Echo Generation Review

Developed and Published by Cococucumber Echo Generation is a farfetched turn-based adventure RPG that takes place in Maple Town. It has blocky style graphics in a similar style to Minecraft and very eerie background music to emphasise the mystery of the game. I went in with my eyes closed as I was lured with the graphical style and I do enjoy a good RPG

The story is about a young guy who wants to record a film with his friend about aliens. But in trying to do so you discover things are not quite right with your home town. Garbage rummaging racoons itching for a fight, a school headmaster full of evil intent, giant rats the size of a child and even an alien invasion. The clever way the story seems to unfold makes you wonder if what you are experiencing is just part of your characters imagination or these kooky happenings are part of reality.

For me, Echo Generation plays a split between a point and click adventure and an old school turn-based RPG. You have to scour around for items that may be of use and you need to speak with everyone to find out what they need. There is no clear direction to the game to steer you to where you need to go so expect a tough ride. Thankfully it’s not as brutal as old school point and click games where you need to try every item on every person to progress. If you have the item that is required it is automatically used. Most of the items are quite clearly in view and some of the items you need to pay for which involve earning money from battles.

The turn-based battles are very reminiscent of when I used to play Mario RPG in the fact that the attacks are skill-based. By that I mean with the standard attack you have a prompt you have to hit at the right time to maximise the damage. There are a variety of skill moves you can use too which each have their own minigame prompt. Some involve stopping a slider gauge on the green area or pressing a button when the shapes overlap each other. Some are trickier than others and for the most part, the more damaging skills are more difficult.

But although the battle system seems simple and the skills come across as basic, the battles themselves can be pretty hard and this game is very mean spirited at times. This is because the game doesn’t have any difficult options so it is a one size fits all take on the difficulty. But because this game lacks direction a lot of your progression is based on your exploration skills. A lot of the time you can find yourselves in battles you have no chance of winning. You can find health items about or you can purchase them once you are so far in the game but they are pretty scarce. But when enemies attack you have to press the button when the shield icon appears to try and block the attack and reduce the damage. Most of the time the prompt is easy to do but some are very quick and even if you miss one or two it could turn the tide of the battle against you very quickly. But the most meaningful part of the battle system is this. If you lose the battle, rather than being able to retry the battle you sent back to the beginning of the area you are in with half health and if you used any health items then they are also gone. That’s pretty unfair as you can’t really fight the battle again with half health and without the health items you just used so you need to go heal yourself and restock up on items before you can try again.

To add onto that cruel mechanic, even if you were successful in winning a hard-fought battle unless your character levels up then their health will remain at what they are at the end of the battle which is often low. That means you cannot search any further without healing up as you know another battle could finish you off. So you either have to keep such a high stock of healing items or you have to run back home to sleep to heal up which I had to do a ton in this game which became highly irritating. I usually have to run back for a nap after every battle to make sure I was prepared for each battle. You cannot grind to level the playing field either which is frustrating or if you can they hide it well. You would think if you won a few battles to level up then some of these bigger battles wouldn’t be as challenging. I would also add that every pet companion you find joins at level 1 and is pretty weak. They have to be a part of your team to gain experience as well which makes it hard to level them up without any grinding areas.     

But you don’t start with many skills and you unlock more by finding comic books along the way that contain the special moves. These comics are scattered around and some are held by NPC’s that you need to trade a different item for. But these skills cost points to use and rather than each character having a set amount of skill points like a stamina system, there is one central pool of skill points for all your team to use which are of short supply so you need to use them wisely. Although you start the game solo you pick up a teammate quite early on which is your sister Lily. You then find different pet companions, further along, to fill the 3^rd spot from. These pet companions range from your pet cat meowsy to a somewhat sinister neighbourhood dog called doggo. Each companion has their skills that benefit the team in different ways but you still have to find the comics to unlock their skills too.

The overall feel of the game to me feels like it is trying to catch an 80’s 90’s vibe to it and it seems they have also captured the crushing difficulty of some of the games of those eras too. With limited guidance, mean battles and an annoying way to restore your health, it does feel like it captures the challenging aura of that time.

Conclusion

Echo Generation feels like one of those games that try to capture all the elements which made the older games interesting. No hand-holding, no easy setting, no guidance and very challenging. The art design is quite cool and it is what will lure to the game as it seems very chilled. But it’s a false sense of security the game is far from chilled and is decidedly tricky. Coupled with the creepy unnerving undertones of the story this game is not for the faint-hearted.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.