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Steam: free playable demo for Chained Echoes, jaw-dropping game inspired by SNES era RPGs

Weltall Zero

Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
Have you ever dreamt that the SNES era of JRPGs went on and they evolved to be progressively ever more beautiful? Have you ever dreamt that someone, eventually, made the ultimate JRPG in a world that mixes magic and mecha? Dream no more, friends; that game has been worked on for years, and it releases next year.

I mean, I could wax poetical for a lot longer, but... just watch this trailer:



As a bonus, its creator is a prominent Era member, our very own Ark Heiral!

So, now for the awesome news: as of today, you can now download its free demo from Steam:



The demo is all spoiler-free, separate content from the actual game, and will be pulled from the store in September, so make sure you play it before then. The hell are you all waiting for!?
 
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QisTopTier

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,717
Beautiful monster sprites and environments, not the biggest fan of the mech designs (in battle) and character sprites though. Will keep an eye on this :P
 
Lobster Roll

Lobster Roll

signature-less, now and forever
Member
Sep 24, 2019
34,370
God damn that's gorgeous. The amount of features just kept coming and coming and coming too.
 
OP
OP
Weltall Zero

Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
QisTopTier said:
Beautiful monster sprites and environments, not the biggest fan of the mech designs and character sprites though. Will keep an eye on this :P
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Hmm, interesting. I think the look of the mechas is one of the things the game nails most perfectly. Most "mecha in fantasy" designs look high tech, out of place and unlike anything else in the setting, but these actually look like giant, magically animated, rune-covered armor made of iron and stone!
 
QisTopTier

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,717
Weltall Zero said:
Hmm, interesting. I think the look of the mechas is one of the things the game nails most perfectly. Most "mecha in fantasy" designs look high tech and very out of place and unlike anything else in the setting, but these actually look like giant, magically animated armor made of iron and stone!
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I should have stated the in battle part as what I ment, I get they are giant armored suits, but they look really flat and lifeless compared to everything else with combat shown in the trailer.

The human sized characters and monsters are flowing with life with smooth little animations and nice idle animations. So while Im not a fan of the head designs of the sprites I like the general animation flow on them.

Game is super far off Im sure things will get cleaned up on that end though.
 
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super moustique

super moustique

Member
Oct 31, 2017
8,620
Weltall Zero said:
Have you ever dreamt that the SNES era of JRPGs went on and they evolved to be progressively ever more beautiful? Have you ever dreamt that someone, eventually, made the ultimate JRPG in a world that mixes magic and mecha? Dream no more, friends; that game has been worked on for years, and it releases next year.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's a little too soon to talk about it being the ultimate JRPG considering it's still in development! :P
 
Stuggernaut

Stuggernaut

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,902
Seattle, WA, USA
hIbhF6p.png
 
ZeroNoir_

ZeroNoir_

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,727
looks great

can I suggest bigger fonts? sometimes they look cool other times tiny, dunno, nitpick?
 
QisTopTier

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,717
Demo is getting pulled sometime in early September so if you want to give it a shot do so now
 

Deleted member 69942

User requested account closure
Banned
May 22, 2020
1,552
Thanks! Gonna check the demo out :). Seems like another cool SNES styled RPG. I played the Sea of Stars demo, holy that was fantastic.
 
Reddaye

Reddaye

Member
Mar 24, 2018
2,909
New Brunswick, Canada
Just played a little bit of it, and overall it's pretty good! I really like the Overdrive system, and needing to manage your Overdrive level for your party to maintain the buff without pushing it too far, or dropping yourself out of it entirely. Pretty neat mechanic that makes you use a variety of different abilities instead of just spamming the same stuff over and over again. That said, these battles are actually fairly challenging, maybe too much so for just random trash encounters, but I assume it's meant to balance the fact that your party regenerates all their HP and TP after every battle (which I like).

The graphics are really nice, and the areas seem pretty big so far. Big enough that having the map is helpful to get your bearings and show you areas you can explore. Nice chill music makes wandering around pretty relaxing. I kinda wish there was some kind of fanfare after you win a battle, but that's a minor gripe overall. The character sprites for the party I have at the moment are nice, but the designs are kinda...dull, I guess. They don't really stand out or 'pop' I guess you could say. Once again, a minor gripe, especially if the writing is good enough in the long run.

So far so good. I didn't have time to play a huge amount, but what I did play was enjoyable. There's a lot of Chrono Trigger influence here, and I dig it. I'll play more this weekend when I have the spare time.
 
Ubik

Ubik

Member
Nov 13, 2018
2,492
Canada
Screen shake has never really bothered me before, but good lord it was a problem watching that trailer. Looks cool otherwise and hopefully you can turn the shake off.
 
Avis

Avis

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,224
Just played it. Really enjoyable but my experience was hampered by control issues. However my controller broke recently so it's difficult for me to tell when it was the game and when it was my controller.
I couldn't find a way to change my keybinds to play with keyboard which also sucked. I don't like using WASD+Space bar.
Because of all this, probably won't play much more of the demo but I'll def keep my eye on the full game when it releases.

Also, The UI mostly looks better from the demo compared to that trailer except the portraits at the top right, they're really pretty in that trailer and it would suck to see them go.
 
Sorel

Sorel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,518
And on Mac too ! Sign me in !

Edit: Oh... the demo is windows only.
 
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valinthyne

valinthyne

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,394
Oh hell yeah this looks beautiful! Oh and coming to Switch? Yes please. Downloading the demo now.
 

Deleted member 5621

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,192
unknown.png


And now this is a day 1.

Only "complaint" I can throw at it is that none of the 3 bosses in the demo require different strategies, just stack buffs/debuffs while spamming damage in overload, as long as you use one yellow skill every two or three turns you never get close to overheat.
Plus the final boss gets absolutely wrecked by the mushroom

But hey, demo, and feels like only half of the combat features are available, looking at the skills and equipment menus (and the lack of mechs!), so I am not too worried.

Very nice exploration, chill music, cool combat. Can't ask for much else.
 
Verelios

Verelios

Member
Oct 26, 2017
14,877
Amazing, I love everything about this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention OP. The only thing that I couldn't get used to is how tall the human sprites are. They look weird to me that big.
 
Phantom

Phantom

Writer at Jeux.ca
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,446
Canada
I'm stuck at the "write a letter in the sand" puzzle. Either my Scrabble skills suck or there's something I don't understand.
 
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