One of my most anticipated games of 2019 was definitely Astral Chain. When this game was first unveiled during a random Nintendo Direct.
I was like well, what the hell is this game, it looks absolutely awesome. It looked like a really unique, experience of the action game.
Genre I really enjoyed the graphical style of the game and with Platinum Games at the helm, you knew the action was going to be fast and frantic and probably a lot of fun well.
Astral chain is finally released and I've put about ten and a half hours into the game. So far according to my play time and there's definitely a lot of things, I want to say about this game.
When it comes to my first impressions of the game. A lot of people have been talking about this game in a very positive manner. A lot of people are maybe a bit skeptical about the game.
I feel like, there's still many questions that actual chain needs to have answered and that's what we're going to do in today's article.
We're gonna peel back all the layers of Astral chain. We're gonna talk about the good maybe. They're not so good and come to some conclusions about this game.
So what is astral chain all about? Isn't another great platinum game and isn't the best platinum game of all time like many have been saying that's. What we're gonna figure out in today's article.
Let's jump into the world of astral chain for the nintendo switch. I'll be honest with you guys when it comes to platinum games. Games usually one area that I don't really care all that much about. Is the story in the games? Yes, there is a story in the game. Of course when you look at the Bayonetta games, there is a story going on.
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But really it's never really done much to sort of captivate me. Yes, it's sort of a catalyst for what you're doing in the gameplay.
But it's never really been a main focal point and that's where Astral Chain is very different than previous Platinum Games. Because I feel like the story in this game is arguably one of the best aspects of the game.
They did a really good job writing this story. There's so many twists and turns. So far that I've encountered that I'm like. Wow I want to keep playing this game. I want to keep learning about this world.
Basically what's going on in the story of astral chain is you play as one of two twin cops. You either play as the male or the female cop and the game progresses as you go along based on your decision and what's going on in the world around
you. Basically, we are in the future and there are something called chimera and these chimera are basically trying to take over the world by bringing people from the world that you live in on the ark.
Which is a man-made island into something called the astral plane. The astral plane, they turn these humans into evil matter and basically they're trying to take over the world and recreate the world within these astral planes. So it's kind interesting, it sounds very stocked for an action game.
But I feel like the character development in the game is top-notch. Honestly like the voice acting, is really good. There's a lot of interesting characters that you meet along the way as well. I don't really want to ruin the story for you guys. Because I feel like, it's one of the better parts of this game.
But I just am so engrossed in this story. It seems like they did a really good job coming up with these different characters and there's a lots of dark subject matter as well. There's things like gangs and drugs that are involved in the game as well. So I really like this world that they crafted within the story of this game.
Another thing that's interesting about astral chain is the deviations in gameplay. Usually when you look at a platinum game, you know you're going to get a lot of action in this game.
There's definitely a lot of
action in astral chain. But I feel like they took inspiration from other styles
of games as well and incorporated it into this game.
It really makes it sort of a unique experience within the platinum realm. Of course let's talk about the action stuff though as that is a main focal point of this game.
Your character has a variety of different attacks in a variety of different weapons as well. You have a gun, you have a police baton and you have sort of a longer blade as well that will do more damage.
But really what makes this game unique are the legions in the game. The legions are basically something that are tethered to you and you can basically control these legions in your combat. Each of the legions have their own skill tree as well. There are five legions to unlock in the game so far.
I have unlocked four of them and each of the legions feels very unique. How they play and how they affect your gameplay. You use the legions to do different things like solve puzzles or help people out. You could take the Legion as you have control over the Legion and basically chain up your enemy and make it so that they can't move.
You can do special attacks and sync attacks with these legions. Honestly it's very overwhelming at first you kind of are overwhelmed with all the things. You can do with these legions and having to control the Legion with your character in the same time when playing in game.
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Can be a bit confusing at once in a while. But once you get used to it, it feels very fluid it feels very seamless. I really like the sync attacks as well that you can do it within the legions. Basically your character will sort of light up a little bit and that's when you can do a sync attack and really do some major damage.
I like upgrading the various legions as well. Because each of them like I said have an individual skill tree. You can do things like add more attach. You can add different strengths and different things like increase defense for these leaves as well. So that's a really cool aspect of the game.
Because I like individualizing each of the legions. You can also customize the way the legions look if you choose to do. So I never got around really doing that. But I did think it was interesting that you could do that. But like I said a tional chain isn't just an action game.
There's lots of different elements that are incorporated into this game. But you don't really necessarily see all that often in a Platinum Games. Games I've done things where it's like rescue missions, where you have to assist people from an underground area and get them above ground.
I've done things where there's stealth missions, where you have to trail different people and one thing that's really cool is just the variety of missions in the game.
There are two different types of missions. There are red missions and blue missions. Red missions are your main story missions. Blue missions are your sort of side missions.
When you get into more open areas within the game, you can access more blue missions blue missions will basically just give you different items and things like that. The variety of the blue missions is really fun in my opinion.
Because they're just so varied. Sometimes you're doing something as simple as going to buy an ice cream cone for a child who dropped an ice cream or you're doing things like tracking down a terrorist in a stealth like setting and then getting to their gang area and then having to fight the whole gang you never quite know what to expect with the blue missions.
I really sort of appreciate just the great variety of blue missions. Of course your red missions are more standard missions you have to. Basically go and do things that progress a story and progress the world around you as well.
After certain battles and completing files, which are essentially the level segments of the game. You are then given a ranking. It tells you how many of the red missions.
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You accomplished how many of the blue missions you accomplished and gives you an overall ranking for your accomplishment spending.
You're playing on the right difficulty that's. One thing I found a little bit confusing the game offers you three different difficulties. There's like a super easy mode that does all the combat for you.
