𝄞Gaia's Melody: ECHOED MELODIES

Oh man, Echo... I have a lot of respect for you, with how you finished your game and put it out there, someday I hope to do the same. This is hard to write, for the longest time I followed your work on YouTube, and when the game came out I bought it right away, I wanted to support you, and I still do even after leaving this review. But this game is very rough to get through. I would say the first 60-70% of this game is actually quite enjoyable. But pretty much as soon as you get to the part in the game where things open up and you have freedom to go to any place you want, for side activities, or finding final weapons for characters. The game becomes very convoluted and hard to follow, if you so much as miss a sentence or small bit of info for where to go next or who to talk to it just feels like running around aimlessly with no direction. Even with your minimap pointers, as soon as you get the destination things just get so messy. Your entire Majik Mushroom fetch quest is a great example of this, I took a small break around this time, so I had to watch your playthrough to see that I have to remove a guest character, then talk to her in the airship for more info? Why couldn't she just tell me when the Mushrooms were brought up? Thank god for your playthrough on YouTube. I get what you were going for, the open ended part of your game, you get freedom and that works in games a lot of the time, but this all just feels like tedious padding to extend the playtime of your game. It really doesn't feel like fun or something that progresses your story, just to get into the Jade Cave for example, it feels blocked off by things really unrelated to the story. I just cheesed it by finding that mushroom hiding in Jade (which kind of just feels like something you left in for testing purposes). But okay, I could forgive that, I'm about to enter the last dungeon right? It'll get back into the swing of things!! Oh how wrong I was... Echo... This part of your game without a doubt is one of the worst most time consuming, most frustrating parts in a game I've played for a loooong time. You split the party, with no real incentive before this to level anyone else up, with a huge final dungeon with a very unforgiving encounter rate, and all the enemies you fight are so strong they can kill your entire B or C team in a single turn. Most of my attacks hurt 0 on everything, even with the best gear I could buy for them (final weapons included). But okay okay okay... I can still make it to the end, my 30 hours played can still mean something, right?? Nope. This final dungeon is also riddled unrelenting lag, making battles super choppy, and filled with glitchy portals, that if saved in, will permanently lock your game. I found one glitchy portal with the background that looks like castle walls, once you go up the red stairs and enter the portal you can't take the portal back. Which I found out but at this point it was okay because I only had one team in there. (I saved and tested the same portal with all the teams too, same problem, you cannot get out) So I'm thinking it's okay, I didn't save with more than one team in there. I'm exploring for hours and can't get back to the place you start in when you get to the dungeon. So I go to your playthrough again, my first team, instead of running forward to their goal like you did, I went through the portal behind me, just trying to explore, but now your section with a 3 way split to all the areas, has glitched on me, and 2 of the 3 portals there take me to the same place, that I've already competed with a different team. So now that I've done all this, and saved over and over, not being able to get back to the starting area in your playthrough, and 2 of the 3 portals bringing me to the same place, I've now come to the horrible realisation that my game is stuck in limbo, and the 30 hours I've spent, and the hours of traversing this final dungeon, was all in vain. It's such a shame, really, I had so much fun poking around in your game, it was giving me so much inspiration for my own, and I really really really tried to beat it, which makes the fact that I can't due to a glitch at the end even more painful to take. So all in all, with the current state of the game (specifically the final dungeon) as of now I just can't recommend. A messy ending is one thing, but game breaking glitches are another.

Now, I'm giving this a "Yes" recommendation because there's no "It Depends" option, and it doesn't quite deserve a "No". If the amateurish art and graphics don't bother you, and you're lenient with the frequent outdated internet "lol random" writing and loads of tone inconsistencies, you should be fine. I can see from the other reviews that plenty of people are able to ignore these things and enjoy it, at the very least. That's not to say I only have negatives to say about the game. It very clearly had a lot of heart and effort put into it, and for an RPG Maker game it only barely looks like one, and it can be said without a shadow of a doubt that this isn't just a cash grab like 80% of the other RPG Maker games on Steam. That's all stuff about the presentation, the obvious issues/nonissues (depending on your preferences). As far as the gameplay goes, it's not bad. Nearly every map and town has plenty of hidden stuff to find, and the combat is servicable. There are at least a few convenience features to ease it along, like the ability to modify the random encounter rate and the fact that KOed party members always revive with 1 HP and still get EXP at the end of battles. Echo607 has gotten to be quite the prolific RPG Maker developer, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she comes out with when her art and writing improve.

