• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Chained Echoes - Chrono Trigger like 16bit JRPG releases Dec. 8th for PC, PS4/5, Switch and Xbox (Gamepass). Please Be Good....

It's been nearly a year since I pre-ordered (and paid for!) the physical Switch version... still nothing. Their site still says "pre-order".

Their production schedule page still says "In Progress" and the expected release is "Q3 2023" - but literally everything on that page say "Q3 2023"


Starting to feel like I got suckered
 
It's been nearly a year since I pre-ordered (and paid for!) the physical Switch version... still nothing. Their site still says "pre-order".

Their production schedule page still says "In Progress" and the expected release is "Q3 2023" - but literally everything on that page say "Q3 2023"


Starting to feel like I got suckered

These boutique physical release outlets are just insanely poorly managed. Shit takes forever. People wait literal years sometimes from LRG for example, and there's no acceptable production woes to account for that, it's just incompetence.
 
Completed it. 90 hours.
Well, my interest in the game has vaporized. Why do developers act as though we spend our lives only playing their single game.

edit: The official website claims "30 - 40 hours of play time", so I'll just assume Fuz Fuz is an outlier.
 
Last edited:
It's been nearly a year since I pre-ordered (and paid for!) the physical Switch version... still nothing. Their site still says "pre-order".

Their production schedule page still says "In Progress" and the expected release is "Q3 2023" - but literally everything on that page say "Q3 2023"


Starting to feel like I got suckered
cancelled mine, dont think it is ever coming. I had to chargeback through my CC company lol.
 
It doesn't take 90 hours to beat the game.

Also, this is the best 'JRPG' to come out in years, well worth the time.
iu


Alright, I'll keep Chained Echoes on my wish list, but it is now farther down.
 
The dude that posted the 90 hour comment said he didn't 100%.
There is a lot you can do but I think it is doable in 60/70h but maybe he enjoyed it so much he kept playing

Sea of Stars is around 30h too btw
Just my opinion but Chained Echoes > Sea of Stars (I completed both almost 100%)
 
Last edited:
cancelled mine, dont think it is ever coming. I had to chargeback through my CC company lol.
Wow, I was planning to pick up the physical edition later, so it looks like I'll have to go the eBay route.
 
Chained Echoes was such a breath of fresh air. Some random difficulty spikes, but otherwise I absolutely loved the game.

I see the official website claims "30 - 40 hours of play time", so I'll go with that. Thanks for all the insight!
Easy Allies suggested Sea of Stars was 40 hours in their review, too.
 
I beat the game in ~35 hours and I took my time. Not sure what he was doing for 90 hours.

Yeah, 30-40 hours sounds about right. I think I was around 35 as well.

Not sure what the heck do you do in the game for 90 hours.

And I liked it better vs Sea of Stars. Latter is good, but attack variety is very much lacking.
 
I'm almost done with Sea of Stars and I agree with others here that Chained Echoes is better.
Better story and characters, better combat, better world design and better side content. Sea of Stars has arguably better visuals , better music and IMO the actual dungeons are better too.

It's still crazy to me that Chained Echoes was primarily done by 1 dude. I hope someone with money took notice and offered him a nice deal to work on a sequel or new IP.
 
No way chained echoes is better, sea of stars is a masterpiece
Sea of Stars is amateurish at its best. It's very obvious how budget and lack of experience reined in the enthusiasm of the devs. Nothing in the game is better than what you'd find in most run-of-the-mill JRPGs from the 90s.
The difficulty in Chained Echoes is oddly balanced and prevented me from enjoying the game as I would have liked. Overall though, the game is so much better than SoS that it's not a contest.
 
According to my Switch, I played Chained Echoes for 65 hours. I 100%'ed it, it was great. Definitely the best indie JRPG style game I've ever played.

Can't wait to play Sea of Stars and compare them.
 
Damn, now I have to finish Sea of Stars. Loved Chained echoes beginning to end. Bounced off Sea of Stars after only 3 hours.
 
Damn, now I have to finish Sea of Stars. Loved Chained echoes beginning to end. Bounced off Sea of Stars after only 3 hours.
The story gets much better at midpoint imo and I enjoyed the mini game in SoS but I can understand I was close to drop it too
 
I have a feeling it will leave Game Pass at the end of the year so I jumped into it mostly because of good impressions here. It took a while to get going but I like it. I'm not very familiar with jrpgs but overdrive mechanic seems fresh. I think the best thing about the game is that it is made by one person and therefor kind of unfiltered and idiosyncratic especially when it comes to all kind of tonal shifts and weird jokey moments.
 
Chained Echoes is probably the best jRPG of the classic style (turn based, 2D) I have played in 20 years.
Was hooked from the first minute - while other jRPGs I tried in the last 10 years or so just bored me very quickly.

That said, I haven't played SoS. Yet.
 
It feels like we're having a jrpg Renaissance and I'm loving it! đź’•
 
Last edited:
I didn't like it at all. Refunded it. The "overdrive" system kinda ruined it for me. Should have been an option. Give me an option of a simple system where I can spam the best attacks and be done with the battles. I did like that everything gets replenished after a battle ends.

I'm not a JRPG/turn based fan but I got intrigued by this. The art and characters reminded me of Chrono Trigger/Golden Sun which I had played in my childhood. Didn't complete though lol.

The only turn based games I have completed are Pokémon Emerald and Diamond. Emerald will always be in my heart, that game was and is so special.
 
