Fortunately I asked for a refund and got payed back. Honestly, the game is not challenging at all, I didn't even die on my first playthrough. And the exploration, nonexistent. You can't go off the track you're supposed to follow. I wouldn't have minded the bad sound design if the game had some replay value and some real challenge, but now I don't think it deserves that much money. The game is supposed to have some difficult puzzles but the two aren't that hard, I figured them out immediately.

I'm with SLJ on this one. All we have are rumors regarding them supposedly being TiconBlue in a new incarnation.

I agree that we should hold off on spreading unsubstantiated rumors—the similarity in gameplay and voice cast can just as easily be explained by the fact that Cloverbit was influenced by earlier games and some of those influences carried over in their design and casting choices.

While I do still want to check this game out, if and when I can justify the expense, I will admit that there is one thing I find troubling, based on the reviews, and that's what seems to be some false advertising in labeling this an RPG. It sounds much more like a linear action/adventure game than an RPG to me. Maybe there are some features that haven't been discussed, so I'm curious: while there isn't opportunity to explore off the main track, are there secret items, unlockables, or optional side quests that can be discovered if you poke around enough? Is there any sort of stat leveling or upgrade system? Do you have the opportunity to find or purchase and equip different types of gear? Essentially, is there any degree of character customization available? All of these things strike me as necessary elements of a game if you're going to call it an RPG, so if those elements aren't present Cloverbit's marketing of this game as an RPG seems like a bit of a bait-and-switch to me, even if it was unintentional.

I'm all for cutting developers some slack when it comes to their first release. I think that when a premiere game meets a certain standard of quality that you wouldn't expect from a debut project, it's easy for people to forget that the team behind it really was figuring everything out for the first time. I know we experienced that at times with reactions to AHC, where sometimes I think people expected us to have everything down to a perfect science, forgetting that we'd never done this before. I certainly wouldn't want to see the same thing happen to Cloverbit who, from what I can tell, have plenty of potential to build off of this game and make things even better in the future. But telling players they're paying for one type of games nd selling them another game...that's a more severe problem, if you ask me.

Given the price, I'm also concerned by the implication that there is little replay value. A couple other questions for folks who've played: if the answers to my question above about character customization are "No", then is there anything else to promote replaying the game? Branching dialogues or story decisions? Different paths to take? Anything like that? Also, for those who've completed the game, about how many hours of gameplay did it offer?

I agree. I would definitely not consider this an RPG by any stretch of the imagination. For one thing a true RPG would feature, among other things, turn-based party combat, experience levels and a whole lot of other stuff that quite simply isn't found here. So yes, false advertising is present. Now, perhaps Cloverbit was unfamiliar with what an RPG actually entails (I have met game developers who were), in which case the false advertising would not have been deliberate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But I agree with Joseph in that we need to be careful about not spreading potentially and probably false rumors. As he said, the similarities could easily have other explanations. We also don't have too many developers we can afford to lose, and if we drive them away with these negative attitudes where will we be then? I'll tell you, nowhere. Oh we'll have the games already developed that we can play over and over, but there'll be no new blood, so to speak, to revitalize the supply.

BryanP, I think you may be confusing RPG with JRPG a bit. You can certainly have an RPG without turn-based combat, as well as a single-player RPG without any sort of party system. Consider the Elder Scrolls games as an example of both. That said, the elements of character customization that allow you to shape your character into the "role" you want to "play" seem to be the real essentials of an RPG that Echoes seems to be missing.

Regarding length, if the game really only does take 3 hours to complete, that's a very high price-per-hour cost. Not that we don't spend $10 for an hour of entertainment in other settings, but compared to the general cost-per-hour of other games on the market, it does seem very high.

Yeah. The game basically forces you to go just one way in the story line, there are no alternative paths to follow, you play with your staf from the beginning to the end and exploration is nonexistent. I hoped for a better product given the ammount of promotions this game received prior to it's release. I was excited for a long time before it was released to the public, I am sad the final product turned to be a dissappointment. For me atleast.

BryanP: Sure, I'd agree with you there...but isn't an action RPG, by definition, a form of RPG? I just I'm just saying that, while I don't think you can brush with too narrow of a stroke in things like saying no turn-based combat = no RPG, I do think that there are certain broad strokes that we can all agree on, and it doesn't sound like Echoes meets those strokes. I wonder if this is just a failure on the developer's part to understand the connotation of RPG—maybe they thought, "You are playing the role of this specific character, ergo it's a role-playing game." I don't want to assume that they were deliberately misleading.

I've always understood RPG to mean Role Playing Game which means you play a character in the game and have to manage that character's abilities, health and well being, as well as possessions and what is currently being worn and used.

It has nothing to do with whether combat is turn based, or in real time, or if there is even any combat at all for that matter.

Nor does it have anything to do with whether your character is alone or part of a group.

With that said, from what everyone is saying, this game is a linear adventure game, or maybe even just a computerized story book, since most adventure games I've ever played offered some level of freedom to explore.

I actually, after listening to a couple of indepth recordings of this game, really like how the exploration was done, it sort of reminded me of the way the papa sangre games for iOS were played, though those did allow you to wander a bit more. but as a user who finds a lot of in game navigation confusing, it was a refresher to see that should I ever buy this title, which admittedly doesn't appear likely from what I'm reading, i wouldn't need to spend ages lost looking for something most people find right away. keep in mind, that me getting lost in games is not the games fault, completely user error. so perhaps i need to get better at gaming,

I'm thinking of getting my money back. when I herd RPG i thought that we would find different weapons that were better then the staff or be able to level up. more exploration would be nice and have the combat field allow us to run after our opponents in stead of standing their and fighting them wile they moved around.
I just rote to them. I'm not sure if it sent. is their a message after you hit the submit button?

Hi.
Having checked their website again, I don't see RPG mentioned anywhere. Where do you see this?
I wander why we haven't heard anything from the developers right after the release where I mentioned I couldn't find the game in the app store. Yeah I assume they are getting a ton of feedback from other sources as well. But still...
@wlomas: I haven't noticed this issue when playing the game on my Mac. It is maybe there, and it might just be me who haven't noticed it.