So if i think about a review than i think about reviewing everything of the game. The Problem here. I can´t play it. The performance of this game is not very good programmed even if it is a RPG- Maker game. I played the first 24 minutes of this game and the story sounded intresting to me but i need to refund it because i buyed a wrong produkt. I realy do not like to refund this one because the crator of this game is likeable and her youtube channel is good for learning to handel the RPG- Maker. But sorry. I can´t play it :(.

I played this game alongside someone who's been a fan for a while, and I have to say that I feel bad about this play through, because I had very few nice things to say about it. The constant gags and bad jokes made for an extremely inconsistent tone, with there even being emotional death scenes with gags. I was told good things about this game, but it was very disappointing. A prime example of things I found bad are many of the 6-12 year olds in the game having fully developed cleavage, which makes me feel disgusted just saying that. There are too many characters, half of the characters are pointless beyond the one thing they were introduced to do, and others have problematic plots that are never addressed (I.e. the cat people being obsessed with being slaves). There’s a character introduced specifically to die, they even have you name them just so it hurts extra, but it was abundantly clear that they were never intended for anything more than a very shallow death. The villains are very frustrating too. They go from unapologetically “I’m going to kill the child and laugh” evil, to “Yeah, I actually don’t support the evil king, let’s rebel” without any warning. The gameplay isn’t anything to write home about either. The combat is very simple, but there’s an elemental weakness system that’s never explained, and they never bother to tell you what element an attack is so you couldn’t exploit it unless you guess right anyways. You’ll just randomly have attacks do little to no damage against certain enemies, or in one case for me a boss was completely obliterated because I chose a lightning attack they were weak to. Doken is also hilariously broken, being the singular best option for a party member. He has an attack with which I one shot the final boss on challenge mode, without grinding beforehand. I was told that this game was written by a 13 year old, and as a product made by a 13 year old it's amazing. However, this remake wasn't made when they were 13, there's no reason for the writing to have not improved, and there's no reason for characters who are literal children to have fully developed cleavage. I played the game and had fun with it, because it was fun to talk about it with my friend, but I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone else get this game.

[h1]Scuffed Tween Game[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The story is made for tweens and IMO, is going to feel awkward for those of us who are older, especially with all the intentional misspellings that were clearly made for the sake of memes. I suppose this is intentional as part of a coming-of-age story, but I feel like the dialogue sounds too kidlike. Then again, maybe kids these days actually talk like this and I just need to reconnect with my inner child? For some reason, some adult NPCs in the game try to flirt with the tween party members. That is sus. That said, there is some good worldbuilding concerning the different races, the Gate, and the two parallel worlds. I also found the relationship between Akira and Echo interesting. Although they love each other, there are also trust issues because Echo forbids Akira from using magic and clearly knows something about her past. This lack of trust can potentially lead to a bad ending, but their relationship is still salvageable and can lead to the good and true endings. As for the endings, I wish there was a clear explanation for why they diverged so much. It makes some sense for the berserker weapon to cause the bad ending, but I don't understand how Echo's presence in the final battle can cause the true ending. I hope the sequel gives proper hints or explanations for the difference in the endings. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The gameplay uses a normal turn-based system, but there are several balancing issues. In most RPGs, party members have to be balanced so that everyone feels viable, but in this game, several characters have way better balanced stat growths and skills than others. Akira can learn her AOEs earlier and has solid defenses and speed, allowing her to perform almost any magic role better and more safely than most other party members. Zephyr has such ridiculous magic offense and defense that he probably won't die to anything other than deathblow attacks. Doken has ridiculous HP growth and can learn a very cheap and powerful physical AOE that outperforms all other AOEs in the game. Most other characters take longer to learn their good AOE skills, but never really develop the defensive stats and HP needed to survive against enemies. Worse yet, there is no EXP sharing for inactive party members and Akira is locked into the party, meaning the party's levels will always be imbalanced and if the player wants to grind, they'll need to rotate party members. The bad defensive stats for the majority of party members is supposed to be mitigated by their ability to wipe the enemy just as quickly as the enemies can do to them, but this is hampered by the variance in deciding turn order. With bad RNG, it's possible for slow and strong magic casting foes to act before the entire party and wipe out all of the glass cannon party members. Thus, certain lategame enemy formations can feel like a coin flip for the majority of party members. The only good news is that KO doesn't prevent experience gain, but it's still kind of jarring to have this extreme glass cannon situation. The power differences are somewhat justified story-wise, but I feel like it's overdone to the point where everyone outside of the "big three" have a very hard time contributing to battle before they get wiped by the enemy. I actually played another game, Sword of Paladin, that had similar power gap issues between party members, but it still gave the low-tier characters enough durability and useful skills to meaningfully contribute in combat. The early game balancing is actually worse in some ways. Many enemies have access to the instant death skill, Crater Bite, but the player's revival options are very weak at this point of the game and there's no obvious way to resist instant death. This can make certain mobs a nightmare to run into, especially the small ones in one of the Mirrikh labs, which have both high speed and Crater Bite. The strangest thing is that I actually watched a bit of the developer's own LP of this game hoping to find some big brain strategy to overcome the enemies' high damage. Unfortunately, I saw that she died a lot and had to run from a lot of fights, which didn't inspire confidence. Item usage is also scuffed initially, since the first two tiers of healing items only do flat healing, which means they can't keep up with some characters' HP growth. IMO, it would have been better to just have percentage based healing items so that they'll still be effective no matter the characters' HP growth. Flat healing just doesn't scale well unless the dev is willing to implement several tiers of items like in Radiant Arc. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 6/10, which is barely enough for me to hit the recommend button. The game has good custom assets and the story is somewhat better than average despite how I'm not in the target audience, but the balancing issues and bizarre power gaps between party members makes the game feel very unpolished.

