Not least for its sheer creativity and ambition, Astral Chain is a game we’re lucky to have gotten. Given that action games are generally niche as is, it’s difficult to imagine that one which primarily predicates itself on controlling multiple characters at once was an easy pitch, especially considering its development came hot on the heels of Scalebound’s cancellation. The best media is often borne of troubled circumstances, and Astral Chain surely is one of the best, both of Platinum’s catalogue and its genre at large. Tough out its steep learning curve, and beneath initial frustrations, you’ll uncover a rough gem that stands out as being exceedingly rewarding to learn even by the lofty standards of its peers.

Key word, “steep.” The amount of tools you have at your disposal in Astral Chain’s genuinely overwhelming, decision paralysis being about as much of a hurdle for a new player as the ongoing demonic invasion for the Ark’s boys in blue. You’ve wrapped the titular chain around an enemy, incapacitating it for a brief moment. What next? You might whittle it down with one of the Sword Legion’s eco-friendly flurry attacks, but maybe it’d die faster if you expend much more energy to sneak in some headshots with the Arrow Legion. The Arm Legion has the most cost-efficient damage in the business and can even float over hazards, but what if you can’t take advantage of these benefits in time because he’s so slow? Oops, now it’s broken free – parrying its attack with the Axe Legion’s shield would end things fast, but if you can’t afford the risk, you might instead ride the Beast Legion and employ its automatic dodging in exchange for comparatively little reward. Lots of decisions to be made.

This is only taking into consideration the simplest possible situation in the game, too, without regard for the Howard twins’ own arsenal, how every combination of enemies one can think of will eventually be thrown at you by the time you reach the postgame, what’s quite handily some of the most varied combat arenas action games have to offer, or any number of other less obvious techniques you can do. For a bit of perspective, I didn’t learn that you can have more than one Legion out at once until after my first playthrough, which might make it sound like the game’s obtuse but is really just another example of how gratifying it is to feel yourself improve. There’s a particular miniboss I dreaded fighting near the start of the game, but by employing this one neat trick, you too can have a grand time against it come the story’s end. Chimeras hate him!

Action games can get away with fighting predominantly taking place in flat, featureless environments if their combat has enough meat on its bones by itself, so in a way it’s almost bold that Astral Chain’s levels are (as aforementioned) this diverse regardless. Seeing a crate in the distance gated by narrow walkways, explosive environmental hazards, disappearing and/or invisible platforms and actually having to stop for a moment to think about how to get there is a pretty refreshing experience to have in this kind of game. Platforming segments are surprisingly painless even when they occasionally crop up in boss fights, thanks to how little damage falling results in, though the way Howard slightly overshoots wherever you tell him to jump does take some adjusting to. A pinch of stealth and rarer but typically uninteresting tailing missions are less successful, but many of them are thankfully relegated to optional sidequests and they do help sell the feeling of being a cyberpunk peeler. Famed video essayist Masahiro Sakurai once spoke of how crucial slight pauses are to making otherwise mundane actions feel impactful, and it’s thanks to this kind of thing that cleaning up red matter (i.e. Astral Chain’s equivalent of picking up rubbish) is more engaging than most other games’ entire combat systems.

It might’ve been beneficial for whichever Howard you play as to actually speak, given Platinum’s pedigree for excellent protagonists – Wonder Red is the single best to grace the medium and I’ll let yet another Howard speak for me if you disagree – but Astral Chain doesn’t lack for their trademark charm in other areas. Marie is a solid litmus test for how much of a killjoy someone is, while morale-boosting minigames like handing out balloons to passersby in a dog suit and obligatory cat collecting sidequests help inject lightheartedness into what’s otherwise a pretty moody setting. It also marks another example of Platinum putting just about everybody else to shame when it comes to how music is utilised, not just for its quality and range or how it dynamically changes according to all sorts of conditions, but also because a song fit for an OVA playing every time you pop this game’s equivalent of Devil Trigger is the type of thing that should be studied in schools of some kind. Look out for the rhythm of Howard’s steps next time you’re walking around the hub area, as well.

