Echo Generation review on Xbox One

by Ian Matties

Explore the strange happenings in Maple Town as you and your sister battle monsters and complete quests in this turn-based RPG that will give you a great story about what you did on your summer vacation.

Echo Generation Details

  • Platform(s): Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, WindowsPC, Xbox Game Pass
  • Developer: Cococumber
  • Publisher: Cococumber
  • Genre: Action & Adventure, RPG
  • Modes: Single Player
  • ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)

An Adventure All Around Town

Once you select and name your character you can begin your journey around town, but as any older sibling knows you can’t go off without taking your little sister with you. Grab your sister and take off-eh on an adventure where you fight trash pandas and other monsters while exploring your home town and surrounding area.

The graphic style and story really give it a 90s feel.  Like other properties that look back at the latter 20th century I felt myself immersed and enjoyed my time in a decade that I grew up in.

Gather And Power Up Your Party

You and your sister will always be in the party, but you can also recruit a number of pet companions that you encounter on your journey. Each pet has special skills that will help you face enemies and bosses.

Keep a look out as you journey around town as there are over 30 comic books available to find that will give your characters special special attacks and abilities through minigames that are unique to each comic book. Perfectly timing these minigames will always result in attacks doing maximum damage. Mastering these is the key to progressing through the battles in the game.

Leveling up gives you the option to either increase your health, attack or special. These choices are important so think about how you want to upgrade your characters.

Explore and Uncover Secrets

As you journey around make sure you talk with everyone and interact with everything you can. You can find all sorts of items to help you complete quests. You’ll find that many of the residents of Maple Town are happy to trade items with you and help you on your journey. Some items that you get that can be used in battle are limited so be careful when you use them.

Eventually you will uncover additional places where you can rest and heal your characters. This leads to my biggest issue with Echo Generation, the lack of fast travel. Prior to finding the additional places to rest and heal it can be very time consuming to have to run through all the screens to get back where you need to go. This also affects when you need to leave a screen to go back and complete a different quest.

Pros

  • A classic 90s style adventure
  • A mix of on screen enemies and random encounters
  • A fun, heartwarming story
  • The minigames, while sometimes challenging, add a fun way to keep the battles interesting

Cons

  • Sometimes on screen enemies don’t respawn
  • The menu when the game asks if you want to do something doesn’t really flow visually with the rest of the game
  • Lack of fast travel
  • No quest screen to help you keep track of your current quests

Overall, I have enjoyed Echo Generation. It is a fun game that tells an interesting story. I hope you enjoy it too!

Check out my first look at Echo Generation!

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