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Echoes of Another's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #4 | 4.360 | 4.360 |
| Audio / Music | #6 | 3.880 | 3.880 |
| Concept | #11 | 3.560 | 3.560 |
| Story / Writing | #14 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Overall | #15 | 3.480 | 3.480 |
| Use of LGBTQ+ Themes | #16 | 3.120 | 3.120 |
| Balance (Challenge and Fairness) | #17 | 2.720 | 2.720 |
| Gameplay | #19 | 2.760 | 2.760 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
SolarisSect, Saishoo, munchea, Jacoder23, Panchamon, Spear, sewagechrysalis, wookywok
Streaming Permission
Yes
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Comments
Finished this today, it's so great.
There was one annoying bug. I saved at the piano, and since then, any time I try to load any save, it takes me back to the piano, unless it's a save that was made before that one. Somehow it happens even after deleting that piano save. And the worst part is that it also took me there when the game ended.
But other than that, Echoes of Another was really very good and I will remember it.
I'm really glad to see a game like this here.
To get the negatives out of the way, this particular type of game concept feels like it depends more heavily on a longer narrative (to fully flesh out the shadows to later confront) that a game jam simply would not provide enough time for. And sadly, I do think that shows a bit in this story, as elements feel a bit rushed, or developed a bit lightly for how seriously they're taken.
However, given those constraints, it performed quite well. The concepts and themes are right up my alley, and though the game struggles in build-up and payout, it excels in mood and atmosphere. In both dialogue and visuals, it sells the dreary realm extremely well. But I have to give special mention to the soundtrack, especially right after leaving that realm. It does a solid job conveying the cheery opening, and then the dreary atmosphere later on. However, it was the loud, discordant mess afterward that really won my heart. It was so destabilizing, which helped get me into Tokiko's mental state so, so well.
As someone who has had experiences quite a bit more similar to what's shown here than I care to admit, going through it was a bit of a painful experience, but also a satisfying one.
Initially I hesitated on playing this one, as its central themes do not jive with me. But curiosity won out. As expected, I am not the suitable target audience but I still found it enjoyable to experience. The fantastic visuals of the first and third chapter support a positive atmosphere. And then the second chapter plunges into something incredibly dark and surreal. The musical accompaniment is fantastic with pumping up the intended emotions.
However, the main thrust of the plot is lost on me. The idea seems to be discovering and helping these strange spectres. Instead, I smashed many things with a shovel. The characters therein then seem irrelevant. Nor did anything in that chapter seem to be important with Tokiko's encounter in the third chapter. I hear there is another way to approach the second chapter, but I didn't find more than a key. And the way I completed the chapter maybe skipped some narrative hooks?
In any case, if stark emotional seesaws are your kind of thing, this game delivers. There are moments of laughter, unease, anguish, and even some heartwarming for your trouble. That said, jump scares are always rude and that was not appreciated.
Really cool game. The point-and-click puzzles were really simple, but honestly anything more complicated would probably have distracted from the story too much. It's weird though, unless I'm missing something, there were like two items that had no use. Are there multiple endings here?
I really love the art style and the way it changes in different points of the game, and the music was freakin awesome. FLIGHT RESPONSE and eternally grieving were my favorite tracks, the former for its weirdness and the latter for its otherworldly beauty. Good job toooooooo sewagechrysalis! Gosh it's nice to have music rooms with credits on each track. All the other music was great as well, those two tracks just stood out.
The story's plot and themes were great-- I'd say more, but it's getting late and I might need to reread parts of it to fully comprehend what it's all about. The moment-to-moment writing was pretty solid as well, going between quirky and heartfelt pretty smoothly. Though, some of the writing felt a little weird to me, and I don't know how to describe it besides "it didn't feel Touhou-like enough." Like, there's a lot of cussing here, and it pretty much always feels really goofy to see that in a Touhou story. That, plus a few moments like the Harry Potter (?) reference and Alice's 'I used to have really bad panic attacks, but now I take specialized medication, and it's not so bad now' line, makes the characters feel more like present-day outside-worlders than 2010 Gensokyo residents-- this stuff is fine in more comedic stories, but this game takes itself really seriously, so stuff like that kinda takes me out of the experience.
Oh also, without spoilerz, what a great ending. The last two minutes alone bumped my overall rating from 4 to 5 stars. Oh also, shoutouts to "a cup to a god, an ocean to an ant"-- it's not important to the story, but I love that line so much. Oh also that Eyes in the Dark piano song was great n unexpected, I really liked that. Also even though I don't like MariAli very much, the way their relationship was handled here didn't feel like it totally butchered Alice's character, which is extremely rare in my experience. Oh also I love the faces here, very subtly expressive. oh also i like trumpet and gamebird and funni banter about puppetshows and ooooooh gosh it's time for bed
In short, it's like Celeste in the non-gameplay ways-- ha ha you thought i was gonna say omori but jokes on you i havent played it!! the dialogue and character portraits give me celeste vibes and it's like 3 am so thats the only comparison i can think of right now sorryyy
omg luyuu hi. big fan of your work. little rabbit princess is still one of the best VNs I've ever played ong
really glad you played it and enjoyed it!I also really appreciate the criticism, so I'd actually like to go over a few points:
- my thought process with the stupid Harry Potter joke was that since CoLA already heavily references outside world material, throwing shade at a book from 1995 felt in character, but honestly I could almost certainly come up with a better joke than this anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- the medication thing is technically in reference to canon (the butterfly dream pill, this is only ever referenced in a print work from 2005, yes I'm serious) but I'm only just now realizing that this line is kinda phrased poorly in context lol. the things that make me wish I had more time to get the script proofread!
- I think the swearing thing is like entirely down to personal taste/tolerance/whatever and your take is completely fair. my thought was since I was actively basing this off one of the darkest works in all of Touhou (Dolls in Pseudo Paradise is not a fun time for anyone involved) I could turn off the filter just a little bit. ultimately whether or not this was a good decision I think purely comes down to opinion tho.
- there are multiple endings to chapter 2 actually! but they're not attached to items, in fact the alternate ending inversely is actually about skipping content. there's a couple items that originally would've played a more important role but ended up just being flavor text and tbh I'm pretty genuinely tempted to revisit the puzzles entirely now that I'm no longer on a time limit. they didn't cook as well as I wish they did.
- I see the celeste vibes now that you mention it actually. goated game. one of my all time favorites.
again thank you very much for playing this! hope you have an awesome day
The god dies of thirst, the ant cries in joy. :)
Pretty visuals, and its' an actually interesting visual novel please play it!
okay but how will i downloaf it
It’s downloadable now!