Elemental powers have been in video games for longer than many people have been alive, and it’s easy to see why. Everyone has dreamed at some point about throwing fireballs at noisy children, or summoning water to cool down in yet another summer heatwave. It’s the fantasy dream that we all like to imagine, and in games the elements are great mechanically. They work as perfect weaknesses to exploit in RPG, or as a wonderful way to frame a puzzle. Fading Echo is about as elemental themed as a video game can get, and it also feels like an obscure Xbox 360 game you’d borrow from a friend and fall in love with.
In Fading Echo the world is tearing apart, and not in a fun way. Something called Paradox Corruption is causing elemental issues and bits and pieces of land to just sort of float around in a cool but concerning way. As protagonist One it’s up to you to help fix this, by activating magic portals and chatting with your badass mum sometimes. There’s a sort of nonsensical story told about the world via chats with various charming characters, which feels very “noughties video game” and I struggled to take in. It doesn’t really matter though, because exploring a gorgeous world as a sphere of water always takes precedence.
One has fighting skills and platforming prowess, but her best attribute is the ability to turn into a ball of water. As a ball you can flow in magical floating tunnels of water, slip through mesh walls, and also take in other liquids to change colour and powers. When your water touches lava you turn into steam and can float across massive gaps. Rolling around in acid makes you more explosive, and allows you to do a huge vertical jump to get to higher places. Playing with these powers is just a lot of fun, and incredibly intuitive to boot.
Sometimes ball time has to end though, because enemies need to be dealt with. Combat is simple but effective in Fading Echo, with one basic combo and a kick often all you need to take down enemies. The star of the show is absolutely your kick, which can be used to launch enemies backwards into some sort of peril. It took me about an hour of playtime to unlock an achievement for knocking fifty foes into holes (killing them instantly) and it was rare for this strategy to be ignored in my entire playthrough.
When there aren’t enough cliffs to punt monsters off though, you can use the elements to your advantage yet again. Each of the types of liquid affects enemies differently, but they all help you take them out. Fire deals damage over time, and is an easy way to let nature do your dirty work. Acid weakens foes so you deal more damage to them, and is usually the least impactful element. The best of the bunch though is water, which freezes enemies in place and ensures they die in three hits no matter how strong they usually are. Even using elements in battle means kicking fools about though, so it doesn’t change combat that much.
The world of Fading Echo really is a joy to explore, and to solve the puzzles of. Often doors are shut because switches need to be pressed quickly, and to do this you’ll need to switch between elemental forms by rolling in different gunk. When you don’t have access to the gunk in an area you may have to make your own acid or fire, and this means bringing little orbs with you. They can’t pass through grates with you though, and this leads to figuring out different routes and using your noggin a bit. It always feels rewarding to progress in this game, because you’re rarely if ever spoon-fed the solutions.
The complexity really amps up when you add in the different dimensions you can explore, by activating different portals. Different dimensions often have the keys or orbs you need to solve a new problem, and traversing back and forth between barren wasteland and underwater paradise becomes second nature before long. Later puzzles really force you to understand your surroundings in multiple worlds and use them to your advantage, and it’s easier said than done.
As a reward for progressing, exploring carefully to find chests and most importantly killing demons you’ll gain experience, and when you level up you can unlock various skills. Some of these help boost certain moves or special attacks in battle, others grant extra health or shield to keep you safe. It’s a nice way to ensure progression as you play, and you can sort of choose what options you have access to by playing the game in a certain order.
Once you complete the tutorial and land in the elemental hub of Corel, you can choose from four directions to head in, each with different challenges and different unlocks they’ll grant you. The open ended nature of Fading Echo is very cool, but ultimately it also helps showcase its biggest issue. Without a map it’s incredibly easy to get lost in this world, especially with so many areas that look so similar. It’s even harder to keep track of things when you decide to switch it up and explore a different direction too, which is advised to keep the difficulty manageable.
This isn’t the only issue with Fading Echo either. The combat doesn’t really change enough from start to finish, and towards the end of the game it feels a bit unnecessary. The different areas of the game struggle to have much identity too, because when you change dimensions they all look basically the same.
I had a great time with Fading Echo, because the elemental powers just always feel great. It undeniably has some issues, but most of them didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the game. Repetitive combat isn’t that big a deal when you love kicking things, the story is pretty easy to ignore, and the world is gorgeous regardless of repetition. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but Fading Echo scratched an itch I didn’t know I had by feeling like a game from decades ago that cared more about fun than flash.