Ash Echoes is a mobile real-time tactics game where players command unique Echomancers with diverse abilities. Read on to learn everything we know, our first impressions review, and more.

Everything We Know About Ash Echoes

Ash Echoes Plot

Players assume the role of the CEO of S.E.E.D., charged with rescuing multiple worlds from an unknown menace. To do this, they must recruit powerful heroes known as Echomancers from these realms. Four worlds are currently featured, ranging from the ocean world of Haicuo to the frozen lands of Snovelle. The game emphasizes extensive exploration, offering a range of distinctive universes to uncover.

Ash Echoes Gameplay

Ash Echoes is a real-time strategy RPG where players must defeat waves of enemies whilst navigating a hex-based grid. Each character possesses skills and abilities appropriate to their roles, ranging from powerful single-target attacks to massive area-of-effect bombardments. Players are able to control them as the situation develops, allowing for a more dynamic combat experience.

The game also has a customizable player room where they can interact with their characters, as well as a gacha system where players can obtain heroes.

Ash Echoes Release Date

Ash Echoes was released on November 13, 2024. Please refer to the timetable below to find out its launch time in your local timezone:

Ash Echoes Review [Early Impressions]

An Okay Game With a Half-Baked Plot

Whenever a new, big mobile gacha game is announced, it’s likely to be an action or turn-based RPG. For instance, this year’s big releases like Wuthering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero, and Gran Saga all fall into these categories, along with turn-based RPGs like Honkai: Star Rail and Reverse 1999 in 2023, with occasional outliers like Brown Dust 2 and Snowbreak: Containment Zone.

Apart from the upcoming Girls’ Frontline 2, a turn-based tactics game in the XCOM style, and maybe Heaven Burns Red, Ash Echoes is one of the few 2024 standouts with a real-time tactics (RTT) system. It feels like Aliens: Dark Descent, where you control individual units on the battlefield in real time, though you can pause while queuing actions for your Echomancers (yes, that’s what heroes are called here).

Games like this are rare on mobile. The last notable one I remember is Time Defenders, which was more of a tower defense game with RTT elements (and I only remember it because I was a huge King’s Raid fan). So yeah, it’s definitely uncommon.

… Okay, Black Rock Shooter FRAGMENT also fits here, but it was never released globally, so let’s just skip that. Unfortunately, though—

It Feels Terrible on PC

When I say Ash Echoes feels terrible on PC, I don’t mean performance-wise. It’s smooth as butter and hasn’t crashed since I started playing a few hours ago. The problem is that Ash Echoes is designed for mobile, so a lot of standard RTS/RTT features even regular players forget exist just aren’t there.

The most striking details that Ash Echoes notably lacks are controls concentrated on the left side of the keyboard, and the complete lack of cursor-tracking functionalities. Both manifest unique issues with the gameplay, but they ultimately make playing on PC feel quite clunky.

If there was a way to rebind keys or an option to make skills follow your cursor instead of having to drag your reticle around, it wouldn’t be so bad. Instead, you’re often forced to lift your left hand to press keys on the right side and wrestle with map elements to get skills to aim properly.

Amazing Audio, Almost Perfect Visuals

A big part of what carries Ash Echoes is its aesthetic, and for good reason. This game looks and sounds like it had a big budget. Every character has a detailed 3D model used all over the game, from the main lobby to battles. The soundtrack is full of bangers, the voice acting is plentiful and immersive, and even the VN-style story scenes don’t feel lazy—though character sprites don’t have any lip movement during dialogue.

One complaint, though: combat visual feedback is pretty weak. It feels like every character just stretches backward when hit, showing zero pain. Some skills don’t even make targets flinch at all, which really pulls me out of the game.

To be fair, making every single attack trigger a reaction could quickly spiral out of control, especially after a few months down the road. But Ash Echoes balances this with strong variety in character designs and abilities. Each character has distinct themes, outfits, and accessories that make them stand out, while their diverse skills and abilities fit those styles perfectly, adding to their individuality and visual appeal.

