Chained Echoesis a throwback to the 16-bit JRPGs of the SNES and Sega Genesis days, and as far as throwbacks go, this one isn’t worried about wearing its influences on its sleeve. From the Tech Points ofChrono Triggerto the Magitek armors ofFinal Fantasy VI, JRPG fans will recognize much of what’s on offer here. But for all thatChained Echoestakes from its predecessors, itsskills and level-up systems are almost entirely original.
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Instead of gaining experience points to level up their heroes, players will collect experience directly into their skills. Each has only three levels, and the difference between each level is often negligible. Far more important are the Grimoire Shards found when defeating bosses. Each of those allows every character tounlock one skill. As a rule of thumb, players should unlock all the available active skills first before moving on to the less impactful passive skills.
7Glenn’s All Break and Armor Break
All Break lowers a single target’s attack, magic, and both physical and magical defense. It’s a weaker but more adaptable version of Armor Break, an ability that Glenn starts with and that stays relevant right until All Break is unlocked. This skill is often much more useful, especially during boss battles.
Other fan-favorite debuffs like Armor Break are better at lowering defense, which is great if the player plans on bringing their enemy down as soon as possible. Still, the increased durability that the party gains with All Break more than makes up for the slightly different numbers, giving the characters a higher chance to survive and retaliate after an unlucky round.
6Lenne’s Cleanse and Bal’s Dispel
Cleanse and Dispel are functionally the same skill, and players should just use the one that comes with the character they like the most. They both remove most buffs that an enemy is currently using. This is especially useful when used on bosses and in many gimmicky fights, for example, when an enemy has extreme resistance to its elemental weakness.
While Cleanse and Dispel work on most of the enemy’s buffs, they aren’t a one-stop solution for every fight. For example, anoptional boss fightearly in the game has a skill that lets it take two actions per turn, sometimes even the same action. This buff, called Act Twice, can’t be waved away by Cleanse or Dispel. Its effect must instead be mitigated by strategizing around it.
5Lenne’s Third Eye
Third Eyelowers Lenne’s defenses but increases her next move’s damagenoticeably. Its true strength appears evident when followed by an elemental attack against an enemy weak to that element. It gets even better if, before Lenne’s attack, an ally applies a debuff that increases that vulnerability even more.
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An example of how to use Third Eye would be casting the spell in question first, then using an ability like Glenn’s Oil Slash to apply Oil to an enemy weak to fire, and then having Lenne cast a fire damaging spell like Fire Thrust to that enemy. Third Eye would up the damage a maximum of 150%, while the Oil effect and the enemy’s elemental weakness ramp up its effectiveness even more.
4Victor’s Heroic Ode
One of the most complete buffs in the game, Heroic Ode applies to the entire party and raises almost every stat: damage, magic, physical and magical defense, agility, and critical chance. Although it consumes a lot of tech points, an entire 40 TPs regardless of its level, no other group buff offers an increase of 15 points across the board.
Other buffs are often hyper-focused on one stat, like Double Step raising only agility by a whole lot or Nukitsuke raising crit by just as much as Heroic Ode but for a few more turns. The alternative is buffing one character at a time or even self-buffing, which is often best left for specific tactics like Lenne’s Third Eye.
3Sienna’s Iaijutsu
Iaijutsu is a strong physical attack fromthe queen of strong physical attacks, the thief Sienna. What makes Iaijutsu a little bit special is that it deals just as much damage as Petal Storm, 350% of a normal physical attack at max level, while also being able to trigger Petal Storm. While other skills like X-Slash inflict similar amounts of damage in the course of many rounds, Iaijutsu and Petal Storm can kill a strong enemy in just 2 rounds.
To paralyze an enemy, itself a strong debuff status, players can use Robb’s Paralyze Shot or Victor’s Bee Sting. Either works fine with negligible damage, especially considering Sienna’s follow-up attack. It’s worth noting that paralyze can also be inflicted by weapons infused with the right crystal, although those tend to be far less effective than a dedicated skill.
2Sienna’s Petal Storm
Petal Storm is a unique skill that defines the fighting style of Sienna. Similar to how her high chance to perform a critical attack increases her average damage, Petal Storm requiresa bit of luckto come into effect but always pays off in the end. In a game where the best attacks often require other characters’ actions to maximize damage, Petal Storm is surprisingly easy to pull off.
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The skill Petal Storm is greyed out by default, but it has a chance of becoming available after most of Sienna’s other attacks. At level 3, Petal Storm deals 340% of Sienna’s normal attack, resulting in one of the game’s deadliest non-magic attacks. Even without the rest of Sienna’s deadly arsenal, this skill makes the thief one of the best damage dealers in the game.
1Sienna’s Pilfer
Having done away with traditional leveling systems and XP,Unchained Echoesdoesn’t require players to grind in the traditional sense. What might make players want to farm some common, easy monsters is the upgrade system and the general lack of crafting materials. To avoid this uncomfortable situation, players would do well to use Pilfer during every battle that errs on the easier side.
Pilfer allows players tosteal an item from an enemy. This is usually an upgrade material or a “loot” object, often the same kind of item that the monster drops when killed. This means that sacrificing Sienna’s turn by using Pilfer can double the number of items gained each fight and halve the time spent farming. Some monsters also drop unique loot when pilfered, though this is usually indicated when using the skill itself.
Chained Echoesis available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One
