Chained Echoes: Ashes of Elrant

I left JRPGs a long while ago. Not because I don’t think they’re great games—so many foundational video games are JRPGs—but simply because I was interested in other genres and, to be frank, shorter games. Chained Echoes, quietly launched in December 2022, rekindled my curiosity. It did not disappoint. In fact, since then, I have prioritised classic JRPGs from my backlog because of Chained Echoes’ characters, turn-based battle system, and world of Eldrea. 

Since 2022, I’ve played and finished, among contemporary JRPGs, Final Fantasy IV, Chrono Trigger, and Golden Sun, three games that regularly top the “best JRPGs” lists across the internet. Coming around to these classics, I’ve determined for myself why these games hold up. Each of these three JRPGs are deeply associated with nostalgia for characters that I don’t have, yet I’ve found that there is a discernible pattern as to why it’s easy to empathise with party members: it’s story first, lore later. 

Ashes of Elrant is lore first, story later. When the DLC takes place greatly surprised me. It’s not often that you’ll get DLC that isn’t a prequel or an epilogue to a game’s narrative, largely because it’s hard to break the established chronology of a game. This is especially true in the case of Chained Echoes, where the plot weaves events, characterisation, and stakes beautifully throughout its rising action, climax, and denouement.  

The DLC starts with a recap of about 95% of the entire Chained Echoes story. You’re thrust into a side mission right before the final battle of the base game. It’s a ton of catch-up, and the refresher gets its job done, but it’s messy and vague. It’s hard to point my finger at this uneven retelling as criticism because the base game is a full three-act story, and you’re better served by playing the game first before venturing into this DLC. It does signal something key about the DLC, however. 

Ashes of Elrant is for the diehards. Much like Chained Echoes is a love letter to classic JRPGs, Ashes of Elrant is a thank you letter to the hardcore, lore-obsessed fans of Chained Echoes. 

The DLC is available from the start menu, allowing you to choose to boot up data from your save of the game or to create a clean file. As someone who hasn’t played the game since 2022-2023, this was one of the best gifts developer Matthias Linda gave. I chose to start from scratch, mainly out of curiosity. 

Booting up the game this way gives you the entire roster of characters. It was exciting to see which team members I had missed from my playthrough of the base game. As you work your way through the DLC, you’ll unlock memories from all party members. providing a touch more insight on their personal histories. I found this to be the best way to catch up with the characters from the base game. 

Ashes of Elrant starts with mystery and a refresher. You begin by fighting a band of villagers in the midst of their smouldering homes, an oddity because you have spent the majority of your time saving villages across Eldrea. The introduction works well, leveraging the intrigue of starting en media res and reminding you how the battle system works. 

Not much has changed in battles, although it didn’t really need any tweaking anyway. The overdrive bar mechanic requires you to stay within a certain range that using your attacks manipulates. Depending on what attack type symbol is shown, you can keep out of the overheat section, which will debuff your entire team should you miscalculate your moves.  The system forces you to optimise your party’s loadouts to account for any scenario while emphasising each member’s strengths. It’s a fantastic battle system. 

After some quick tutorialisation, you jump back a few moments in time to get some narrative orientation. When the Crimson Wings were gearing up for the final assault on the base game’s big bad, Glenn and crew received an urgent message from an annoyingly impatient research scientist and his assistant, A. They urge the team to help rescue a village where a portal they want to study has opened up.

Despite the urgency of the final battle ahead, Glenn is convinced to go when they survey the situation and spy General Guston, one of many antagonists from the base game, terrorising the village. You arrive and swiftly defeat him and learn that the research team may have set up the attack to draw your attention.

It’s a bit less graceful as a start to the game than in the base game, but the second draw is co-lead protagonist Lenne’s curiosity. The Crimson Wings agree to escort the research team through the portal and soon discover that inside is Lenne’s hometown of Elrant, a city and time where the Harbinger, essentially the apocalypse incarnate, resides.  

From there, the story veers sharply into stereotypical JRPG silly shenanigans and meanders through references to now-dated memes. It’s the stuff that makes games of this genre endearing, you know, the “help the kid find her lost kitten” early quests. It lands alright here, but it feels like an exceptionally long detour when there is already so much at stake. 

As I’ve said before, if you aren’t familiar with some of the optional team members, it’s fine because it allows you to become familiar with them and become reacquainted with the team. However, it’s fairly drawn out before you return to the DLC’s story at hand. If you’re coming into the DLC fresh from the base game, it’ll drag.

When the land of Elrant finally opens up to you, the DLC begins to feel familiar. The city is a tantalising labyrinth of secrets. The several lands available just outside the city house plenty of collectible items, hidden NPCs, and some weapons. There’s plenty to keep you occupied when you’re on the hunt for chests to loot.

Since Ashes of Elrant starts at such an awkward moment in Chained Echoes’ chronology, exploring for better gear feels a bit out of place. You already start with some of the best gear from the base game. The DLC seems to borrow from Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree Scadutree fragment system. Sure, you can find upgrade materials and even (it seems) one weapon per character that will scale for higher damage, but it mattered a lot more to find Pools of Power. Upon finding these, you gained a vague amount of bonus that increased damage dealt and decreased the damage received.

The first time finding one of these made a negligible difference. There’s no immediate hint of how many there are. Accumulating them, however, paid out in spades. They are your main incentive for exploration. I found this to be a compelling reason to wander through long, abandoned ruins and the desolate corners of the world map. Travelling through the remote and forgotten sections of Elrant worked as subtle environmental storytelling, and you really got the sense of just how forsaken the mission is for the remaining inhabitants of Elrant. 

When the story kicks in again and the end goal materialises, it’s got its fair share of twists and turns, but having this mission take place when it does stunts any real emotional investment into what’s going on. It’s a bit like the Star Wars film Rogue One, in that you already know how everything is going to end anyway, but rather than spending time on meeting new characters and seeing their growth (aside from Leonar), you spend a big chunk of time silently navigating a dying world. It’s beautiful, but not emotionally engaging. 

I always felt like I was outside the story, rather than being knee-deep in the muck with Glenn and the rest of the Crimson Wings. And of course, the final set pieces have some breathtaking moments, ripe with some cool stuff, but the ending of the DLC doesn’t feel like it contributes all that much to Chained Echoes’ finale, so the victory falls a bit flat.

Ashes of Elrant adds enough mechanical variety from Chained Echoes to already make it a worthy addition to the base game and a playground to explore and utilise the new toys, such as Talents, which are bonuses that enhance how you explore Elrant. The narrative is fine, but it ultimately adds superfluous decoration to an already established three-act story. For those looking at the minor details, there will be a lot to appreciate. For those hoping to gain earth-shattering new insight or change in the world of Eldrea, you’ll have to wait for the inevitable sequel.