I could just as well gush over how pretty Astral Chain often is, its needlessly in-depth character customisation, its all-thrills-no-frills postgame or what an absolutely astounding boss Noah Prime is (he genuinely might be the best Platinum’s ever crafted), but hopefully you’ve gotten the gist. The uptick in doomsaying surrounding Platinum in recent years has always struck me as vastly disproportionate, and having finally gotten round to Astral Chain has reinforced that opinion regardless of the odd framerate drop or a slightly questionable ranking system or whatever else. Like Taura himself, it gets better and better over time, and one can only hope he goes on to become as big of a name as some of his fellow P* alumni.

Every time I think about Astral Chain, I think of how this game manages to be mid and great at the same time.

This game’s story is not too impressive, the main character is unnecessarily silent, too many story information are just poorly presented text files and stealth sequences are horrible. And yet, Platinum Games created a new and innovative action combat system with the legions. Satoshi Igarashi composed one of the most impressing soundtracks I’ve ever listened to, the art style and graphics are beautiful, the character and legion designs are absolutely fantastic, the premise is really interesting, the lore is incredibly deep (if you read through the text files) and I’m an absolute fan of the change of pace and the investigation sequences in this game!

Astral Chain does so many things right and so many things wrong. It’s mid and great at the same time. It has a lot of unused potential and I hope Astral Chain 2 will fix a lot of my complaints. Oh yeah, give us a dedicated jump button. It truly has the potential to become one of the best games of all time and I really want to see that happen!

I highly recommend to play this game if you want to experience something you have never seen before!

é um jogo legal, me chamou bastante atenção na época que os trailers saíram, mas eu só fui jogar em 2022 e só terminei agora kkkk. o gráfico é bonito, a jogabilidade é muito boa, mas a história desse jogo é tão genérica, previsível e desinteressante que em diversos momentos eu ficava caindo de sono, pra piorar o protagonista fica quieto o jogo todo e só serve de massa de manobra pra história acontecer enquanto a irmã dele (ou irmão, depende de quem você escolheu jogar) é simplesmente insuportável e aparece o tempo inteiro, parece mais que era pra ela ser a protagonista, aí como se a história já não fosse chata o suficiente, o jogo tem vários trechos de investigação que até têm alguma profundidade, mas esses trechos não conversam nem um pouco com o resto da gameplay e são monótonos demais. já falando da gameplay, essa é a parte em que o jogo realmente brilha, é bem original, divertida e variada, além de usar basicamente tudo que a platinum já testou em cada jogo dela, pra ser sincero se não fosse a gameplay eu teria dropado o jogo, já que ele só pega tração bem pro final, mas infelizmente até a gameplay tem alguns defeitos, os trechos de plataforma/parkour são horríveis e imprecisos, e as missões secundárias ao longo do jogo são extremamente chatas e só servem pra encher linguiça. pra piorar, vc mal dá dano no último chefe e ele tem trocentos ataques que te matam com um hit e aí quando vc mata ele o jogo simplesmente acaba do nada

Ever since this game was announced, it's been in the back of my mind. It got a lot of attention at release, with a lot of people review bombing it because of its Switch exclusivity... for some reason. It's even weirder because no one talks about this game nowadays. Ironically, I think it being an exclusive kind of brought more people to it. It certainly stands out when next to Mario and Zelda and most other switch exclusives. Regardless, is the game good?

Yes, but I'd probably be way less forgiving of its shortcomings if it wasn't for the ingenuity on display. Platinum was definitely creative with the Chain mechanic here. You can have your Jojo Stand pull you over to a platform from afar. You can wrap an enemy in the chain to trap them. You can send a charging enemy flying by pulling against them. It's all unique and fun, and the chain aspect was far more intuitive than I expected, although the game was far too willing to frontload a lot of tutorials. The game strikes a good balance between making the player use a lot of abilities and also allowing the player to express themselves. Overall, the combat is pretty good.

The game definitely has a little too much going on though. I think the arm and axe stand could've been combined into one. Not only could this let the d-pad control stand switching, but it would've tightened up some of the combat. I also think either the skill tree or ability distribution had to go. I think having some RPG mechanics was a good idea, as it allows the player to be eased in before things get truly insane, but they went a little too far here.

I also think this game was too easy. The ridiculous difficulty spike at the end aside, between the healing items, free revives, and full healing with glory kills, this game rarely challenged me. And I played on the hard difficulty. I'm sure the harder difficulty actually has some teeth, but I expected a bit more difficulty wise.

My last gameplay comment will be on the pacing. Now, I think the game is a fine length, and a few files go on too long but they're not too bad. I rather liked the investigation sequences at the beginning of levels, although I'm not sure how they'd hold up on a replay. My main issue with the pacing is a clear lack of urgency. Even right before the final battle, one of the side missions is just helping some guy impress a girl. There's no rising of stakes here. On could say this is more of a story issue than a gameplay issue, and... uh...................................

The story sucks. I know I made an allusion to Stands from the hit manga My Hero Academia earlier, but this game actually takes more from Neon Genesis Evangelion, with one of the alternate skins for the stands being an overt reference to EVA Unit 01. The rest of the inspiration from Eva is about as surface level as that example. Most of the characters are extremely underdeveloped, and the ones that aren't have no presence near the end. Even among spectacle action games like Devil May Cry 3 and God of War, this is extremely weak. I really don't get why Platinum thought putting in a Fire Emblem-esque casual mode for people who only care about the story was a good idea. The best thing I can say about the story is that it's pretty easy to ignore.

Now... I know I spent a lot of time talking about why this game is pretty garbage, but... eh, it was fun. I think a sequel could improve on this concept a lot, and it's not out of the realm of possibility. For now, I'm giving this a 7/10, but I could certainly lower it to a 6.

Astral Chain is something special. However, the story falls completely flat just a few hours in . Characters are also fine, passable to good. Get that stuff out of the way. This is an action game, and the action is impeccable, but I want to touch on the stuff supporting it first. The story and the fact that it had no greater implications was a little disappointing since Platinum’s last game, Nier: Automata, was super story heavy and is one of my favorite games ever. But N:A is about story, and this is about innovative action.

You pick to play as either the brother or sister who are both asked to join an elite task force and guard the world against the terrors of the astral plane. You begin by customizing the skin color, eye color, and haircut/hair color. It’s actually not too bad of a character creator, but no face sliders. Let me get my other big negative out of the way as well - the nonspeaking protagonist, while it works in Fallout and Skyrim, does not work here. I wish my character had some personality, but your sibling, Akira, kind of ends up speaking and carrying conversations for you. I’m a little sick of this trend RPGs have of silent protagonists so you can “immerse” yourself.

The world of Astral Chain really sells this way more than the writing quality for the characters or story. It is SO INTERESTING. Everything about this cyberpunk future is attention grabbing in the most subtle ways. The way the police are structured, the attitude of civilians toward you, the fact that so many NPC’s have something to say. Seeing Tokyo in 2065 is awesome on its own but it really looks like it would. Other than the police uniforms and actual legions, the actual cyberpunk aesthetic is subtle and closer to realistic. The game places you in small open world areas for each mission that you explore. Turning on your scanner on any NPC will give you a quick list of facts about them, including Name, Age, Sex, and Blood Type among others. It’s a neat little feature that makes the people feel real if for a moment and makes the world feel alive. For instance, i walked by a woman named Ikumi Dabrowski and thought “oh that woman is clearly half Japanese, but it’s the year 2065 so of course we’re more integrated.” I started looking around and noticed a TON of half-Japanese people, which was a neat little thing. Just an example.

The general structure is that for each mission there is a crime involving the astral plane somewhere in the city. You essentially have a detective phase and then a combat phase. During the detective phase you’re in a small explorable area with 5-6 side quests. The detective work is better done than any other action game. The Witcher 3 and Assassin’s Creed have light detective elements which consist of just turning on your scanner, walking up to the yellow object and pressing A. In Astral Chain, you have to question eye witnesses all over the crime scene area as well as collect hard evidence, and store each clue as a keyword. Then you report to your field officer who quizzes you on what happened, and you answer using the correct keywords. The coolest thing here is that you can’t trust eyewitness reports - not because they’re liars, but because like in real life they are unreliable. They will miss small details sometimes and you have to fact check witnesses against hard evidence.This is awesome and to my knowledge isn’t done often in games.

So, the action. This is what you come for. This is a brilliant design for action and I’m not sure that anything like it has ever existed before. You individually control yourself as well as your legion, an otherworldly entity bound to you by the titular astral chain. This is NOT a combo based game like Bayonetta, which I appreciate (I’m very bad at combos). Combat does involve a lot of mashing the Y button, sure, but the real fun of it is utilizing the chain between your two entities. Wrapping up an enemy in a chain by running around them in circles traps them momentarily. If an enemy rushes you, you can catch it in your chain and slingshot it across the arena. The main mechanic is rushing your Legion into the enemy and then either calling it to slide kick back to you or slide kicking towards it. Combat is 100% based on your positioning in relation to the enemy , and then added onto with new abilities and attacks you can unlock for your 5 different legions. It’s hard to describe. It takes a few minutes to pick up (I recommend going through the training stuff) but it feels amazing. It looks like you’re button mashing to an observer but as a player you can see yourself individually controlling two characters on the screen and the results of their interactions. So satisfying. I can’t speak enough praise for the combat.

Aside from that, music is A+ (I’d venture to say it’s the best score this year as well) and the cell shaded artwork looks beautiful even in handheld. Runs at a consistent 30 FPS, and since it’s got cartoon-like graphics its barely distinguishable from 60 FPS. 8 hours in and not one single frame rate drop even in handheld - That’s impressive. Plus, tsundere vending machine.

Astral Chain has perhaps the most innovative combat of the decade. In an awesomely constructed but mostly colorless cyberpunk world with a passable story and forgettable characters, 90% of the burden to carry this game falls on the action - and the action delivers. The combat’s dependence on movement and positioning rather than remembering combo strings sets it apart from the rest of its genre. This is one part Bayonetta, 2 parts Nier: Automata, and 1 part Psycho-Pass. Even though the story falls flat at the end, the time investment is an easy trade for the amount of fun you’ll have chaining, wrapping, dodge kicking, and blasting your way across the astral plane.

Recentemente, sorteei um game para jogar da minha wishlist e caiu o Astral Chain, game que me chamou atenção principalmente pelo seu visual. É até mesmo engraçado falar dele, porque quando comecei a jogá-lo, Astral Chain me passava muito uma vibe de um jogaço, até porque no início dele você já começa na ação pura, em uma moto, e toda essa cena inicial é linda, colorida e muito chamativa. Depois dessa cena, somos apresentados ao combate do jogo, que igualmente parece bem promissor e empolgante. Porém, depois desse início, o jogo cai num limbo de pura repetição.

O jogo peca muito em manter esse ritmo inicial que foi apresentado no começo e rapidamente se torna um jogo típico japonês atual, onde temos diversos objetivos um mais desinteressante que o outro. O jogo meio que passa para você "casos policiais" e, como tal, você estará constantemente voltando para a base, usando uma visão especial para investigar os locais, quebrando completamente o fluxo do jogo. Para mim, a pior parte é essa da "investigação" que você tem que fazer, é chato demais cara. As missões secundárias no jogo são tão chatas quanto as principais, quase sempre são objetivos bobos e que não acrescentam absolutamente nada de bom à gameplay.

Outro conceito que achei bem chato no jogo foram os tutoriais e as mecânicas do game. As mecânicas do game, em teoria, funcionam perfeitamente, porém o controle e a sincronia da gameplay com seu summon são estranhos e meio que ficam na tentativa e erro. O jogo te explica com trocentos guias, porém com o tempo você acaba pegando por conta própria mesmo. Felizmente, o combate puro é ok e consegui ser bem divertido. O que, por outro lado tambem, pode ser ruim já que as missões geralmente começam na base, você parte para a missão, tem investigação, para depois sim você de fato entrar em um combate, só que dura tão pouco tempo que quando você pisca tá de volta na sua base da delegacia.

