In my view, the core of the Souls-like genre is a harsh but fair difficulty level supported by a death system that punishes repeated failure but rewards you as long as you’re able to successively improve your runs. Chronos doesn’t have that. Instead, you just lose all your current experience (and gain a year, but I’ll get to that). Resting at a bonfire doesn’t respawn enemies, heal you or refill your estus flask, err, dragon heart, either—that only happens upon death. But you level up automatically upon gaining enough experience, which also fully heals you. So rather than a risk/reward system where the deeper into unknown territory you go the more currency you collect, making death more punishing and finding a checkpoint more important, as well as a requirement that you successfully traverse from one checkpoint to the next at least once (since going back to the previous checkpoint resets everything), instead you’re locked into charging forward (since going back to a previous checkpoint doesn’t reset anything), with more skillful play directly reinforcing your health reserves (since, with dragon hearts being strictly limited each run, your main source of healing will be leveling up, which requires successfully killing enemies).
So the core risk/reward tension isn’t present, and instead the better you play the more the game will reward you. Once I realized these things, Chronos began to feel more like a mere action RPG than a Souls-like.
I wouldn’t call the level design Souls-like either. While Souls levels often have a critical path, they are rarely straightforwardly linear. Instead there are often side areas and sometimes branches, and while the game may nudge you in a certain direction there is a fair amount of freedom in the order the levels can be beaten. In contrast, Chronos is largely linear, both in level design and game structure. While it’s true that you sometimes need to go back to earlier levels to complete a side area you couldn’t access before, it’s still pretty much set when you need to go back and complete those areas. This does give Chronos almost a metroidvania vibe, but new areas are unlocked just with key items, not abilities, which makes it a bit less interesting.
Okay, how about combat? Chronos has a stamina system, so that alone should be enough to grant it entry to the Souls-like club, right? Well…
So there is stamina, but… you only use it when you block. Not attack or dodge. While attacking and dodging pauses stamina regeneration, there’s no limit on the number of attacks or rolls you can chain together—and I’d say the essential feature of a Souls-like stamina system is not merely having a bar labeled “stamina” but a system that imposes a real-time action economy, forcing you to consider and ration your actions from moment to moment. Which naturally doesn’t happen when attacking and dodging have no cost or limit.
The combat system just feels wonky overall. Sometimes it feels overly permissive, and other times it feels like it punishes you for playing the way it’s asking you to play (like Lucy and her football). There’s no limit to attacking, and attacking sometimes flinches enemies—meaning some enemies can be permaflinched by mashing attack. I would say about half of the enemies can be permaflinched… except these enemies are spread evenly throughout the game. This isn’t just an early-game crutch: there are elite late-game mobs that can be permastunned, and early-game enemies that require incredibly specific timing.
Speaking of which, that is where Chronos seems to punish you for following its rules. The game has a “perfect block” and “perfect dodge” system, where perfectly blocking or dodging an attack gives your character a short buff, empowering your next attack. Since a perfect block or dodge requires specific timing and encourages a counterattack (meaning the developers should know how a counterattack would be timed), you’d think the game would generally reward this strategy, right? The issue is that some enemies attack multiple times in a row, and counterattacks have no special invincibility. So you might dodge, have your character start to glow with the “COUNTERATTACK NOW” prompt, go for it… and be promptly thwacked by the enemy’s follow-up strike. Sometimes a perfect counterattack does actually counterattack, but for some enemies it just guarantees getting hit.
It feels weird! Some enemies can be cheesed with permaflinches, others punish you for taking advantage of the perfect block/dodge system the game otherwise encourages you to use. Initially the game felt a bit janky, but when I realized attacks and dodges didn’t actually use stamina and I could infinitely chain attacks and perfect dodges the combat system started to flow, and then I began encountering the enemies that punished perfect dodges and it went back to feeling janky again. Yeesh.
Still, the fact that attacks and dodges don’t use stamina and so can be employed freely, enemy attacks are generally telegraphed, a fair portion of enemies can be permaflinched, and the game provides clear feedback on when you perfectly dodge or block an attack (with massive glowing particles) does make me feel that Chronos’ combat system is relatively beginner-friendly.