There's a casual mode that I thought was gonna be like normal mode and then there's the PT standard mode.
I actually play it on casual mode for a little bit and then
I realized it was a bit too easy. So I moved up to the PT standard mode which
basically just makes the enemies a bit more difficult.
You have less lives, you only have three lives to start out with. When doing a file and things like that.
But I definitely recommend if you are a fan of platinum games and you've played previous platinum games that you definitely play on the PT standard difficulty.
Because I feel it gives you a better challenge. Another thing that's really cool about the game is the sheer variety of areas that you go into as well.
You have like big areas that are like big downtown cities and there's lots of things to do in there's different items to purchase.
There's different blue missions to accomplish as well. You go to Senor little areas and seedy cities. It's not really an open world style game. But there are some open world elements.
You also go in between these gates and these gates will bring you into the astral plane region. The astral plane areas are basically these red areas that you go into. There's lots of chimera that you have to battle in there. There's some really fun boss battles.
But there's also a lot of puzzle elements in these areas as well. You have to see where to figure out things hit different switches in order to progress and get deeper into these astral planes.
One thing that I think the astral plane area sort of shows that may be a bit of a problem with the game is the platforming in the game.
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The way the platforming in the game works is, you basically send out one of your legions and then you can warp to the area that they are in as long as you are within the same range as them which on paper sounds like it would work fine. But what ends up happening is some of these platforming segments get very frantic.
There's disappearing platforms, there's moving platforms and things like that. I felt like at times my character would miss the platform and then of course when you fall down you lose health. It's not just a little health. You actually lose a substantial bit of health. I just feel like the platforming should have been a little bit tighter in my opinion.
It's nothing that really breaks the game. But it's
definitely something that I felt stood out a bit when it came to any sort of
negative aspects about this game.
One of the things, I really loved about Astral Chain so far is the boss battles though.
You get so many different types of bosses that have different strengths and weaknesses and figuring out these different strengths and weaknesses is actually a lot of fun.
There's lots of creative bosses that have different styles of attacks. Some could be a little bit easier than others. Depending on your playstyle or which Legion you're using.
One thing that I really like with the presentation of the game is whenever the action starts to ramp up the music starts to ramp up as well.
It might be sort of a light techno and then all of a sudden you have these gentle guitar kids kind of like it do 2016. Considering doom 2016 was one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.
I love how the music just picks up and you get these rockin guitars and then it'll go back to this quiet or techno stuff. It's really a unique mechanic that I love seeing in action games and it definitely is very prevalent in this game.
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Astral chain has a fantastic soundtrack and I'm actually going to be looking for downloading this soundtrack if it's available. Because I really enjoy the music in this game of course.
Besides the music, when you're talking about presentation, you have to talk about the graphics of the game.
We've already mentioned that the music is great. We've already mentioned that the voice acting in the game is great and I really like the graphical style of this game. Sure some environments may look a little bit drab compared to others.
But I really like the sheer amount of variety of the environments. I really like the character models in this game as well. It has sort of a cel-shaded anime style.
But I definitely think it works for this game and you get lots of cool explosions. There's lots of cool effects that go on as well like when your character catches on fire.
Some really nice lighting effects as well. I think the game as a whole looks very good. There is some little bit of framerate issues from time to time. I didn't really notice it as much in combat as I did.
When exploring some of the bigger cities. Sometimes it would frame drop a little bit and you notice a little bit of a chug. When there's kind of when there's congested areas. But it's really nothing that's too bad that really holds the game back or anything. But you may notice it from time to time
the game also looks fantastic in handheld mode as well.
I don't really think there's any sort of huge graphical
downgrade. If you're a fan of playing your games on the Nintendo switch in a
handheld mode, you're definitely gonna have a great time with this now.
Aside from the somewhat tricky platforming at times, I felt could have been a bit more streamlined.
My only real other gripe with the game is some of the missions definitely aren't quite as interesting as other missions. I alluded to a rescue mission earlier.
I just did not like doing that rescue mission, you find the character and then you slowly very slowly get them to the exit. But you're playing in an area that's very smoking due.
It can be hard to find the exit and sometimes I was just like wandering around with this limping character and I'm like I hate you no assist missions. I hate missions where you have to assist another character and rescue another character like let me, get back to the action you know.
It's more of just a personal preference. But I feel like some people may be you know a bit off when it comes to some of the missions.
Just depending on to their play style and what they're looking for in this game. But overall astral chain is the game that keeps on delivering every time.
I'm like okay, I'm gonna take a break something big happens something awesome happens in the story or something happens in the world and I'm like god.
I need to play this game some more. It's really a tried-and-true game when it comes to platinum games. But I definitely like the risks that they took some of them.
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I feel works better than others. But incorporating different gameplay styles having a really deep story with a lot of twists and turns is definitely making astral chain a fantastic game for 2019.
What's more is there's a lot of replay value in the game as well you actually don't have access to all of the missions on your first playthrough.
Because you don't have access to all the legions available. There's reason to go back and play throughout the game once. You've completed the game like I said.
I've been playing the game for about ten and a half hours and I feel like I'm about the halfway point of the game. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck with this game.
If you're a fan of previous Platinum Games. It's definitely
a game that you should have already picked up if you've liked other platinum
games.
I definitely suggest you check out astral chain though. Because I feel like there's enough differentiating elements in this game that really make it stand out from other platinum games.
If you like deep storytelling, if you like to have some variety in your gameplay, you don't want just action all the time, you're gonna have a really great time with astral chain.
It's absolutely been blowing me away and I've been having so much fun with the game and I can't wait to continue exploring this game. As always I will catch you guys on the next article later.
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