In all honesty I basically just impulse bought this because “yeah PlatinumGames made this they make great games”, I’m glad I don’t impulse buy with this mentality anymore otherwise I might’ve bought Babylon’s Fall lol. But in all seriousness I do think PlatinumGames have a great track record and I do generally check out what they’ve developed as I’ve always been fond of the studio even if they’ve turned out duds. Thankfully I can confidently state that Astral Chain isn’t even close to being a dud, though it still has some issues I feel.
First and foremost though, because the Nintendo Switch is an amazing system and not at all flimsy and frustrating to manage in the slightest, I suffered through the entire game with really bad joycon drift. Now thankfully it wasn’t so bad that I was actively fighting the controls in the sense of, like, I need to push to a certain direction constantly to counter the joycons drifting in another just to move in a straight line, I could move around fine but the instant I stopped, the game just constantly moves me to the left in a circle all the time. This also made navigating menus an absolute chore. Again, not the game’s fault, this is entirely the fault of the system’s hardware, though it certainly didn’t make platforming or that ice cream/box stacking minigame any easier.
I absolutely ADORE this game’s visual style. The futuristic cyberpunk aesthetic has always been a favorite of mine, and this game is…basically nothing but that (I especially get a kick out of the different vending machines in the game and how their behavior alters depending on the location they’re at). The character and even enemy designs I feel are super creative and fun to look at, and while some areas in the game go a little overboard with how abstract they can be, Astral Chain is a very unique looking game as a whole. The story though, I’m gonna be honest I didn’t really care about the plot. Characters weren’t really interesting with a few exceptions, and I ESPECIALLY felt this with the 2 main leads.
The game’s structure can be best categorized, I think, into 2 distinct sections: you have a somewhat open area where you do side quests and help people out around the area, and after that you partake in a more linear point A to point B structure where you fight enemies, usually going in and out of the Virtual Boy tinted Astral Plane numerous times. There’s a lot of detective work you do in Astral Chain which is cool, I mean you’re a police officer so it makes sense but like you actually need to gather clues and piece them together in a logical way afterwards. The side quests are mainly just kinda whatever so in the end I opted to skip them even if it impacted my end rank (you gotta do ALL of them in order to fill out and improve the rank at the end).
The main gimmick of Astral Chain is…well, using the Astral Chain. You’re basically partnered with this creature called a Legion and you have him chained to you like a rabid dog. They can attack independently of you but you can also control both at the same time to deal tons of damage and combo, wrap around enemies and bind them in place, get the chain in the path of a charging enemy to counterattack, have the legion yoink you with the chain to cross gaps and distances or even hurl you into the air for aerial combos (which is important since you can’t jump in this game normally), etc. This isn’t a combo focused game like DMC or Bayonetta, especially considering how pretty much impossible it is to interrupt or cancel an attack you were doing to make combos flow better. It’s a very unique style of hack and slash combat, and it’s one that I think works. It’s focused a lot more on maneuvering around enemies and using the chain to try and deal damage in multiple ways. You unlock different legions with different abilities and attack styles, and you can even upgrade and unlock new abilities for them later down the line. While I’ll always prefer the action games like Bayo or DMC, this chain system is quite a bit of fun. It can even be very intriguing with the different traps and combos you can pull off with stuff like legion swapping, you can really juggle enemies that way. The enemies you fight are…fine I guess. A lot of the chimera just sort of blend together for me, both attack pattern wise and visually. You have the standard PlatinumGames dodge to escape danger but honestly it doesn’t feel as responsive as simply chain jumping out of the way of danger (the drawback being of course that you deal damage by counterattacking with perfect dodging).
Platforming is…also kind of whatever, doesn’t really evolve past chain jumping across gaps to get across with moving platforms. Towards endgame it gets more interesting but that’s also towards…the very end of the game. Platforming can get very finicky but again I’m very much sure that’s a result of joycon drift.
While I did like what I played, I didn’t really feel…impressed? I’m not sure how to word this, I had fun with what I played, but it felt like I was just kinda going through the motions near the end. It doesn’t feel like a game where I can replay it over and over again, it’s not as flexible I feel. Further accentuating this is a pretty poor ranking system. The game doesn’t really care if you get hit or how well you do in combat, it really only cares about the amount of stuff you do. You get rewarded for taking no damage of course, but you also get rewarded for pretty much doing everything, no matter how inconsequential. Dodging multiple times despite an enemy not attacking you, simply turning on IRIS (this game’s equivalent of detective mode) or not turning it on to go in blind, binding enemies, mindlessly button mashing and not even hitting an enemy, there are fights where you can take a ton of damage and perform really sloppily but because you did a bunch of different “things” the game ranks you with an S+, it’s very unsatisfying. The game also PUNISHES you for breaking the environment! I mean sure that’s a non issue and it makes sense in context of the game’s universe (“police need to set an example, not vandalize public property!”) but like breaking stuff and collecting currency is a kinda fun thing to do while you’re walking around the level you’re in, it feels off being discouraged from doing it.
Also on a technical level it’s rather poor. The game looks somewhat blurry on a handheld and in motion particle effects and flashing lights and colors absolutely flood the screen making it hard to tell what’s even going on at points. The game’s also capped to 30 fps and can often chug under that target in heavier fight sequences which is honestly a real no no in my book in regards to a hack and slash game. I’m just glad Bayo 3 is targeting 60fps. Not even the music was very memorable aside from the police hub area! Sad!!!
