Echoes Of Mystralia Early Access Review – Memories Of Magic | GameObserver Recommends

Action RPG roguelites have been a successful formula for the subgenre for many years. The isometric view lends itself very well to the fast-paced action, and the procedural map generation creates the endless gameplay loop that doesn’t get repetitive when the meta progression and customizations are well-designed. However, the subgenre has been dominated by the Hades franchise for many years, and it’s becoming harder for new titles to break through.

Echoes Of Mystralia, developed and published by Borealys Games, garnered a decent amount of hype and attention with its trailer showcasing the spellcrafting gameplay and highly customizable roguelite experience. The game is set to launch in Early Access and continue development in the future to further polish and add more content.

Echoes of Mystalia is set in the world of the same name. The story starts when a rift opens up in the sky, altering the timeline and corrupting memories of the world. We play as a deity-like entity, part of a group called the Watchers that operate under the goddess of memories. Our task is to safeguard the world’s memories, and the protagonist, as the youngest Watcher, descends upon the world to help with the aftermath of the rift, despite our master’s wishes to remain behind. We explore the world as we try to help and, at the same time, learn about our mother’s fate, who was once a powerful and respected mage.

The world-building and story of Echoes of Mystralia takes a risky approach. Instead of distancing itself from its biggest competition, Hades, it leans into the epic setting about gods and the personal journey of a young, inexperienced protagonist. The story is well written, and while still not complete in its Early Access state, there is enough content and characters to get us invested in the game’s world. However, the inspiration from the Hades universe, while not directly copying from those games, is still recognizable enough that the comparison will be unavoidable, and unfortunately, it cannot compete with the pre-established lore and character designs of that franchise.

What does give Echoes of Mystralia a distinct edge is the spellcrafting gameplay. Unlike the usual hack’n’slash combat found commonly in the genre, we use magic. We start each run with two spells, and we can unlock different starting spells with various elements and effects through the meta progression. Through the run, we find “memories”. These are triggers and modifiers that we can add to our starting spells, adding new effects and modifying them in various ways. There are dozens and dozens of these modifiers with various effects and power levels, and there are virtually endless combinations of how they interact with the original spell and with each other.

We can freely edit the spell page with the memories we have uncovered in each run, even during combat. So it’s easy to experiment with the effects and see immediate feedback in action. The integration of these many modifiers, how they interact with the system and play out in the game, is the most impressive aspect of Echoes of Mystralia. The balance of the different spells and effects does require some more fine-tuning, and I imagine the Early Access period will be the perfect time to address the balancing issues based on player feedback.

The spells we craft in Echoes of Mystralia can end up looking ridiculously chaotic, and not in a bad way. We can add multiple projectiles and secondary effects based on different triggers, so a lot of things can happen with a single spell cast. The visual clutter caused in the extreme cases is relatively manageable, and I didn’t feel like it disrupted the UI or the flow of the game. Some visual cues during boss fights might need to be clearer, but this was an issue I noticed even without using crazy spell combinations. Also, considering all the visual effects and calculations happening amidst all the chaotic action, the game is surprisingly well-optimized, even in the Early Access build I was playing. I can’t recall a significant moment of performance issues or FPS drops on my mid-range PC.

The meta progression of Echoes of Mystralia leans towards the more grindy side at the moment. After playing for about a dozen hours and finishing the portion of story available in the current build, I had unlocked maybe about a third of the options available. While I don’t mind a long meta progression, the thing that makes it feel less fun is that during the run, we often have to choose between resources for meta progression or resources that help us in the current run. I believe it’s a bad design in roguelites where you have to make this choice; meta progression should happen gradually without requiring us to make that sacrifice. But this is something that can be expanded upon in the Early Access development and hopefully end up in a better place when the game launches in 1.0.

The art style of Echoes of Mystralia is overall very high quality. The user interface is clear and well-designed, the maps look interesting and varied between stages, and the portraits look great. The only thing that I thought was underdeveloped was enemy variety, a little in their move sets, but mostly in art design. In the lore, the enemies we face are echoes or corrupted memories of the past, so they all have this shadowy dark aura, so sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart when they are similar in size and their anatomy. The visual effects during combat is a big part of the game’s aesthetic experience, and I think the developers have done a great job considering the various effects present in the game.

The game also offers full voice-over, and the performances are decent. The dialogue is mostly serious and dramatic, and we don’t encounter many unique or eccentric characters, so the overall tone and atmosphere does feel a bit monotonous in the long run. The music is quite fitting for the world, and it changes dynamically during battle and different scenes. The SFX and overall sound balance is also enjoyable, and the spell sound effects don’t get intrusive even when you are shooting tons of spell projectiles.

Echoes of Mystralia is a decent Early Access game. However, the world building and story are nothing groundbreaking, but the gameplay is where its true potential lies. With some more fine-tuning and maybe even more customization, I can easily see myself spending upwards of hundreds of hours trying out different builds and combinations of spells and effects.

Nima reviewed Echoes of Mystralia in Early Access on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game that was available at the time of writing, and our score will not be changed.