ECHO

Danish game developer ULTRA ULTRA closed their doors about a month ago. The sole game they put out before that didn't sell well enough to keep them afloat. After having played it, I am not surprised. Echo (stylized in caps as ECHO) has some impressive visual detail but is ultimately a painfully repetitive and unrewarding gaming experience.

3rd person stealth game with a gimmick

I wonder if it started in a game jam. Its mechanics and story don't have enough substance to stay interesting for 7+ hours but for a max 2-hour jam title sure. Echo also unnecessarily pads its length by having long walking sections with story exposition via dialogue between the protagonist En (voiced by Rose Leslie one might know from Game of Thrones) and her ship's AI, London (Nick Boulton, male Hawke in Dragon Age 2). It literally takes an hour of holding down W before the actual game even begins.

Echo's name comes from its main game mechanic. The planet-size palace you're in creates copies of you that echo your actions. The palace first needs a period of learning after which it reboots and there's a blackout. When the lights come back on, enemies have respawned and are then able to perform all the actions you did in the previous cycle.

If you vault over an obstacle, the palace will echo it. If you cross water, the enemies will be able to do so too, and so on. The learning period seemed to be based on a certain number of actions performed instead of having a set time. Hiding crouched in a corner didn't pass a cycle for me.

The allegedly worst thing you can teach the echoes is firing your pistol. The gun is powerful; kills enemies in one shot and even pierces to hit everything behind. But the following cycle's echoes will then be able to damage you from a range instead of just grabbing from up close.

There are a few levels with a gate that requires key rods to unlock. After picking up one rod and going for the second, you might find it to not be on its pedestal because one of the echoes has taken it. The game gives you an objective marker on the rod, thus locating it is not any harder. But I did find it amusing that it was also an echoing action.

Playing stealthily and patiently is probably the smoothest way to progress but I simply got tired of the same repeating, meaningless halls and objectives. I wanted to just get to the end and started bee-lining through the levels. Most of the time it worked; it is possible to stay ahead of the enemies even when they're faster than normal due to you sprinting in the previous cycle. It is kind of risky though as last checkpoint can be a fair bit of a hike behind you.

During a blackout the palace doesn't learn and you can turn around to kill your pursuers without worrying about enemy guns in the next cycle. It is difficult to see in the darkness however and the gunfire might lure in more enemies you're not aware of.

It is unfortunate that Echo has so little substance. It looks great and is not janky at all, which I think is unusual for an indie title. The game also has some really meaty sound effects, the kind you can feel in your guts when played via speakers. But the little story Echo has is so very unsatisfying. There's zero payoff for enduring the game all the way through. It must be the shiniest turd I've ever had the displeasure of playing.