O que me faz pensar porque só não executaram o game de maneira simples e objetiva, somente se concentrando em um combate simples do jeito que ele é com momentos de ação com sua moto que para mim são o grande destaque do game. A câmera do jogo, como dito antes, é muito importante no game, você controla o seu "Legion", que é o seu summon padrão, porém controlar ele é muito estranho, é quase como se você estivesse jogando "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons", já que lá você controla dois personagens com um único controle, porém aqui, além dos controles de câmera serem pouco precisos, o jogo faz questão de você usar o Legion em diversas situações. O controle nesse sentido é muito mal feito, acho que poderiam deixar o Legion mais independente de você enquanto você simplesmente manda comandos de ação, acho que ficaria muito melhor assim.

Tudo no game, de maneira geral é mais ou menos, e a história também não é lá essas coisas, na real é uma história até que irrelevante e meio "foda-se". Visualmente, para um jogo do Switch, as coisas parecem legais aqui, graficamente falando. Ele não chega a ser uma maravilha dos gráficos, porém ele também não é feio, sendo um game padrão japonês com um estilo anime 3D.

No geral, Astral Chain é um jogo bem OK, para melhor dizer mediano. O jogo tem aí por volta de 15 a 20 horas de história principal, muito disso por conta da enrolação que o game tem e sinceramente, para pegar 100%, eu chuto aí mais de 70 horas e nem senti vontade de jogar novamente. Sendo bem sincero, é um típico game que você vai se forçar demais para achar uma diversão, vai até encontrar, porém logo ela vai embora. Eu sinceramente não entendo como esse jogo tem notas tão altas, é apenas um jogo mediano e não tem literalmente nada demais.

Pontos Positivos:
- Visualmente legal
- Gameplay legalzinha no combate

Pontos Negativos:
- História boba
- Personagem criado por você bobão no meio da história
- Câmera confusa de controlar, principalmente com o Legion
- Problemas de ritmo

Versão utilizada para análise: Switch

the 7.6/10 game of all time is calling..

astral chain’s story starts off incredibly basic and kind of annoying.. to the point where i thought i wouldn't enjoy it as much as i thought i would. to put my feelings on the characters as blunt as i possibly can: this game is like evangelion if the cast spoke like ragna the bloodedge 50% of the time. do NOT play this game in english for any reason unless you’re prepared to hear akira act like the worst isekai protagonist you’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to. the game toys with some pretty interesting ideas and concepts but the ‘chosen one’ and silent protagonist tropes end up preventing it from being something amazing. this is a game that really depends on your attachment to the familial bond of the two main characters to have an impact, and because the player’s character ends up being silent, some story beats fall entirely flat.

from what i’ve said so far, you’d probably think i didn’t really enjoy the story of this game, but i actually really did. there is a lot of lore here for players to sift through if they want and when the writers choose to actually write this game can be great. the last 45% of this game is really good, and i do think it’s worth sitting through the pretty OK first half to get to. there is a lot of symbolism here with birds which i think is pretty awesome when you link things together.

i'll keep things brief on the combat side of things, mostly out of credit to platinum for always making good action games. fighting in this game is so much fun just because of the amount of skills and playstyles you have at your disposal. in every single combat encounter with an enemy, you can link up attacks to make things feel at least somewhat engaging, which is all something like this needs to be fun. every legion (these are basically mini eva units with different playstyles that affect how you fight. beast is the best one btw.) i would have liked to have seen more types of weapons for the protagonist.. three is alright but i didn’t see myself using the pistol much unless there was something on the wall. speaking of.. this game sometimes decides that it wants to do air combat, and when it does it really just becomes an extremely shallow exchange between you and the enemy where you’re either sending the legion out to hit them in the air repeatedly, or shooting at them with the gun. definitely a weak point for the game, albeit not a large one. side note, platinum needs to stop trying to work with multiple playstyles and halfassing one. the bike portions are cool to look at but annoying to play.

