits instead of 3. It has literally no effect in practice. These are terrible rewards for taking double the time to explore a map thoroughly. Compare to Chrono Trigger, where you get things like 70% counter attack rate or permanent double speed or complete immunity to an element off a single piece of equipment. And picking which things to use on which characters gives you way more customization than picking between +10 hp or +1 agi.

And the random encounters here are the exact opposite of meaningful. There is literally no consequence for losing, and no benefit at all for winning quickly, or efficiently. Whether I mash my way through brainlessly or play carefully I get the exact same results. Presenting this as a revolutionary system that fixes the problems of older games is ridiculous.

The game has lots going for it, I just don't think it deserves all these 10/10 best game ever reviews it has been getting. I'm sad games like Monster Sanctuary and Crystal Project didn't get this kind of publicity, because they deserve it far more. Yeah, this is better than Octopath. That is a very low bar. It's nowhere close to as good as Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, FF5, Valkyrie Profile, BoF 3, Tales of Destiny, Star Ocean 2, SaGa Frontier.... Those games are the bar to meet and this falls well short.

[extrakun]

You showed a log of your combat with the Dream Eater, and since your profile is private, I can't see where you are in the game a the moment, so I will assume that you just finished the Dream Eater.

You are comparing end game stuff from Chrono Trigger (the rainbow shell weapons and items, I think) with the beginning of the game in Chained Echoes, which is rather unfair, but I might be wrong here - I think I haven't even done 1/4 of the game. Granted, the crystal system is one of the weaker aspects of the game, according to some reviewers (Mortismal Gaming, for instance).

The exploration stuff fills up the job board and unlocks new rewards. Red chests give you pieces of armor and weapons of the next tier that are not available in shops. I am honestly confused here - that's a beloved standard JRPG trope. I managed to grab a number of stuff that cannot be found via shops or loot drops.

And the random encounters here are the exact opposite of meaningful. There is literally no consequence for losing, and no benefit at all for winning quickly, or efficiently. Whether I mash my way through brainlessly or play carefully I get the exact same results. Presenting this as a revolutionary system that fixes the problems of older games is ridiculous.

With save points and tents what sort of consequences are there? In the past, dealing with dungeons with no save points in the middle means grinding money to get potions, tents, consumables and then head out. Pretty sure I usually go out with lots of s backup so I will never lose. Some games even put a merchant before a boss fight, for crying out loud.

Also, I am confused. Most JRPGs doesn't care how long you take to clear a fight. The only things those random encounters are there to suck your resources,

It's nowhere close to as good as Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, FF5, Valkyrie Profile, BoF 3, Tales of Destiny, Star Ocean 2, SaGa Frontier.... Those games are the bar to meet and this falls well short.

From what I see, most of the reviews that lauded the game are for the facts that it takes away all the grinding, busywork and tedium of the genre. I don't think Chained Echoes is better than those games, and I seriously doubt any reviewers would say that. What I love Chained Echoes for are basically - it's a homage and it's slaughtering the sacred cows at the same time. It's what the stale JRPG-style industry needs, instead of repeating all the experiences of the past. Truth is, as much as I enjoyed Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Shadow Hearts, I don't have the time, nor interest, to play through something like those again. I bounce off the Trails series now precisely because of time issue and "it's just more of the same."

I hope you'll find a way to enjoy this game. Hopefully Sea of Stars ranked higher in your opinion!

[Rampage]

Originally posted by Axelhander:

There wasn't much to Chrono Trigger's endgame so I'm not sure why THAT came up...

You're joking right? Several huge storyfilled side quests with character development open up, multiple different endings can be achieved. All the best gear to be obtained and more.