December 2022 was quite a month for RPG fans. So many great RPGs were released in that short time frame it would be impossible for most people to be able to play all of them, even self-admitted game junkies like the writers at Hardcore Gamer. Many of these games were enjoyed at launch time, but there were a few titles that had to wait until later. Regrettably one of these games was Chained Echoes, a game that pays tribute to the golden age of JRPGs from the 16-bit and 32-bit era. Chained Echoes isn’t unique in that it tries to recreate the magic found in games of a bygone era, what makes it stand out is it’s one of the better attempts at doing so.
Chained Echoes establishes the fact that it will shamelessly play tribute to many classics as soon as the game starts. It’s difficult to play through the opening sequence not immediately think of Chrono Trigger. Sure, many games begin with the main character being woken up by his mother, but this particular case seemed like a deliberate nod to Chrono Trigger, although Glenn’s mother is more aggressive and violent than Crono’s. Not long after getting out bed Glenn finds himself a fair with several different minigames that do have a certain sense of familiarity, though the racing music in Chained Echoes is better thanks to the metal band Zilf.
The names of characters are likely not coincidental, as a character named Glenn in a sea of Chrono Trigger references sticks out like a green thumb. That isn’t all as there’s an undercover princess going by Lenne, which isn’t too far removed from Leene for another reference, but this character gets extra points because it’s two references in a single character. The Lenne/undercover princess is clearly nod number 712 to Chrono Trigger, but also could be a reference to Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, which is even more plausible since her real name is Celestia Valkyria. Like the titular Valkyrie, Lenne’s weapon of choice is a spear and her charge attack bears some similarities to the Nibelung Valesti attack. Making a ton of one off references is one thing, but making a single character a blend of two unrelated games with very different characters is quite a feat.
These are just the nods that appear in the opening parts of Chained Echoes. There are countless hints of Xenogears, Suikoden, Mana and Final Fantasy games liberally sprinkled into Chained Echoes throughout its progression. One boss fight in the early part of the game is a shameless nod to a comic relief villain in Final Fantasy VI, even if the particular encounter in Chained Echoes isn’t played for laughs. The airships and mech suits blended with medieval weaponry and castles will also draw comparisons, but the mixing of various levels of technology is in something like 90 percent of JRPGs. We don’t want to spell them all out because that would take away from the fun of players discovering them on their own, but Chained Echoes is clearly a love letter to classic JRPGs.
Numerous callbacks to the games that influenced are fun Easter eggs, but being a good game takes more than playing on nostalgia for classic games. While these references to other games are a talking point, they aren’t the only worthwhile aspect. There have been other attempts at creating games with the sole intention of paying tribute to the classics but fell flat because outside of playing on nostalgia they didn’t bring anything of substance to the table. As someone who has been playing JRPGs since the NES, all the references to older games never fails to bring to a smile, but even if the developer didn’t include a nod to every JRPG they’ve ever played, Chained Echoes can stand on its own. Everything from the story, battle system, world design and soundtrack have the makings of a classic JRPG done right.
Battles in Chained Echoes are a twist on the classic turn-based system. Most old RPGs were about resource management, navigating through dungeons while trying to maintain HP and MP between rest points. Chained Echoes fully replenishes everything after each fight so the player is encouraged to go all out in each battle. To add some semblance of difficulty to prevent players from just spamming their most powerful attacks they added a heat meter. After a few attacks the party goes into overdrive where they can inflict more damage, but if they keep acting they will eventually go into the overheat zone and receive more damage. To reduce the heat level characters need to heal each other, defend or swap out party members. This system doesn’t mean that there aren’t still challenging battles to be had, it just means that managing HP/MP for the next fight is no longer an issue. It essentially works like the turn-based equivalent of a shooter that provides unlimited ammo but the guns can overheat.
Chained Echoes is one of the better games that attempts to the recreate the magic of a bygone era. Does it recreate the magic of playing Final Fantasy II (IV) in 1991, Chrono Trigger in 1995 or Valkyrie Profile in 1999? Of course not, no modern game will never be able to do that. What is impressive about it is how it is able to draw from that golden era of JRPGs and create something in that style that somehow feels fresh. Chained Echoes features a blend of drama and humor that fits together as seamlessly as its flying mech suits with swords and sorcery. This is the rare gem that is able to perfectly meld the classic and modern together into something that’s worth playing today. Catching all the references to other games I’ve played throughout the decades was fun, but I ended up becoming invested in Chained Echoes through the strength of its original story, soundtrack and gameplay.
Chained Echoes is clearly a love letter to the games of the 16-bit and 32-bit era. Chrono Trigger is the most obvious influence at the start of the game, but it doesn’t take long to find a reference to whatever someone’s favorite game from that era happens to be. What makes Chained Echoes so special isn’t that there’s an extensive list of Easter eggs for just about every JRPG, but in how well it succeeds it creating its own memorable world. Paying homage to just about every RPG Matthias Linda has played shows that the developer is a fan of the genre, and the quality of Chained Echoes shows that it was truly a labor of love that should be experienced by all JRPG fans.
