Echoes of the End from Myrkur Games and Deep Silver seemingly launched out of nowhere. The game had very minimal marketing, or at least, not much that I’d seen, but when it eventually made itself known, I was immediately drawn in. A third-person action-adventure title with gorgeous visuals? Sign me right up!
It looks fantastic, but is it actually a good game? And is it worth picking up?
Echoes of the End
Echoes of the End kicks off with players taking on the role of Ryn, a “Vestige” or someone who can basically wield powerful magic that seems to be linked to crystals. As with most fictional fantasy games, your playable character just so happens to be able to use powerful magic and the game will slowly onboard you into its world and explain things as you go along. Very standard fare to be honest, but if it ain’t broken don’t fix it, eh?
Throw in some familial drama into the mix, and here we go, boys and girls! We’re in for a wild ride. This happens quite quickly since Ryn’s brother, Cor, gets abducted by a mysterious mage named Zara at the end of the first chapter. The first chapter is quite long and gets you up to speed with the game’s combat system and the core gameplay aspects. In fact, the first boss battle might be a bit too much for some people, and the frustration will definitely set in if you don’t have the patience to memorise its attack patterns and respond accordingly.
The game is set in the world of Aema, and I’d be lying if I said that the game world is anything but downright freaking gorgeous. Right from the get-go, Echoes of the End’s game world lets it be known to you that it’s beautiful. A conversation with another character even confirms this. The game knows it’s beautiful and doesn’t shy away from that fact with the scenery, the landscapes, the environment and the effects being visually spectacular.
It’s all so pretty, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up with a ton of screenshots saved while playing the game. I do wish that there was a photo mode in the game, and I hope that the developers are somehow able to patch one in soon because Echoes of the End is a visual masterpiece.
Moving on to the actual combat gameplay, Echoes of the End plays out in a way that is very similar to other third-person action-adventure games out there. God of War immediately comes to mind, but also Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn and A Plague Tale: Innocence. Though the game is not a Soulslike, you will die. A lot. Which brings me to an issue which I’ll get to in a bit.
Echoes of the End is quite linear with a mixture of puzzle solving and combat that keeps you going for roughly around 14 hours or more, depending on how often you die in the game. This also brings me to something that needs to be mentioned. For some reason, the difficulty in Echoes of the End seems to be quite inconsistent. Some enemies are an absolute pushover to defeat, whereas others are downright painful to fight and feel like they are artificially stronger than they should be.
The game’s reliance on the player being able to dodge, parry, and attack also means that if your movements are not as precise as they should be, you’ll be in for a world of hurt. Dying also leads to a loading screen, which can take up to 7 seconds to complete before throwing you back into the game. Seeing this so often becomes very frustrating so for the sake of your own mental health, I would suggest playing the game on the lowest difficulty so that you can actually enjoy the story.
There’s this inexplicable layer of jank to the game that seems to pervade it, too. The attack animations are brutal and a visual spectacle to behold but they just don’t feel as smooth or fluid as they should be. It’s hard to describe with words without physically showing it to you in action, but I do hope that future gameplay patches can address this and make things a bit more responsive.
What I also didn’t expect was how visceral the combat can be at times. Ryn can and will dismember opponents and will even decapitate them with a slow-motion finisher when they are low on health. This applies to both monsters and humans alike, and it’s quite brutal. The layer of jank, however, does seep through with some animations looking like they were haphazardly implemented, and you’ll see this throughout the game.
Even more so when you start unlocking new skills via the skill tree and use them in battles. Dodging and parrying attacks are key to victory, but this can be quite hard to do when you’re surrounded by more than 2 opponents sometimes.
Puzzle sections in Echoes of the End can also be quite frustrating, especially when it comes to jumping across large gaps or traversing platforms. This partly lies with the fact that these sections are sometimes painfully slow to get through and really put a damper on the fast-paced action which occurs when enemies are around. Puzzle solving also involves the use of your companion to get through sections, and this is what reminded me of A Plague Tale: Innocence quite a bit.
What alleviates some of the slowness is the fact there there’s often banter between Ryn and her companion during these segments, which really makes the world feel alive. Lore drops, background information and even some talk about the environment at hand are often spoken during these segments, and it’s great when games do this.
Graphically, Echoes of the End is so pretty that you’ll be awestruck multiple times throughout playing the game. The soundtrack is also very well suited to the type of game this is. The voice acting is also well done too but Ryn’s personality might infuriate people from the get-go. She comes across as extremely aggressive, and this won’t be to everyone’s liking.
Final Verdict
Echoes of the End is the type of game that sits in-between the Triple A and Double A segments of the gaming industry. It has high production value, looks fantastic and has all the makings of a rock-solid action adventure title, but then it stumbles on itself with a thick coating of jankiness that it can’t shake off. Maybe after a few patches and some tweaking, the frustrating combat, difficulty spikes, random bugs and glitches and other problems can be ironed out. The developers seem to be aware of this and are working on it some more, but as it stands right now, this is a 7/10 game.
If you can stomach the flaky combat that relies on precise timing and inexplicable bugginess in the game, you’ll have a blast here. It’s by no means a bad game; it’s just a game that’s being held back by some weird choices and some clear problems which can be addressed with a few patches. Echoes of the End should definitely be on your radar, though, and I’d recommend playing it if you can, especially after a few more patches.
Echoes of the End Launch Trailer
Read more awesome previews >>here<<.
Game code was provided by the Publisher.