Does art style really supersede gameplay and story?
Gameplay is good with Sea of Stars. It's just how the characters are drawn/animate. It reminds me of a particular art style I wasn't fond of years ago. I might go back to it. I wouldn't take my reason for dropping it for a while as a reason to not play it.

Chained Echoes reminds me of classic JRPGs while Sea of Stars reminds me of how cartoons went with this particular style in the last decade. I am currently playing more Chained Echoes.
 
Last edited:
Update on Chained Echoes physical release:


This is going to be my last limited run/first press/whatever these companies call themselves game.

It takes way too long and there's a risk a game is going to be released physically by someone else as it happend in the past. Then there's Special Reserve Games/Digital Devolver who didn't ship my Cult of the Lamb and stopped responding to my mails altogether. Than there's all the Limited Run controversy. I don't trust any of them companies anymore.

I hope everyone get their copies and I'm glad if you guys have had a good customer experience. But I'm done with this.

I've finished the game over a year ago. It was an epic story and a fantastic experience.
 
Gameplay is good with Sea of Stars. It's just how the characters are drawn/animate. It reminds me of a particular art style I wasn't fond of years ago. I might go back to it. I wouldn't take my reason for dropping it for a while as a reason to not play it.

Chained Echoes reminds me of classic JRPGs while Sea of Stars reminds me of how cartoons went with this particular style in the last decade. I am currently playing more Chained Echoes.

Both are decent, but they certainly don't come close to Xeno games. Sea of Stars could have been, had the story not been so weak.
 
The "overdrive" system kinda ruined it for me. Should have been an option.
Shame you didn't like it, as the overdrive system is what makes the battles in the game so unique.

The fact that you CAN'T simply keep spamming attack and magic, and actually have to consider what you're doing, makes everything so much more tactical.

In the easier battles, you can mostly ignore it. But it really comes into play during the boss encounters.
 
Both are decent, but they certainly don't come close to Xeno games. Sea of Stars could have been, had the story not been so weak.
Only Xeno game I ever got into was Xenogears. While there may be no correlation beyond the Xeno; I have owned the Xenosaga and Xenoblade games. Xenogears hits on a whole other level.
 
Both are decent, but they certainly don't come close to Xeno games. Sea of Stars could have been, had the story not been so weak.
I would say Chained Echoes is better than decent. It trades blows with the greats (CT and FF6) at points in the game, though never surpasses them. Sea of Stars is held back by a story that goes nowhere.
 
Shame you didn't like it, as the overdrive system is what makes the battles in the game so unique.

The fact that you CAN'T simply keep spamming attack and magic, and actually have to consider what you're doing, makes everything so much more tactical.

In the easier battles, you can mostly ignore it. But it really comes into play during the boss encounters.
Second this. Most of the time the Overdrive frame is really forgiving and most early and mid game fights are fairly easy (except for a very few you're supposed to beat later on). There's even a difficulty option to make the system even more accessible and, what I always like, general combat difficulty can be changed independently of overdrive difficulty IIRC.

I'd advise anyone interested in the game to give it a chance again.
 
Only Xeno game I ever got into was Xenogears. While there may be no correlation beyond the Xeno; I have owned the Xenosaga and Xenoblade games. Xenogears hits on a whole other level.
The story in Xenogears shits on 95% of game stories from a very high place. It was an incredibly mature game with very few concessions to the anime aesthetics and tropes that would come to dominate the genre just a few years later. The characters are relatable and believable, the story pulls no punches from the very beginning. There's very few games as accomplished as Xenogears in the plot department.

Sea of Stars doesn't even deserve to be in the same conversation. Despite being a western game, it manages to out-Japanese the Japanese in abusing tropes. The story has a couple of good moments, but nothing that can rival the JRPG classics.
 
This is going to be my last limited run/first press/whatever these companies call themselves game.

It takes way too long and there's a risk a game is going to be released physically by someone else as it happend in the past. Then there's Special Reserve Games/Digital Devolver who didn't ship my Cult of the Lamb and stopped responding to my mails altogether. Than there's all the Limited Run controversy. I don't trust any of them companies anymore.

I hope everyone get their copies and I'm glad if you guys have had a good customer experience. But I'm done with this.

I've finished the game over a year ago. It was an epic story and a fantastic experience.
Same here, this was the game that broke me. I love physical games and will always try to seek them out in lieu of digital ones, but for the past few years I've stuck to games that are actually in someone's hands and can be shipped to me. If a game like this releases, and I'm interested in it, I'll usually hold off buying it if they announce a "down the road" physical version. Nine times out of ten so far, I just end up buying a digital copy of said game for -50% or more before the physical game even releases. I would have done the same with this game too (it was $16 during the latest Steam sale), if I hadn't already paid about $65 two years ago to buy the physical release.
 
It's been nearly a year since I pre-ordered (and paid for!) the physical Switch version... still nothing. Their site still says "pre-order".

Their production schedule page still says "In Progress" and the expected release is "Q3 2023" - but literally everything on that page say "Q3 2023"


Starting to feel like I got suckered
What's the update on this?

Did you ever receive your copy?
 
Last edited:
See this post from Thick Thighs Save Lives Thick Thighs Save Lives

They are "almost done" making the PS4 version. Once that's done, they'll move on to the PC version then the Switch version (the one I ordered).

Honestly, I'll be surprised if I get this game at all - and if I do it'll probably be another year from now.
This is absolute insanity.

edit - I was thinking about placing a PC pre-order, but now... nah. :messenger_grimmacing_
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom