Echo Generation Reviews
There’s a lot I like about Echo Generation. The adolescent youth in sci-fi suburbia story is really charming and aided thoroughly by the game’s gorgeous voxel visuals and delicious soundtrack. There were definitely some parts held down by archaic design decisions, such as the utter lack of a hint system or direction and the need to grind experience, especially on new party members. However, Echo Generation also has a lot of fun tried and true RPG design to it as well. All-in-all, it makes for a game where the good journey, music, and combat will likely overcome most of the distracting missteps you may come across.
Echo Generation is visually striking, with a lot of intriguing concepts and solid combat and gameplay at its core. Unfortunately, a lack of focus with the narrative holds it back from being a truly impressive RPG. The boss battles alone might be worth the price of admission, and there's still other bits to enjoy, but those looking for more meat would best be off searching for another tale of adventurous kids from decades past.
Top marks for its detailed, voxel artwork and neat twist on turn-based combat, but Echo Generation's tired collection of retro story tropes leave the whole thing feeling a little undercooked.
Echo Generation may frustrate some players with puzzles with their unorthodox solutions and backtracking. If you can get past those parts, you will find a fun, quirky, and sometimes dark RPG that will keep you guessing just what supernatural or extra-terrestrial being you will be fighting next. If you're a fan of old-school RPGs that deviate from the norm, like Earthbound and Paper Mario, I highly recommend checking out Echo Generation.
Voxel-rich graphics. A high-spirited Stranger Things vibe. Clever turn-based quick-time-event combat. But also dopey dialogue, endless fetch-questing, and weirdly placed grind. Echo Generation looks great, tastes half-baked.
Beautiful, funny, and full of heart, Echo Generation is uncompromising in its aims and successful at accomplishing what it sets out to do, even if people without a certain fondness for adventure games and turn-based RPGs might be a bit turned off by its focus.
Echo Generation is a gorgeous turn-based adventure game with an awesome retro vibe. It doesn’t always live up to the adventure it promises, with combat sometimes feeling too lengthy or repetitive, and it’s not always clear what you should be doing, but if you’re browsing that Xbox Game Pass library and wondering what to try next, or if you’re looking for something that captures that sense of childhood adventure, you should give Echo Generation a try.
Echo Generation is a fun homage to several different flavours of genre greats. An exceptional aesthetic and sound design balances the eerie with the nostalgic well, and good writing goes some way to making up for dull mechanics and lacklustre progression.
Echo Generation turned out to be an experience that surprised me for good, thanks to the evil it did to me. This is a title that thanks to its very beautiful aesthetics and its simple narrative, initially makes us believe that we are facing a half casual and relaxed experience, which does not take long to show its sharp teeth.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Playing Echo Generation conveys a chiaroscuro of sensations. You are impressed by the beautiful graphics, a very inspired soundtrack and an effective and creative turn-based combat system. On the other hand, however, the numerous structural limitations of a product that with a few more tricks could have proved even more brilliant than it turns out to be in practice do not go unnoticed.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Although Echo Generation might seem unassuming at first, it is packed with depth and interesting ideas. The distinctive combat stops the action from getting stale, making it more involving and exciting than many other turn-based adventure games. The compelling story and host of charming characters help to push everything along, with a few twists and turns along the way. Anyone who is a fan of turn-based adventure games could do a lot worse than trying out Echo Generation.
Echo Generation is an intriguing RPG that sees Dylan and his little sister fighting monsters, taking part in interactive turn based combat, and exploring beautiful worlds. If you're up for a unique kind of adventure this might be your RPG.
If the game’s pacing, its toolsets and some of the missed opportunities mentioned throughout this review were in place, the score here would be much higher. Even with rose-tinted glasses on as someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I can’t bring myself to overlook Echo Generation’s glaring pitfalls, which is a shame because it nails nostalgia and reference and feels. It’s just a slog to pull those things out of it, and then some. Still, I see a bright future for this studio and the potential for this as a series moving forward, because there’s a lot to build on here. It also begins life on the right voxel foot as a Game Pass offering, so those pitfalls immediately just become the grind they are with very little money handed over on your part.
Echo Generation: Midnight Edition has a great voxel look, great references, and a fun story, but be prepared to do a lot of fetch quests and grinding to progress!
That said, Echo Generation is a fun, unique way to spend 8 or so hours, and I don't regret my time with it at all. It's a charming experience full of engaging gameplay and fun secrets to discover, and should a sequel ever come out I'll be first in line to discover those secrets as well.
While Echo Generation stumbles a few times, our time with the game was never squandered. It's a testament to how wonderful its world is to explore, along with its engaging RPG systems. You never quite know what surprise will be in the next frame of the game. Will it be a mysterious alien spaceship? Or will you stumble across the legendary monster in the woods? The intrigue never lets up, and while the narrative itself doesn't quite land as well as you may hope, Echo Generation delivers an exciting adventure that Xbox Game Pass subscribers are not going to want to miss out on.
Anybody who enjoys a sci-fi yarn that blends Stand by Me with The X-Files, or grew up in the ’90s, will find plenty to enjoy here.
At the end of the day, this is one of the games that doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or appear more than the rest of its peers, but it also lacks a strong personality and a concrete reason for existing. It's difficult to recommend it to veteran players of the genre, as they may well get bored with the ease of the gameplay, but it's a strong recommendation for those who don't know turn-based RPGs, being a good entry point to discover better and unique games.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Through a lean and straightforward adventure, Echo Generation: Midnight Edition is a perfect choice for anyone who wants an adventure tailor-made for newcomers to RPGs, or even video games in general. But some details, or even lack of ambition (if the developers were looking for that) make it a difficult recommendation for more experienced players or for those looking for challenges.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review