ECO English Version Coming Soon!

When I was playing RO, there were two games that would’ve made me jump ship to it right away. One was Mabinogi, which I am now playing. The other was ECO (Emil Chronicle Online). Both are 3d cel-shaded anime-style games that are cute and offered lots of customization. I had been eagerly awaiting for the English version for both games, since it would allow my friends to play with me and actually have fun instead of asking me for translations every 30 seconds. The announcement of an English ECO was announced by IAHgames before any news of English Mabi, but no progress was ever made and a 2007 release has now become never, since they stated they will only keep the Thai version.

However, there is now news of an English version by Run Up Games for Singapore. The main site is already up and you can sign up for a newsletter there. They say it’ll be here by the end of the year, but I won’t put much weight on that.

So why ECO? I was drawn to its cute graphics and its similarity to RO. Lots of classes to choose from, stats to assign, equipments to change, etc. Everything you wear will be displayed on your character. There are a TON of skills to choose from, hence lots of builds to create. The thing that I don’t like about the game is that it is a bit grindy, even though it’s not a Korean game (It’s a Japanese game). Leveling is not easy and getting from place to place is slow. I love finding boxes and chests though! There’s a reason ECO was called 箱オンライン (Box Online).

I originally started playing ECO in JP closed beta back in summer 2005. I was extremely hyped about it because it involved both Broccoli (Galaxy Angel, DiGi Charat) and GungHo (jRO, Yogurting, RO2). The third company involved was Headlock, which later produced ai sp@ce. I played it with some friends with the now defunct emperium.org RO forums, including ikusat and Hemi-tan (speaking of which, I should tell him about this…) I stopped when ECO went P2P around Saga 2 and went back to playing RO. Then I played for another month or so during Saga 4 with Hawke to take him around the game and have some fun. Fencer/Vates combo FTW!

I guess this is becoming a nostalgia post, so might as well post some screenshots.

And an oekaki I did a few years back.

About these ads