𝄞Gaia's Melody: ECHOED MELODIES

Finished this several years ago, but apparently never wrote a review. It's been too long to be too specific in the review about anything, but it's an overall fun game with a heartfelt story and clearly has a lot of love out into it. Despite having moments that can feel trope-y and.. "fanfic-y"/"teenage-writer-y" (?), it tends to be a great experience overall if you're willing to overlook certain moments where the dialogue/writing is amateur yet well-written, or maybe a bit too cheesy. If you allow yourself to connect the characters, you'll love them and feel with them. The game was originally made by a teenager who then "remade" the game several years later, and being able to see the progress of that over time and their success inspired me and felt almost like it empowered me in the sense of "if they could do that, maybe I could do that too!", which kicked off my desire to try and make my own games. It's possible that that has biased my perspective of the game, but that's what it is. :)

This is an excellent game as far as RPG Maker games. The writing is pretty good, and did an excellent job of making me care for the characters, enough to get all the endings and still leaving me with some good questions. I will say that the balance in the game is rather poor, so if you pick this game up I'd say it'd probably be best to just play it on the easy difficulty, and skimp on the actual combat as much as possible. I played it on normal mode and the balance is super wonky. I only died once, to a bug in a certain 1 on 1 battle where the opening cutscene did not properly play thus letting the boss just slowly kill my character dead. I did not find the combat particularly engaging, but your mileage my vary, I am an extremely experienced RPG player. That isn't really the focus of this game though as far as I can tell. The story, visuals, sound and music design are excellent and do a great job enhancing the story of the game. If your looking for an interactive storybook, this is a great pick up. Thanks Echo for all your contributions to the RPG Maker community, and thank you for this gem of a game. I hope many people find this game over the years and get inspired to write their own stories, and make their own games. You've certainly inspired me to work even harder on my own. I wish you all the best in your next adventures.