Hello. Quick disclaimer: I am a friend of the creator, Echo607, and am therefore destined to make a positive review of this game. However, if this game really [i]was[/i] bad, then I would pick it up, put it down, and then quietly pretend that I never played it to avoid hurting her feelings. So while I'm obviously biased, the fact that I have sunk 33 hours into this game means that I do genuinely recommend this game. The story follows Akira who embarks on a journey to find her missing sister, after her town is destroyed. The story takes place in Gaia, which is a similar setting as you would find in most RPG Maker Games, but with its own unique flavour. (The first town is literally named Teralolz.) The world of Gaia is memorable, visually interesting, and simultaneously silly and serious at the same time. You can't talk about this game without mentioning the level of polish this game has. Anyone who is familiar with RPG Maker will be able to see the absolutely game-making wizardry on display here. Each of the characters have their own unique idle sprites, so you can see each character's hair billow in the wind, or Akira's own tail move back and forth. Areas are remarkably well designed, with some areas having such gorgeous details like the morning sun seeping through the window and reflecting on the hardwood floor. And considering that this game was made by a visually impaired person, it makes the feats in game design on display, even [b]more[/b] of an accomplishment. However, I feel like the level of polish can be a double edged sword at times. As neat as it is for characters to leave a trail of audible footprints, was it really necessary in most of the outdoor maps? I would have just left it for Icilica and called it a day. The attention to detail is admirable, but I feel like it's too distracting at times to really warrant all of it. Also, while this game has an unprecedented level of polish to it, there were some areas that felt a little lacking in polish. [spoiler]When Kachie revealed that she was Kitsunei, I expected her to reveal she was hiding fox ears and a tail. Only...she didn't. If any moment deserved a custom sprite, it was that one.[/spoiler] Then there are times where it's unclear where you can and can't walk, the worst offender of this being Jade, where a good chunk of the map is just invisible-walled for no discernible reason. Then there were areas that were just too dark to navigate around in properly. Another nitpick is that on the world map, it's hard to tell which precise square you need to click on in order to enter the town in question, and it required a lot of trial and error just trying to get in. And for how well designed all of these towns are, it's a real shame that you don't have reason to visit most of them more than once... Some things you were expected to do, can be quite counter-intuitive. There was one side quest where Nameless Catgirl said she wanted to go back to her village. I went to said village and spoke to every single NPC multiple times and nothing happened. (Ninety percent of the villagers didn't even have modified dialogue.) I then fast-travelled to an offshoot area which connected to this town via dungeon, and nothing happened. In one last vain attempt, I went back to the town, and then trekked through the dungeon, and it was only when I exited the specific cave door, that [i][b]then[/b][/i] a cutscene played. Said cutscene told me to go to another area and find a way to remove Akira from the party. And after repeating what I did in the last area, and even sleeping at the Inn for good measure, nothing happened. That was when I gave up. I created a second save file and advanced the plot because I couldn't figure out what the game expected me to do. Worst of all, there were no hints. Like, having cute little markers on the map goes a long way, but this game really would have benefited from having a Quest Journal. Somewhere that the player can cross-reference when they've forgotten what they were doing. There's even a blank space in the menu, so it would be very easy to add. In terms of writing, Gaia's Melody is obviously inspired by many old-school RPGs, such as the Final Fantasy series. As a result, it inherits many of the same problems as them. The story is your typical world-saving adventure presented in a mostly linear format, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but can be kind of constricting at times. The story is decent, but it doesn't bring anything new to the table. Despite all that, one thing I [i]will[/i] say about this game, is that it was hard to put down. And that is an accomplishment for someone with as short of an attention span as me. Let's talk about the characters. Frankly, there are too many of them. The reason most stories revolve around five-ish characters is because it's how many the audience can keep track of at any given time. (Easier for the author too.) Gaia's Melody, on the other hand, has a core character cast of [b]twelve,[/b] and they're introduced in such rapid fire succession that it's hard to get invested in any of them before the next batch is introduced. I get that a lot of them were based off of real people, which helps in the long run, but many of the characters only serve one narrative (or gameplay) purpose, that it's hard to justify keeping them all. Tara exists to be Best Friend #2, Tadase exists to be Captain Friendzone, Miki and Niki...are Miki and Niki, [spoiler]Nameless Catgirl is only there to sacrifice herself,[/spoiler] Choko's brother just exists from time to time, and as much as I love my stoic angsty boys, Whyp didn't do anything that Zephyr didn't do better. I know it's too late to suggest this, but the game really would have benefited from combining characters together. Even though Tara has my favourite character design, all of her dialogue could easily have been given to Kachie. I think Whyp would have really blossomed as a character if [i]he[/i] was the one with the unspoken crush on Akira, and then wrestled with between that and his undying loyalty to Doken. [spoiler]And I would have felt a lot sadder if Choko sacrificed herself instead of Nameless Catgirl.[/spoiler] It's not that these characters weren't endearing, it's just that they're not as endearing as they could have been. That being said, I didn't hate any of the characters. Akira, Echo, Kachie, Doken, and Zephyr really stand out as their own people, with logical motivations and engaging personalities. [spoiler]I have mad respect for Echo for adopting the girl who killed her biological sister.[/spoiler] Even the villain roster is pretty diverse, full of sympathetic characters that I honestly wasn't expecting to get attached to. And Agares is solidly written. He is intimidating and to the point. There were some moments where his dialogue felt a bit weak, but for the most part, he was a well-foreshadowed antagonist, and has a presence that most modern villains would [b]die[/b] for. While I have many more nitpicks, at the end of the day, my only real complaint about this game is that it's a remake of a game written by a twelve-year-old. I get that rewriting a story like this is hard because of how much nostalgic value it has to you (my own Jr. High School stories exist in Fiction Limbo right now, for that reason), but as painful as it can be, sometimes the changes [i]are[/i] worth it. For what this game is, is it very well made and entertaining. But I think it could reached its full potential if it had been willing to leave some ideas on the cutting room floor. Overall, this was a really fun experience that oozes with personality. This game is quaint, it's charming, and clearly a labour of love. It's Echo607's pride and joy (after her hubby and tiny human, of course), and I wish Echo607 the best of luck on her future, game-making endeavours! :D

