EchoBlade Review - I See What You Did There

As far as interesting gameplay premises go, EchoBlade is right up there. Highlighted earlier this year by Chit Hot, EchoBlade has you playing a first-person adventure without sight. Well, no sight in a conventional sense, at least. The game is played using echolocation. Sounds trigger waves that highlight environments and allow you to navigate, plan attacks, or evaluate puzzles. There’s a lot of opportunity for some truly unique gameplay, and this EchoBlade review will tell you if Sunset Arctic Games managed to fulfill this potential.

The game begins with very little fanfare. You’re in a cell in a dungeon armed with a sword and a bow. As you approach the cell door, the gate keeper lets you out. He seems to think it’ll be fun to watch you die as you try to escape. You can ignore him, or kill him – much to his own surprise – and thus EchoBlade begins to build the image of a game in which player agency runs deep. A game in which the minutiae of your actions could have lasting consequences. Sadly, it does not see this through.

While EchoBlade‘s premise offers a lot of opportunity and it’s introduction sets out a hugely enticing canvas, the game is then filled with pretty run-of-the-mill action. It’s a first-person dungeon crawler. Not a bad one per se, but one that we’ve all seen before. There are traps and enemies within the maze like structure, growing in aggression as you continue to push forward. It’s a lengthy endeavour, with multiple paths and tricky obstacles that require some thought, but there’s very little out of the ordinary here.

That unique visual design simply hasn’t been fleshed out enough. You can see a short distance in front of you the whole time, while enemies and important objects glow in the distant dark. Certain objects will emit sound – such as burning torches on the walls – allowing you to see some of what lies ahead. You can make a noise yourself, mostly used for attracting guards to your location. However, that’s about all there is.

There’s only one way to generate additional noise – and thus, sight – which is firing your crossbow. It’s great that there’s an opportunity to have some distant vision, however crossbow ammunition is limited. More often that not, players will want to save their ammo for actually shooting at things.

This results in a game that presents a hugely interesting premise, but actually does very little with it. Instead, EchoBlade becomes more like an adventure through a maze. It’s easy to get lost given that everything looks the same, as such Arctic Sunset Games has cleverly implemented a footprint system that allows you to not only see where you’ve previously been, but the direction in which you were travelling.

This itself is symbolic of the presentation that is EchoBlade. It’s an enjoyable experience with some clever touches, but never really delivering more than basic expectations. The combat is OK. The progression system is OK. Level design, sound quality, puzzle systems: OK. Despite the hugely promising premise, there’s nothing truly special about the game. In the course of preparing this EchoBlade review, not once did we find a moment of emergent gameplay that was anything more than mediocre.