Telephone hacks as a concept are fascinating to me: a collaborative effort that goes on a chapter-to-chapter basis is something you can’t really find anywhere else. Combine that with the game’s development being well-known for what seemed to be all the wrong reasons, and it left me with absolutely no idea what I would get out of it. The end result, to me, was a game that was… interesting, to say the least.
Oh yeah, spoilers for the whole game, of course.
Story/Writing
I don’t really like to analyze stories. It’s not out of a lack of interest, per say, just that I don’t believe I’m the best at dissecting them. But for a game like this, I feel like I have to. Because for better, or worse, EE’s story is a major standout.
The game’s first chapter sets a pretty clear tone: the cast is on the run from an intentionally over-the-top villain who spends most of his debut chapter laughing maniacally at thin air. This expectation setter of an intro is immediately followed by 5 chapters of the game taking itself seriously more often than not, then another chapter of maniacal laughing, then two chapters of taking itself relatively seriously, and then… I’ll get to chapter 10 later.
Unsurprisingly, this has a lot of negative effects on anything resembling a consistent atmosphere, since the most that ch 2-6 can do is slowly ease you into the story starting to take itself seriously by still keeping some of the joke-y atmosphere of ch 1. (The same chapter where Diego’s father sacrifices himself to merely stall the army’s dead-serious general has Hellwolf & Swyftpawe in it, and I don’t even really blame chapter 3’s writer for that.)
Then by the time the game can get to actually taking itself seriously, with chapter 6 being both a well written self-contained story for Datura, a neat spot of worldbuilding, and good setup for future plot points, it all immediately resets with chapter 7. While I’m willing to be lenient on the first chapter’s tone being off in a collaborative work like this, chapter 7 doing the same thing while eviscerating the major source of intrigue the story had is brutal, and leaves ch 8 & 9 to establish an entirely new plot thread. (Though they manage to do so without much issue.)
And then chapter 10 happens.
It’s not an exaggeration to say the 2nd half of the game is built entirely off of the incredibly runway that chapter 10 gives it, with bosses being allowed to show up repeatedly through necromancy while having individually distinct reasons to do so, Forben becoming one of the main protagonists, (and if you ask me, the best part of the game’s writing overall,) and Flavius’ goals & decisions being a consistent source of intrigue after his introduction.
I don’t have as much to say (read: complain) about when it comes to anything past chapter 10, which at worst bottoms out at passable and has some very notable highs at its best. In particular, E-4 and E-X make for very strong conclusions for Flavius & Forben, respectively, and ch 15 does similar work for Cassius while wrapping up loose ends with the desolation. Chapter 14, being written by the same person who wrote chapter 10, is also unsurprisingly a major highlight with what it does for Forben’s character.
It’s still not perfect after chapter 10, by any means: Erina & Petra still spend a while threatening to be relevant instead of actually doing anything, and while the payoff for Erina is pretty strong, Petra’s is not enough to make her feel like a main character, let alone the one you start the game as. There’s also a bizarre amount of time spent on Zaid in chapter 12, which naturally ends up going nowhere, but it’s mostly a side-event to what is mainly an Erina-focused chapter anyways.
Tl;dr: The story is… messy, to say the least, but I would say the pro’s outweigh the con’s in the long run.
Unit/class design
Unit design is… I would say mostly solid, though there is a lot of variance: I can sincerely say that EE has some of the most unique, well put together units I have ever seen, along with some more questionable units in design, balance, or both.
Mounted units don’t ever feel like they take over the game despite the long list of options you get, with most of them being at most strong, but not dominant. (Wisteria gets kind of close, but his questionable speed & abysmal res make him infallible enough.) Footlocked units also don’t feel like they have a blatantly weaker option, namely thanks to armor knights having standard move values with the rest of the footlocks, and bowlocks (for better or worse) getting advantages to keep them in line with everyone else.
For specific unit highlights, there is an incredibly obvious standout in Forben & his necromancy mechanic, allowing access to as much as seven other units at the press of a button, with each having at least some utility that gives them a use case, whether that’s strong chip damage, physical/magic damage tanking, relatively weaker chip at a very high range, or just someone with competent stats.
Since this ability is strapped to the sage class, this also puts the player in tight spots where they have to choose between using Forben’s summons, his ability to chip with high rank tomes, or his staff access on a turn. Is it worth giving Forben a kill or giving that exp up to develop a unit and kill that same enemy? Do you use a staff for healing/utility or bring out a summon to heal instead, or even replicate that defensive value by body blocking? Forben is a magnet for oddball, one-of-a-kind situations like that, and it makes using him an absolute blast.