While I did have fun, there were a lot of odd design decisions that permeated throughout Astral Chain that kept me from loving it more than I should’ve. Perhaps a sequel could rectify most of my issues, I could be down for that.
First and foremost though, because the Nintendo Switch is an amazing system and not at all flimsy and frustrating to manage in the slightest, I suffered through the entire game with really bad joycon drift. Now thankfully it wasn’t so bad that I was actively fighting the controls in the sense of, like, I need to push to a certain direction constantly to counter the joycons drifting in another just to move in a straight line, I could move around fine but the instant I stopped, the game just constantly moves me to the left in a circle all the time. This also made navigating menus an absolute chore. Again, not the game’s fault, this is entirely the fault of the system’s hardware, though it certainly didn’t make platforming or that ice cream/box stacking minigame any easier.
I absolutely ADORE this game’s visual style. The futuristic cyberpunk aesthetic has always been a favorite of mine, and this game is…basically nothing but that (I especially get a kick out of the different vending machines in the game and how their behavior alters depending on the location they’re at). The character and even enemy designs I feel are super creative and fun to look at, and while some areas in the game go a little overboard with how abstract they can be, Astral Chain is a very unique looking game as a whole. The story though, I’m gonna be honest I didn’t really care about the plot. Characters weren’t really interesting with a few exceptions, and I ESPECIALLY felt this with the 2 main leads.
The game’s structure can be best categorized, I think, into 2 distinct sections: you have a somewhat open area where you do side quests and help people out around the area, and after that you partake in a more linear point A to point B structure where you fight enemies, usually going in and out of the Virtual Boy tinted Astral Plane numerous times. There’s a lot of detective work you do in Astral Chain which is cool, I mean you’re a police officer so it makes sense but like you actually need to gather clues and piece them together in a logical way afterwards. The side quests are mainly just kinda whatever so in the end I opted to skip them even if it impacted my end rank (you gotta do ALL of them in order to fill out and improve the rank at the end).
The main gimmick of Astral Chain is…well, using the Astral Chain. You’re basically partnered with this creature called a Legion and you have him chained to you like a rabid dog. They can attack independently of you but you can also control both at the same time to deal tons of damage and combo, wrap around enemies and bind them in place, get the chain in the path of a charging enemy to counterattack, have the legion yoink you with the chain to cross gaps and distances or even hurl you into the air for aerial combos (which is important since you can’t jump in this game normally), etc. This isn’t a combo focused game like DMC or Bayonetta, especially considering how pretty much impossible it is to interrupt or cancel an attack you were doing to make combos flow better. It’s a very unique style of hack and slash combat, and it’s one that I think works. It’s focused a lot more on maneuvering around enemies and using the chain to try and deal damage in multiple ways. You unlock different legions with different abilities and attack styles, and you can even upgrade and unlock new abilities for them later down the line. While I’ll always prefer the action games like Bayo or DMC, this chain system is quite a bit of fun. It can even be very intriguing with the different traps and combos you can pull off with stuff like legion swapping, you can really juggle enemies that way. The enemies you fight are…fine I guess. A lot of the chimera just sort of blend together for me, both attack pattern wise and visually. You have the standard PlatinumGames dodge to escape danger but honestly it doesn’t feel as responsive as simply chain jumping out of the way of danger (the drawback being of course that you deal damage by counterattacking with perfect dodging).
Platforming is…also kind of whatever, doesn’t really evolve past chain jumping across gaps to get across with moving platforms. Towards endgame it gets more interesting but that’s also towards…the very end of the game. Platforming can get very finicky but again I’m very much sure that’s a result of joycon drift.
While I did like what I played, I didn’t really feel…impressed? I’m not sure how to word this, I had fun with what I played, but it felt like I was just kinda going through the motions near the end. It doesn’t feel like a game where I can replay it over and over again, it’s not as flexible I feel. Further accentuating this is a pretty poor ranking system. The game doesn’t really care if you get hit or how well you do in combat, it really only cares about the amount of stuff you do. You get rewarded for taking no damage of course, but you also get rewarded for pretty much doing everything, no matter how inconsequential. Dodging multiple times despite an enemy not attacking you, simply turning on IRIS (this game’s equivalent of detective mode) or not turning it on to go in blind, binding enemies, mindlessly button mashing and not even hitting an enemy, there are fights where you can take a ton of damage and perform really sloppily but because you did a bunch of different “things” the game ranks you with an S+, it’s very unsatisfying. The game also PUNISHES you for breaking the environment! I mean sure that’s a non issue and it makes sense in context of the game’s universe (“police need to set an example, not vandalize public property!”) but like breaking stuff and collecting currency is a kinda fun thing to do while you’re walking around the level you’re in, it feels off being discouraged from doing it.
Also on a technical level it’s rather poor. The game looks somewhat blurry on a handheld and in motion particle effects and flashing lights and colors absolutely flood the screen making it hard to tell what’s even going on at points. The game’s also capped to 30 fps and can often chug under that target in heavier fight sequences which is honestly a real no no in my book in regards to a hack and slash game. I’m just glad Bayo 3 is targeting 60fps. Not even the music was very memorable aside from the police hub area! Sad!!!
While I did have fun, there were a lot of odd design decisions that permeated throughout Astral Chain that kept me from loving it more than I should’ve. Perhaps a sequel could rectify most of my issues, I could be down for that.