Throughout my first ten hours with Echoes of Aetheria, I was sure that I'd end up reviewing it by giving it a recommendation. For the most part, it was a worthy and fun new instalment in the Dancing Dragon's series that I've more than enjoyed so far. Unfortunately, this changed later on.
Let me start off by saying that I did enjoy some thing about this game right up until the very end. I think that the graphics and the sprites still contain that magical charm that their previous games, Deadly Sin, Deadly Sin 2 and Skyborn had. The characters are also quite likeable, even if the story surrounding them is nothing to write home about and they are basically archetypes, they did bring out a few chuckles and moments of enjoyment. It is unfortunate, though, that most of them, due to a weaker story, reach an expected and predictable conclusion by the time that the credits roll. The music is good, but repetitive after 30+ hours and the combat, in general, is actually fantastic.
This, however, does bring me to the negatives. While the grid combat system is really fun and requires well-thought out tactics and planning, it gets old quite fast. Sure, the enemy encounters can be avoided completely on the map, but then you're risking not levelling up as the game intended. Furthermore, while it is my problem that I'm a perfectionist and achievement collector, the hard difficulty isn't even hard - it is straight up unfair and frustrating. At first, it is very manageable, but in the second half of the game, the arena fights and the last few bosses, it becomes borderline idiotic. Many, many enemies will one-hit kill you or stun you so that your party never even gets a turn. Even after basically abusing the game's systems to level up as much as I possibly could, the final boss was horrible, throwing moves that instantly wipe out the entire party with a single move that you can't block or prevent.
As in their previous games, the mapping in Echoes of Aetheria is very well done. Many maps are very lifelike and pleasant to look at, but even this has its downsides, as some dungeons in the latter part of the game are so stupidly massive that the biggest challenge you get is literally trying to navigate them. Combine this with an over-reliance on using the teleporter tricks to make them seem even bigger, while making them extremely confusing, and you got yourself a frustrated player. I didn't even mention the "big chests" which many maps hide and you have to find in order to earn one of the achievements. Even on the big maps, sure, they can be found if you're thorough; but the game even throws these during the siege moments, where you're quite literally fighting against the clock and the enemy army, so roaming around to find a key which unlocks the chest on the opposite side of the battlefield filled with progressing enemies is just unfair.
At the end of the day, I did have fun with Echoes of Aetheria; at first. The first 15 hours were legitimately great, even on the hardest difficulty. I cared for the characters, marvelled at the maps and enjoyed tough, but fair combat encounters. In the second half of my playthrough, I started swearing at the game more than I have in a while. Even if you enjoy Dancing Dragon Games and their fantastic previous works, you might want to skip this one entirely. It brings barely anything new to the table and turns the former "hard, but fair, while making you adapt and learn" difficulty into an insane punishment at the cost of the game's quality. Almost every single aspect of this game has been outdone by the games that came prior to it; and I'm sorry that it is like that, but I'll always cherish those, at least.