SPOILERS FOR MAIN STORY EVENTS AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.


let’s start with akira for character reviews as i think he’s the most fleshed out character here. um.. i kind of don’t like him but i also think he’s cool. it’s weird. every single time he starts to act somewhat human, they have to either punch down at him or throw him the most annoying and forced line of all time. when the writers decide they actually feel like writing him, however, he has some great character moments that build him up and are genuinely touching. his ending was amazing and one of my favorite moments in the entire story.

hal was probably my second favorite character in the game. i can’t exactly explain why, because he’s not even relatively significant in the grand scheme of things, but i just have a thing for boys that are nerds like he is. hal always comes across well and has a good heart that i really enjoyed. his role in the story never felt forced which is actually surprising, considering many other characters struggle to make as big of an impact as him while being present for longer.

jena anderson is awesome. to be honest, i think that this game would have benefitted from keeping her around for longer. i like yohan as this game’s antagonist, but jena is just so much more interesting as a character what with her dirty and careless look compared to the well kept, clean feel of the main cast. 10/10 character stuck in a 7.5/10 game. i hope she comes back if there’s a sequel.

this game thrives off of the platinum logo on the box. it feels like a mish-mash of ideas taken from all of platinum’s other, more significant games. witch time is back again, you zandatsu enemies to recover health and use angled sword slashes to cut objects, theres a hyper-autistic upgrade system involving chips that require space and 80% of which are damn useless. yet of all the platinum games this one steals its identity from, it chooses the visual aesthetics of Vanquish and Anarchy Reigns. a mix of boring cyberpunk slums and obnoxiously overdesigned psuedo-sci-fi enemies combined with the switch’s native 240p output makes this game damn hard to look at sometimes, even when there isnt a mess of particle effects on screen that obscure all the action and enemy telegraphs. this game is a mess and distinctly lacking its own personality thanks to the characteristically uncharismatic sci fi story about how humans are kind of the bad guys, actually. its another mid-at-best and boring-at-worst Platinum game that will be and possibly already has been forgotten by time. this studio continues to disappoint, and i dread to think their heyday has come and gone.

somehow the most nonexistent, forgettable game i've ever played. the combat system is wonky and hard to grapple with yet the game is piss easy 99% of the time, the plot is hammy yet impossible to follow... the game's aesthetic can be pretty cool at times and it's got a few funky songs, but it's one of those games where i forgot almost everything about it the second i put it down. for other platinum games i can kinda understand the appeal of optimizing your combat and getting those S ranks, but you couldn't pay me to replay any of these levels.

Astral Chain is an action game with surprisingly good looking visuals and innovative combat. As per usual with Platinum games the combat is fun, flashy and enough to keep you entertained throughout the mediocre story, though it can feel kind of repetitive after a while.

I love that you can choose between a male and female protagonist and are even able to customize them a little bit, but I hate that the twin you choose as your protag ends up being mute. I've never really been a big fan of silent protags to begin with. But most silent protags at least have some personality shown with their actions, or maybe the game has meaningless but entertaining choices that allow you to headcanon their personality. Astral Chain just has nothing. I also know sometimes for Japanese games, the JP audience and weebs get a little uppity if they can't pretend the character is "literally me" so I have learned to live with it, but my god at least let them speak from a dialogue tree if you absolutely must keep some semblance of the player feeling they are the character.

+this is a rather ambitious title for a new IP, all things considered. it's not open world but has many explorable areas, a surprising amount of boss encounters, investigation elements, puzzle-solving, all wrapped up with combat over the course of 25+ hours
+the legion system, where you can control both you and a trained demon is insanely creative and sets this game apart from other action titles. tying up enemies in the chain linking you to your legion, or using it as a tripwire are also rather inspired additions. for all the gripes I have with combat, the legions make it worth continuing just for how they keep the game from becoming a shallow hack and slash
+the character and creature designs (many of which were contributed by masakazu katsura) are stellar, and the environment variety is excellent as well. you get to examine life from the perspective of those in many different class situations, including the contrast between still safe areas and military/police-occupied areas with widespread disease and poverty
+side quests are generally given in mini open-world sections once a chapter, somewhat reminescent of the later final fantasy 7 remake. these break up the plot rather nicely, and feel like a welcome breather between the linear combat sections. not all of them are winners, but there's quite a lot at least
+diversity between the five legions is notable, with each having exploration and combat abilities that make them feel vital. the ranking system in this game eschews combos in favor of using your entire toolset to your advantage over the course of an encounter, and I felt the mechanics were synergistic with that methodology in that rotating legions in the middle of battle seems sensible given the types of encounters and the enemies within them
+there's some really great setpieces in this game: the subway area stuck out to me, along with sneaking into the base of a gang that runs an impoverished district later on. one of the final bosses has a distinctive digital arena that felt surreal, a little like if cosmic smash was a platinum game.
+I have some issues with the beginning and end but otherwise I think the quality is pretty set over the course of the adventure. there aren't any lazy sections or obvious rushed development

