I finished this last night on PS4 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was a really smart, focused game that found ways to do something fresh in the stealth genre and it also found a way to look extremely stylish doing it, despite the obviously limited budget. This has earned a place high up my personal GOTY list.
I played it straight off the back of Death of The Outsider and I had a whole lot more fun with Echo than I did with that one. I like a good bit of stealth, but for various reasons DoTO was my first experience with Dishonored and I found it rather underwhelming; lavish production design but braindead AI, player abilities implemented in ways that I found cumbersome and that made me question if the developers really understand the fundamental power dynamic of stealth games.
I commented on the Quick Look that I hoped Echo wouldn't stretch itself too thin and ruin the mystery of the setup. I think it did just the right amount of everything, in terms of story and gameplay. The story is left vague and low key but there is a subtle arc to En's and London's relationship that I enjoyed, and during play I found that every time I was getting tired of a mechanic the game would change things around in a satisfying way. Most importantly, I was still having fun by the end.
My one criticism is that the AI learning is very superficial – "monkey see, monkey do" rather than any deeper understanding of why I did those things, but it was enough to provide a challenge and a few surprises ("I just got choked out by the AI... huh, well then.") I would be delighted to see a sequel, but at the same time I'm very impressed and satisfied with Echo as a self-contained experience. I hope it's a calling card for great things to come. I'll be looking at what Ultra Ultra do next.
Log in to comment