Character customization is also a fairly straightforward, especially compared to the Souls games. While Souls is notorious for being obtuse in basically every respect, Chronos only has four stats: strength, agility, arcane, and vitality. When you level up you get two points, which you can use to upgrade your stats as you like.
This is probably the ideal time to discuss Chronos’ “aging” system. The core, unique selling feature of Chronos is the fact that each time your character dies, they age one year. The leveling system is how your character age mechanically affects the game: depending on your character’s age, each stat costs a different number of points to increase. When you’re young you can easily increase your physical stats but not magic, but as you grow older magic becomes easier to wield while it’s difficult to become more athletic. …Some people online also report that your animations slow down as you age, but I didn’t get old enough to (potentially) experience this myself.
It’s almost an interesting system. It means your skill in the game will dictate the type of build you end up with: if you’re good and don’t die much you’ll end up in a strength- or dexterity-focused build, while if you die a lot you’ll end up relying on magic. Of course, in this game “magic” essentially boils down to parries and dodges (since it’s the “magic” that empowers your weapon for successfully dodging or parrying), and… I can’t say I particularly see the value in allowing high-skill players to button-mash and permaflinch to victory while forcing low-skill players into a parry/dodge build. I suppose the argument could be you guide low-skill players to a play style that will encourage them to hone their skills, which high-skill players definitionally do not need to do, but I wonder if simply opening up all play styles and letting players choose for themselves would be better. The aging system is a neat idea and sets Chronos apart from other games in flavor, but doesn’t add too much mechanically. (Also, if you worried you’re particularly low-skilled, don’t worry: the game has a workaround to avoid having a limit on the number of deaths you’re allowed.)
At this point I want to clarify Chronos’ relation to Remnant: From the Ashes, because it’s a bit interesting. I initially thought that Chronos was a prequel to Remnant, but then I found something suggesting that Chronos came first. The answer? Both. The first game was “Chronos,” period, then Remnant: From the Ashes, and then “Chronos” was given an upgraded re-release as “Chronos: Before the Ashes.”
The reason I bring this up is because Chronos’ story is intertwined with Remnant’s, and the games share many visual assets. In fact, it’s a bit interesting how in a pair of games about exploring a multiverse, we just so happen to visit the exact same worlds in each game, don't you think? A common criticism of Chronos that I’ve seen is that it felt like the developers developed very few new assets and just took most things from Remnant, and while I don’t think this is valid because technically Chronos came first, it does feel a bit odd.
On the other hand, I thought Chronos handled worldbuilding and level design much better. In my Remnant review, I said that the worlds all had unique aesthetics and interesting lore, but it didn’t feel like we got to experience any of that because the levels were mostly straightforward corridors and lore was often just delivered in a single conversation that didn’t impact our actual experience in that world. These worlds seem cool, and I felt like Chronos gave me a much better sense of what they are like as actual places than Remnant. Who would have ever guessed that specifically designed levels provide a stronger narrative experience than procedurally generated ones?
Even if Chronos handles worldbuilding better than Remnant, the same cannot be said for the core story. We are a hero whose life has been dedicated to defeating the dragon, but the dragon’s labyrinth only opens once a year, which is why we age when we die: we don’t actually die but just get kicked out of the labyrinth, and need to wait until the next year to re-enter. It’s basically an excuse plot. But then at the end there’s a big twist that… basically causes everything in the game up until that point not make sense. It felt like the kind of thing a middle schooler making up a fantasy story on the fly would do. I will give Chronos credit, though, and say that the way it ties into Remnant (besides taking place in the same uni—er, multiverse) is cool and unique.
Chronos just does too little too late. It’s functional as an action RPG, but I don’t see why you’d play this when you can play Dark Souls instead. Even if you want something a bit simpler or easier or with a brighter aesthetic than Dark Souls proper there are still better options. The unique hook of Chronos is its aging system, but it doesn’t have a particularly large or interesting impact on gameplay. The game is only a few hours long, so it's thankfully not a huge commitment regardless, but it only feels worthwhile if you’re a fan of Remnant and action RPGs, and even then you may be better served just watching the ending cutscene on YouTube.
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