This doesn’t ever get to a point of feeling overpowered, either: each summon has the opportunity cost of not summoning one of the others, since they all cost varying amounts of res, and they’re numerically weaker than actual units you have since their stats are static. It all works together nigh-perfectly, and its execution is especially impressive considering how unique of an idea it is.
In terms of non-Forben level units that are still cool, there’s some other good ones: Rumina’s class changing gimmick is similarly fun to mess with and makes for a lot of cool ways to handle both his combat & thief roles, Grunhilde’s combination of bow’s & staves on an armor make for a unit who stands out compared to other units in both weapon types that gel well with each other’s play patterns, and Coltrane’s limited weapon uses feel just right to keep them in check without feeling restrictive relative to his availability. Some others I enjoyed were Ben, Hemming, Amaran, and Jeff.
While the class balance is mostly done well, there are some noticeable class distribution issues, especially in the earlygame. You get a ton of axe units early, to the point where you have more axe units than sword & lance units combined at chapter 3, (and 5, since another axe unit joins,) not counting your thief, and leads to a decent chunk of swords functionally being prf’s for Diego until chapter 6 because of Zaid’s ranks being lance-favoured.
There’s also a recurring issue with the earlygame units in that several of them get arbitrary privileges to forcibly keep them relevant later: Chayse and her ridiculous promotion, Rasmus and his free mount at ch 14, or most absurd of all, Erina getting a promotion to master knight and three prfs. None of these feel particularly earned, or necessary, and feel like a slap in the face for benching these units based on the information you had at the time.
Terry & Kane in particular also just feel dysfunctional as units. Terry has pretty poor stats compared to… anyone, really, but especially other axe units near his join time, and his longterm is getting 2rko’d forever because of his horrid defenses along with struggling to double or hit, while Kane’s issue can be summarized as “why would I want Forben’s statline without necromancy.” They aren’t the worst, but there definitely feels like a gap between them and the vast majority of units in the game, who feel like they serve at least some purpose.
Tl;dr: When you don’t deploy Forben there should be an event where every character says “Where’s forben?” I think it would really improve the game.
Map design
The maps end up being one of the more consistent things about this game, and are pretty solid throughout. A good chunk of maps have some form of anti-turtle, or at least feel well built for going fast through their layouts & side objectives, along with some unique gimmicks to spice things up here and there. The only broad complaint I have is with earlygame enemy quality: a lot of enemy types are just non-threats for anyone (that isn’t Rasmus) to a point that is a bit too much, though this clears up at around ch 7.
On the top end, I would put ch 9, ch 15, and E-4 as my favourites:
Ch 9 has a unique mountain-centered design that keeps the fliers (and Jeff) on the sidelines in an elegant way, while also leaving the footlocked units with plenty to do and a good set of options to approach the map from the choice to stay on the side or barrel through the middle.
Ch 15 has similarly well thought out choices in starting directions with making one side objective a cinch and the other noticeably more complicated, along with an enjoyable stairs (well, warping) mechanic and a more bite-sized map to play alongside it on the bottom half.
And E-4 is just a really cool (if not very replayable) puzzle map that is an absolute joy to play through blind.
Ch 13 ends up being the only chapter I outright dislike. (Well, specifically map-wise.) The map’s design of “press button and backtrack” already gets on my nerves for being a pacing killer, but the massive swarm of reinforcements is absurd and is very likely to punish you for the simple act of walking backwards after you completed the first objective, especially on the right side of the map. I understand the interest in stopping the player from cheesing the map, but the end result is… not ideal.
Beyond that, ch 4 & 7 end up being notably below the rest simply for not doing anything. They don’t do anything wrong, per say, they just… exist. And nothing beyond that. E-X is also just far too much to package in one map with no map saves, even though what is in the map is fine on an individual level.
Tl;dr: Good set of maps when I’m not getting mobbed by like 20 enemies at once.
This game can decidedly be described as a rollercoaster: many highs, many lows, and that makes my opinion on it fairly mixed. While I do think the positives outweigh the negatives as a whole, and the highs are very high when they hit, those negatives stick out pretty noticeably while playing through, and are very frontloaded, making the earlygame experience by far the worst part of the game and something that you just have to slog through to get to most of the good parts.
I still enjoyed my time with it, though, and it has made me interested in several of the collaborator’s works now that I know some of their design philosophies.
Thanks to everyone who made this! I had fun with it, for what it’s worth.