Very Free-to-Play-Friendly

I won’t call a gacha game with an SSR rate above 1% “generous,” but given how brutal the gacha scene is these days, any game that gives a high-rarity pull more than once every hundred tries is at least “good enough.”

But that’s not the best part. What stands out here is that the game doesn’t lean hard on duplicate farming to power up heroes. While duplicates give minor but nice bonuses to Echomancers, you don’t have to go nuts aiming for a bunch of copies just to reach power spikes like in other games.

The economy’s also decent, with shop prices in line with standard monthly and discount packs. Plus, new players get two guaranteed SSR tickets: one for completing beginner missions (random SSR), and another for picking a specific Echomancer after pulling enough times in the gacha.

The More You Read, The Less Sense It Makes

If you follow mobile gaming, you might remember the Wuthering Waves prologue fiasco. It only became a big deal because of the game’s hype and large following. Ash Echoes doesn’t have that kind of visibility, at least according to Google Trends, so its prologue issues aren’t likely to make headlines.

Make no mistake, though—this is probably Ash Echoes’ biggest problem, at least in the early stages.

While story isn’t always the main reason people stick with a game, it’s definitely a big factor in hooking new players. A strong opening hook is essential. Arknights did this with a glimpse of a society in shambles, Fate/Grand Order banked on established lore, and Ash Echoes… decided to throw a mountain of lore at you in record time?

It’s actually pretty funny in a way because the game notifies you whenever it updates its glossary with new terms encountered during dialogue, so you can actually pinpoint the moments when Ash Echoes’ writers are trying to inflate your brain with lore. Take the screenshot above, for instance. That one text window alone threw out three distinct terms, all near-impossible to interpret from scratch. Three! And just when you think you’re safe, another glossary update smacks you in the face less than a minute after that trifecta of blows.

Moving on, the plot progression itself is as much of a disaster as the writing. There are glimpses of realistic humanity—riots full of people who don’t know what they’re talking about but still manage to obstruct scientific progress. Then you, the player, suddenly find out the crowd’s angry tantrums are due to the protagonist’s organization mining dangerous minerals on a large scale—without any buildup, might I add.

And before you can blink, the story shifts into overdrive, complete with blaring sirens and shouting as an intruder is detected in the mines. After dishing out “justified” violence against the rioters, you head into the mines, recruit new allies from a locked room (locked for who knows what reason), and meet an otherworldly priest who conveniently knows how to handle the intruder. But then, after defeating this trespasser, it attempts to blow itself up using the very minerals your organization has been mining.

It feels like the story is desperately throwing everything it can just to reach a dramatic conclusion where someone has to die because previous setups felt too weak. And the conclusion? Well, nothing bad for you because of plot armor. Of course, this isn’t the only reason the prologue is terrible, but explaining everything would make this review way too long.

To be frank, that prologue is one of the most jarring reads I’ve had in a long time. Thankfully, the following chapters are much better, although that’s not saying much.

In the end, Ash Echoes has decent RTT gameplay and fantastic visuals and audio, but the chaotic story start will be the biggest hurdle for any interested player. If you can push through that, you’ll find a surprisingly fun and fairly generous gacha game to pass the time.

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Ash Echoes Product Information

Title	Ash Echoes
Release Date	November 13, 2024
Developer	Aurogon Shanghai, Neocraft Studios
Publisher	Tencent
Supported Platforms	PC, Mobile
Genre	Strategy, RPG
Number of Players	Single Player
ESRB Rating	TBA
Official Website	Ash Echoes Official Website

Alfonso Majarucon

Writer of things from game, anime and manga reviews to news and webnovels. Hopelessly addicted to story-driven games, especially cross-platform ones. Favorite games include Punishing Gray Raven, Arknights, Limbus Company, Elden Ring, Touhou, Soul Nomad and the Disgaea series (except 3 and 6). Avid..