I spent $60 to play Bravely Default 2, and I didn't bother finishing it because it was bland and had no character. Then I played this game, after learning what it is on Youtube, and I can feel the dedication to the crafts like it was a story the creator wanted to tell. It made me want to finish the game to the end. While its not without its flaws, that other reviewers already listed, it all holds together into something people can appreciate. Also who's Gaia?

Gaia´s Melody: Echoed Melodies follows a young girl named Akira who is living in a small village surrounded by waterfalls. Everyday is like the other for Akira until one day the whole village is swallowed up in a sea of flames, which signals the start of a great adventure for Akira. When I started playing Gaia´s Melody I didn´t know what to expect. The game had an engaging story, comedy and loveable characters. Pretty much what you want from a game. But what surprised me the most was that the length of the game. Approximately thirty hours of gameplay with three different endings. It´s a bit laggy at times but when it´s not lagging, it´s a really good game. So I warmly recommend this game for those that like a good adventure game.

This game has crashed multiple times but i have been able to put those aside. THIS IS A AMAZING GAME i recommend it to anyone the endings are great...well sad...but still i love this game i love the characters and its been Alot of fun and i cant wait for the sequel!

Absolutely fantastic RPG! The story, characters, battle system, music, and graphics were wonderful! However, there were a few issues: -Too easy -Awkward load times, slowdowns, and a few crashes. Weird considering I was playing on a PC with new hardware. Overall, I had a fantastic time playing this game. If you are a fan of Japanese Role-Playing games, buy this!