I have never in all my years as an avid indie gamer played a game quite like Echo Isle. Just kidding. I have played many games like Echo Isle—in the same way that I have often ordered from my favorite pizza place, vacationed annually in my favorite city, or repeatedly hung out with my favorite friends. This entry is another in a line of games that employs a formula that I consider to be perfect, and it is an homage to Game Boy Zelda games with competent execution.
Josh Koenig’s Echo Isle is a bright, adventurous top-down action adventure game with an overworld and dungeons to explore, all wrapped in a Game Boy Color aesthetic that many are likely to find familiar. At the start of the story, a mystically protective lighthouse that was bestowed unto the island by the gods suddenly loses its light, and the island’s handful of inhabitants find themselves overrun with monsters. A hero from the sky arrives to collect the required MacGuffins, restore power to the lighthouse, and rid the land of its misfortune.
Many other things are familiar outside of just the game’s structure: the simple, looping, crunchy chiptunes; the tropical pixelated bushes, trees, sand, and waves; the dungeon upgrades; the hostiles; the scattered secrets; and the tonal balance between lighthearted exploration and clandestine mythology.
This type of game is a warm bath for me. What is it exactly that works so well about this particular assembly of gimmicks? I am sure nostalgia plays a part in my enjoyment, but I don’t think that’s the full story. This formula works. It holds up. It’s the sort of game I could play over and over again, deriving satisfaction each time.
There is, I think, a symbiosis of empowerment, reward, and completionist desire at play. “Fill out this map” is an invitation to explore: the bare grid, the largely uncharted overworld, is my canvas, and play is my paintbrush. Sometimes there is a spot just out of reach, denied to me by convoluted terrain or lack of equipment, which further exploration grants either the wisdom or the power to reach. The isolated spot contains a secret and gives me a reward, a success, which in turn grants me, in addition to more power, the drive and the courage to pursue other secrets and complete more of the map.
The pacing is another factor in the genre’s appeal. Searching and scouring the overworld is unhurried, and the goal is simply to find and forge the way forward to the next gauntlet, discovering small treasures along the way. This contrasts with the dungeons, confined and deliberate spaces with clear lock-and-key objectives, which compensate my efforts with a new tool for combat or exploration. These ordeals are capped by a crowning combat challenge and, if I’m lucky, a power-up to my long-term durability.
When I arrive back in the overworld, victorious, I emerge with a new strength and a new ability that furthers my capacity for discovery, and I am equipped to overcome the new tribulations set before me. Curiosity climbs into the driver’s seat once again, trading places with perseverance, and it steers me obliquely toward the next sequential prospect.
You will find all this in Echo Isle, but what sets this entry apart from its video game kindred is its streamlined nature, and I mean this in both a mechanical and narrative sense. Rather than the rule of eight or nine, the game employs the rule of four: there are four dungeons to conquer and four general island quadrants to explore, each of which is liberated by one of the four tools gathered throughout the journey.
As far as story twists and turns go, there is really only one rather than the average three. The non-player characters possess a customary idiosyncratic essence, but they number in the single digits. There is no literal currency in the game, and there is only one consumable, purchased purely with the cost of the footsteps taken to reach it.
Friction, I would say, is broadly subtracted from the game’s design. I never felt stuck while exploring or puzzle-solving, and I never fought any boss more than twice. Waypoints were clear, and progression was straightforward. The only trouble I had was in navigating one of the dungeons, which leads me to my one very minor criticism of the game: there are no dungeon maps. However, the areas are compact and navigable such that any modest perplexity that might be stirred is certainly short-lived.
Tasked with selecting the most essential elements of the top-down action explorer formula, the creator of Echo Isle has managed to successfully distill the experience into a couple of hours without the affair feeling incomplete or abridged. Mostly I feel impressed to encounter a bite-sized game that manages to check every box and leave me fulfilled, even if the piece fits squarely into the existing boundaries of the genre.
This game can be completed in a single sitting and delivers on all its implicit promises, and it serves as a perfect appetizer before Mina the Hollower arrives later this month.
