There Came an Echo

I really want to like the game, but the voice control is absolutely god awful. I've used various different microphones and it misinterprets my commands often, even somehow reading "pause" in dead air. Whatever voice processing this game uses, it's very old, I've not had this sort of trouble with anything voice controlled since the 2000's. There is an alternatively command interface but it's finicky too, I can't use "on my mark" on some waypoints like I can with voice. Plus, I will have one individual selected and it will still sometimes give commands to the group. I got frustrated enough just trying to fight the voice and interface system to stop playing. Twice. The first time 10 years ago, the second attempt, now.

Every so often you come across a rough indie gem. it's not a fine polish, but you can still see your reflection in it when you look. This game does have some flaws. When the voice recognition doesn't work, it's hard to ignore. The story is very fast paced, noticeably so. It's a pretty short game depending on how good you are. But also. When the voice recognition is working properly, you sometimes forget you're playing a game for a few seconds. The story, pacing aside, at least tries to punch above its weight class instead of settling for mediocrity. And even though it's short, it is way more engaging than AAA slop double its price. And the credits? Exactly what every indie team should do. These devs haven't released a game in years. And that's a shame. Instead of millions being funneled into creatively bankrupt games, they should give a fraction of that money to developers like this. This is the perfect encapsulation of what makes indie gaming great. If this game is on sale, buy it. You won't regret it.

The main selling point of There Came an Echo is the voice commands, and ironically, that's also its biggest flaw. The voice recognition is awful. It constantly fails to understand commands, even when speaking clearly, which is especially frustrating when you need to react quickly. My microphone works perfectly (even tried to record myself), and I even tested multiple microphones to make sure. The problem is the game's voice recognition which simply sucks real hard.

If it had modern voice recognition, it would be better, but it's still okay. Not much more I can say about it.

Oh my god, why didn't I play this game sooner? It's fun, and the soundtrack is all bangers! Ronald Jenkees forever, 17 years a fan and counting!

This game is fun, short and the voice controls work ok most of the time, even being a little janky sometimes I think its very fun and I liked to use it very much. The game can be a little hard on the last missions. The story is nice, the characters are nice and the visuals are nice, its a nice game all and all. Even tho the game is quite cheap I got it at a discount, I recommend it even at full price. It has tons of different languages for you to use, your native language is probably one of those.