-even with all of the options and varied mechanics between each weapon and legion, the combat feels clumsy and rote. the MC is stiff with significant startup on their movement, and there's little variation in combos beyond mashing the attack button and waiting for a sync QTE to trigger. the legion mostly handles itself outside of sync attacks, moves involving the chain, and manual special moves; feels like a major missed opportunity to me
-around half the game is spent in the astral plane and there is no graphical variation between visits. you will get bored of it very quickly
-the game is just so bloated! did it need detective mode? how many mindless environmental puzzles really raise the quality of the game? does the overwhelming tech trees for each legion + ability slots + perk slots really enhance the combat? I'm not sure...
-for a game that has a "story" difficulty level that trivializes combat, the plot isn't particularly well developed. there's a lot of foreshadowing into the true nature of the demon invasion into human civilization, but there's no real payoff other than some creepy 90s sci fi anime body horror elements that still lack the bite of other elements of that era. the ending is abrupt as well, and the epilogue feels hollow
-the start is rather slow. there's an intro chapter where you can't do much of anything, and you're thrust into the next full-length chapter with many of your abilities locked and no tutorial. by the second full chapter, you finally have to sit through a long tutorial section... pacing is rough for sure
-some of the area reuse is pretty tiring, especially for open areas that are recycled

this one took me a long time to finish... I felt like I had a real mental block against it for a while even though I had enjoyed much of the first 2/3 of the game. it's so overloaded with concepts that it feels difficult to dive back into after time spent away, and it's easy to want to take a break from it given its length. if you're a switch owner this is close to a definitive experience in my opinion warts and all. if you have more access to current AAA titles then it's a harder sell, but if cel-shaded anime graphics and platinum-style combat appeal to you at all then I would recommend it

When you get into combat with the well-thought out Legion system and experience the gorgeously animated sci-fi setting with the well integrated UI, it's great.

When you're doing ANYTHING ELSE, it really isn't. There's nuggets of fun gameplay in here but they're buried under overly long investigation segments, shitty stealth, unfun required side missions and a shockingly bland story. Not awful but could've been much more, and I hope if this game gets a sequel we get a tighter iteration on the formula.

Platinum game is fun.

Platinum story is bad.

Time is flat circle.

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.

Sinto que Astral Chain foi uma oportunidade da Platinum de testar coisas novas e mudar um pouco a fórmula que eles já aperfeiçoaram. O jogo me agarrou quase que puramente pelo seu sistema de combate não ortodoxo, que se demonstra mais complexo do que parece devido ao enorme e sempre crescente leque de opções a seu dispor a todo o momento. Ao final do jogo (e subsequentes playthroughs) você está combando hordas de inimigos com habilidades de cada uma de suas 5 legions enquanto muda de armas para aumentar seu score, usando de centenas de combos e inputs especiais no processo - são nesses momentos que o sistema de combate é intocável.

Entretanto nem tudo são rosas, e para cada passo ora frente, a Platinum também dá um para trás. Esse jogo marca o infeliz retorno das "fases gimmick mal trabalhadas que precisam ser rejogadas pra conseguir a nota máxima", coisa que não aparecia desde o primeiro Bayonetta. Esse pra mim foi a pior parte do jogo e o que me fez desistir de conseguir 100%. Muito do jogo fora do combate não me impressionou muito, os personagens foram fracos, a história é previsível e eu não gostei muito da soundtrack. Eu gostei no entanto da ambientação em geral da cidade, e devo admitir que as missões em que você trabalha como um policial comum captaram meu interesse, mas perdem seu charme rápido.

Astral Chain é, pra mim, não só um bom jogo diferente de tudo que eu joguei ultimamente, mas uma excelente base para uma potencial sequel/franquia que refine as partes não muito bem trabalhadas enquanto mantém seu sistema de combate estupendo.

