Echo Generation is a turn-based adventure game set in the charming Canadian suburb of Maple Town. You play as a kid on summer vacation who’s trying to make a sci-fi movie with friends when a series of bizarre events set them on a path full of territorial raccoons and undead werewolves. The recently released Midnight Edition features enhanced visuals, updated combat mechanics, a quest log feature, fast travel, and more quality-of-life improvements that make this the definitive version of the game to experience.
Although you start at home in the suburbs, the journey expands out to either side, taking you downtown, across the train tracks, and beyond. Over the course of 9 hours, I explored the small town and its surrounding area, trying to complete as many favors as I could, doing my best to remember who needed what and where. The game’s story (which I won’t spoil any more of here) is pretty simple by itself but the juggling of numerous characters, some of who are one-and-done quest givers and others are essential for character leveling.
This is where you start to see the impact of the Midnight Edition. The quest log (labeled Journal in the menus) keeps track of almost everything you need to know. It’s pretty rudimentary, with no bells or whistles except the occasional green highlight on specific quest items, but it does the job of keeping you up to speed on what’s going on. The quest log, much like the ability to fast travel, was so essential to the experience that I struggled to imagine them not in the game.
When you’re not just running around doing favors for people, you’ll be engaging in active turn-based combat. This means that instead of simply selecting a move to perform and sitting back to enjoy the action, you have to play a mini-game to determine the effectiveness of that move. Some require you to spam-click a button until a bar fills up while others require more precise timing to land a critical hit. Timing is important here because, in this active turn-based combat, you are offered short windows of time where you can block an incoming attack too.
While I am used to the hands-free turn-based mechanics of something like Pokémon, I have grown to enjoy more active combat mechanics in recent months thanks to Sea of Stars and Echo Generation. That being said, there are some mini-games that I feel overcomplicate things a bit, and, at least for me, by the end of the game (with so many more attacks at my disposal) and in the heat of the battle, I sometimes found myself using the wrong attack or preparing for the wrong mini-game and losing out on critical hits. I still liked the combat overall, but it did come with some frustrations.
At the start of the game, you’re given a selection of characters to pick from. This will be your main character. Not too far after that, you are joined by your little sister and that completes two-thirds of the team. The third party slot is reserved for pets to help both in combat and for puzzles outside of that. These pets are unlocked by completing quests that usually involve finding certain objects and bringing them to the right place. I did switch pets occasionally but it was mostly Meowsy in the hot seat and that worked well with my playstyle.
Speaking of playstyles, the move set you have at your disposal in combat is determined by comics you find as you play. While the base attack is free to perform, special attacks require skill points to use. As each character hits a new level, you will be given three options: Health, Strength, and Skill. Health upgrade increases max health, strength increases attack damage, and skill increases the number of skill points at your disposal. While you don’t have to do it as “in character” as I did, being deliberate as you level up will make the game easier. While the bosses did look cool with intimidating health counts, none of them really posed a challenge to me and only two managed to wipe my party entirely.
And just as a brief note for anyone hesitant to get into a turn-based game because of its difficulty. I managed to make my way through the game without struggling much and I am pretty new to the genre. In fact, more so than combat, the thing that gave me the most trouble in the game was finding certain quest items. They can require you to interact with very specific things and that definitely slowed me down a bit. But it’s nothing a bit of time (or a Google search if you’re impatient) can’t fix.
Then there are the visuals. Echo Generation: Midnight Edition is a good-looking game, with the vibrant voxel art that developer Cococucumber is known for. Character models have personality and Maple Town itself has a quiet charm to it. But the undeniable highlight for me was the skyboxes. Echo Generation has some incredible skyboxes and, paired with the electronic and synth-wave soundtrack from Pusher and the Spielberg-inspired narrative, make for a game that feels nostalgic while retaining its own identity.
My final point about the game is for general discussion. It won’t have any story spoilers but I will be discussing pacing so feel free to skip to the conclusion if you don’t want to risk it. I am about to say something that I rarely say about a game: I wish Echo Generation was a bit longer. Not just because I thought it was great and wanted more, but because the design of the game sort of demands it. When you start the game, as a bright-eyed kid on summer vacation, you are given plans to gather resources and shoot a movie. Characters expect you to be at certain places on certain days and I thought these were things I would have to juggle while I played the game. However, that’s not the case.
Echo Generation takes place over two days and no amount of midday naps will change that. When Red asks to meet you downtown tomorrow at the start of the game, it’s not something you can miss if you don’t check the date and time like a Stardew Valley event. It’s all sort of baked into the narrative. This works fine as is, but in the hopes that there is a sequel to this game, I would love to see Cococucumber expand on the idea and let players really inhabit its suburbs. Napping in beds you find across the map to heal up is functional but having to end the day and go to sleep if you want to heal up all the way would have felt more meaningful. To me at the very least.
None of that takes away from what I feel about Echo Generation as it is now. The game tells a fun summer adventure that plays like a more vibrant version of JJ Abrams’ Super 8. (Which in turn was inspired by Spielberg classics before it.) Active turn-based combat keeps the gameplay engaging and an eclectic mix of enemies help keep things fresh. The Midnight Edition adds a handful of meaningful upgrades that make this the best version of Echo Generation to experience. Echo Generation: Midnight Edition is out now on the Nintendo Switch and PC. A code was provided by the publisher for review.
