What a ride! This took me a while to finish, but it was worth the ride. My mind still boggles at how amazing this Visual Novel was when it comes to revealing the mystery of the town of Echo and how every path slowly builds up the complete picture. I really like how every character is unique but flawed, nearly pushing them close to the line of being unlikeable but somehow making them feel so human because of it. Everyone is fucked up in their own way and trying to find a way to live despite this fact.
Even after finishing the game, I notice that I’m still missing some pictures/days, which I assume is the result of me choosing a ‘different’ path, so I might replay some parts of the game to unlock them later. If anyone wants to know, my route was T.J. > Flynn > Leo > Carl > Jenna. (Pretty much choices from top to bottom when choosing which route to get.)
I plan on reading Arches since it is nearly done, but saving The Smoking Room for when it is complete.
[SPOILERS] ****
For the most part, I think Jenna and Flynn’s route explains most of what is happening in Echo, but even after reading all the paths, I am still a bit confused about some of the events.
When going through the game, I thought the dreams were premonitions about events that could or already happened. An example of these is when Chase dreams about the car with Leo and the gang sinking into the lake which plays out in both Leo and Flynn’s route, and when Chase dreams about Samuel getting run over by Sydney’s father. But there were other dreams that didn’t make an appearance, like when Flynn tells Chase to get on his knees to dig something out of the dirt, which I assume is either a reference to the treasure hunt, the body of Samuel, or even the body of Sydney’s father.
Why did Chase see Carl in the abandoned school when taking pictures for his project on Flynn’s route? I thought this suggests the idea that Carl has taken part in setting up Syndey’s treasure hunt, but this wasn’t implied in the other routes other than T.J. and Flynn’s.
Were there other people possessing Chase other than Samuel? There are some comments which make sense for Samuel to make, like the ones in Leo and Jenna’s route, but there are others that seem a bit weird. Having the voice taught Chase and making the choices for him. It makes me think that there are also other things giving input to Chase, possibly people who were possessed or even the Hum itself.
Speaking of possession, how does it work? It would seem that killing the person who was possessed gets them to become possessed themselves, yet, in Flynn’s route Flynn didn’t kill Chase. Maybe the way to get possessed is to do something regretful to them or even have the person who was getting possessed face their fear to become unpossessed.
Was Carl also possessed? When taking the acid trip with Jermeny, having him hear the voices ridicule Carl was weird. Is his great great great whatever possessing him at that moment, or was it the Hums that was talking to him since he also sees Chase next to him?
When going through one of the extra clips with Flynn, I find it strange that we are really not spectating anyone from their perspective. We see Chase, Carl, T.J., Leo, and Jenna's perspectives in the extra clips but not Flynn's. It was like we were watching the events happening from the sideline, which was weird.
Strangely, the monster is simultaneously helping and putting the gang in danger, which I find odd. They go from helping the gang escape from Brian to kicking them into the lake, nearly drowning them. It is as if the monster is playing with them, which seems a bit mean even coming from Flynn or they were just following fate.
I don’t remember much about it, but I recall there was something in Leo’s route that was strange. It was as if it was directing the focus not on Chase, but on us the reader. Why did this happen? How did the ‘thing’ addresses a person other than Chase at that moment?
Secrets seem to be an important part of the hysteria since killing Flynn in T.J.’s route seems to stop it, even if it was a little while. I wonder if this holds any meaning with Jenna’s and Carl’s ancestors and hope it gets explained in The Smoking Room.
I always thought that the events in Echo happen in a time loop, forcing the people within it to relive the same events over and over again. Like they are going in circles, forced to continue this game until the Hum is done with them. But I don’t think this is the case since there is a sequel VN which takes place five years after the events of Echo, but strangely it only shows clips of it when Flynn is dead. This leads me to think that the events that happen in Arches only occur in either T.J. or Flynn’s route.
Most of this might be me misremembering things since it did take me a while to finish reading this, so I might reread it later.