It's everything I dislike about platinum games with nothing I like. The overpowered iframe dodge kills whatever cool positioning trickery you could eke out of this stand system, movement is finicky due to the high momentum that inhibits precision despite platforming asking for a modicum of it, there's no semblance of character from anybody in the cast even outside of the protagonist being human cardboard, the narrative is a half-baked parade of anime cliches that assumes much more intrigue than exists of its foreshadowing that feels like it's made so the players' children can follow along, the game continually places its combat gauntlets in a place with one single tileset and very little iteration on what you're doing there, and the detective mechanics aren't interesting and aren't stressed in ways that might be remotely interesting or fun, it's instead concerned with insanely bloated and overlong sequences of you beating on unarmed civilians and doing collectathon bullshit that's over-telegraphed while the parts of the game that actually need explaining go unremarked-upon. I like the police station theme and Marie is funny, though.

Mechanically, very few of its Platinum gimmick inclusions feel like they actually deserve to exist and just slow down the pace? Blade mode, zandatsu, and wicked weaves all feel really bad in comparison to the games they're from and strings are so fucking long before you use a sync attack and so repetitious and uninteractive that it's not really fun to beat on enemies.

The actual legion combat stuff is just not very fun, you just kind of hit L2 and let them do their thing while you mash your own attack and dodge, occasionally using cooldown moves or command inputs that have to be unlocked from the fucking 135 skill nodes. If they didn't have the "teleport to where your legion is standing" move I'd say "literally everything it was trying to do was done better by Bayonetta 3," but I can settle for "99% of what it was trying to do was done better by Bayonetta 3."

Bayonetta 3's decision to make you buffer 1-2 attacks ahead of time while having to dial in combos yourself as well is genius for allowing that left-brain-right-brain fantasy of playing a puppet character in a game like this, but you just can't do that in this game because there's one single attack string for every weapon and pitiful pause combos. The chain stuff doesn't feel like it affects combat as much as it should, circling an enemy to bind them is a lengthy process due to how slow the game is in general and your reward is being able to get a full greatsword string in, which you can do anyways if you get a perfect dodge.

Tripping charging enemies is cool and evokes an MMO's stack/spread mechanics, but it just doesn't happen enough or have enough layers of mechanical or encounter design to be fully compelling. Also, Shell-type enemies are fucking garbage and one of the worst enemy concepts I've seen in this genre. I would rather fight a DMC4 Chimera than an enemy which makes other people in the encounter full-on invincible until you trial-and-error each variant's weakness, something the game does not deign worthy of explication despite tutorializing the pause menu's function.

Flying around with the chain and doing air combos is its own brand of fun but this game had eight full hours to show me some sauce and there wasn't anything.
Goodbye forever, Takahisa Taura. Your games all suck.

Platinum games attempts to re-invent their formula of third person button mash action by giving you a dog on a leash, both literally and figuratively.

Story: The story was predictable, yet it wasn't corny by modern game story standards. Overall I actually expected less and without giving anything away I am actively looking forward to a sequel. I would be interested to see where this franchise can go next.

Art: I really liked the aesthetic of this game. The partially cell shaded graphics mix surprisingly well with the background of the game. The characters never looked out of place and the environments, while maintaining a cohesive theme, largely had their own identity. The art team really nailed it for me, but people who aren't into anime styled sci-fi cyberpunk settings will probably feel different.

Gameplay: I've never been a big fan of the Platinum Games approach to action titles. That being said, I respect the main gimmick of this game and commend them for what they accomplished. I am genuinely shocked that it's as passable as they made it controlling two characters on the Switch control schema. However, the platforming sections of this game really show off the sacrifices that were made to make this setup work. You will either be able to look beyond the control quirks and enjoy the title or abandon it due to control based frustration. They honestly didn't leave much middle ground here.

Music: There's a pretty solid mix of J-Rock, Trance, and oddly Djent to keep things feeling either frantic or chill depending on the moment. I enjoy those genre's so I have no complaints here. Others may walk away wanting more in this department.

Overall I enjoyed this title more than any other Platinum Games release that I've played, which is most of them at this point. There is some definite room for improvement in the controls department, or perhaps even just some clever level design that could mitigate what exists. Either way, I recommend this title as a must play for Switch as it is one of the more unique game concepts I've seen in a while.