Echoes of the End was a pleasant surprise, when it originally released last year. It’s an action adventure game that draws inspiration from the God of War reboot pretty heavily, but dispenses with the open world for a linear experience and a more focused story. The result was a good game with particularly well written characters that was held back by some polish and control issues. So to improve all that, Myrkur games released a free Enhanced Edition update.
Not only has combat been reworked to improve the overall flow, which was perhaps my biggest issue, but it’s even changed the opening of the game to get you to the main story that bit quicker. Then there’s a new gear and armour system, allowing you to customise Ryn’s outfit and abilities and adding further depth to the game as well. They’ve since added a photo mode and some additional outfits on top of that.
It’s also been added to the PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue, so it’s easier than ever to try out for subscribers. I revisited to see some of the improvements for myself and reevaluate my initial review, now the game has been thoroughly updated.
First off, the combat is clearly improved, but still not perfect. The issue I had with not flowing between inputs – for example, dodging, and then a follow-up input to aim an ability not being registered, leaving you vulnerable – has been reduced, but not eliminated entirely. It doesn’t happen as often, but it does still happen. The combat overall is improved though, whereas previously it could feel a little too loose to the point that I lowered the difficulty because it got frustrating. It now feels tight enough that I don’t feel that the challenge is unfair anymore, and that’s a significant enough improvement on its own.
But then there’s the outfits and relics system, which is quite a large change to patch into a game. The outfits are crafted once you find a schematic in the world, using a resource called Glimmerweave that you’ll loot during gameplay. However, an outfit can come with a relic that can be added into one of two slots for a gameplay bonus, such as gaining additional health whilst draining enemies or extra damage reduction. These relics can also be found in the world and some of them are meant to game-changing effects, though I’m too early in my new playthrough to have found one of those yet. What’s already obvious is that they add a more depth to character customisation, allowing you to tailor Ryn to your playstyle, not to mention some more rewards for exploring the game world. In New Game+, you even have an extra relic slot to use as well.
Then there’s the newly added photo mode as well, which obviously lets you take photos of the game. Frankly it’s surprising it wasn’t already in the game, as Echoes of the End is a really stunning game. The Icelandic-inspired environments in particular are gorgeous and the huge backgrounds give the game an impressive sense of scale, so there’s plenty of places to be taking pictures.
Outside of all this, it’s still Echoes of the End. The combat was already a lot of fun when it worked properly – I mean, what’s not to like about throwing enemies at other enemies, or slamming them into the ground? Now it’s been improved, it’s even better, even if it still isn’t perfect. However, the characters are the star of the show here. Ryn and Cor are convincing from the off and Abram, once he arrives an hour or so into the game, is immediately engaging. This is all thanks to well written, witty dialogue and excellent performances particularly from Ryn and Abram’s voice actors. The conversations can be surprisingly introspective and vulnerable, and it doesn’t hurt that there’s plenty of mystery in the background to keep you guessing about what’s happening.
Echoes is a pretty short game by the standards of other games that play similarly these days, taking me just under eleven hours on my first playthrough, though there’s no doubt it would have been longer if there were relics and outfits for me to find as well. Frankly, restarting the game made me realise I actually miss some of the characters a little bit. I don’t think there’s much higher praise for writing than that, which is why I’ll be giving New Game+ a go.
