Astral Chain consists of varied genres, but is mostly an action game, which has great ideas and interesting, relaxed humour, that doesn´t spoil its serious plot. [Issue#298]
Astral Chain is set in a somewhat boring and repetitive demon world you have to return to a bit too often, but that’s the only tiny downside to this daring and triumphant new Platinum adventure. It has everything that makes action adventures fun and adds exceptional detective phases that offer a welcome diversion from the wild action.
Es un Juegazo, deleite visual. Una banda sonora atrapante. Que no te engañen los "ceros" que hayan aqui. Lo mejor es jugarlo y disfrutarlo de primera mano.
This game is arguably one of the best titles the Switch has to offer. Incredible graphics for the console, amazing combat as per Platinum standards, an okay story, memorable characters... From start to finish it's a thrill ride and an emotional rollercoaster. From replaying files to doing the frankly enormous post game, there's a lot of replay value as well. It's a shame nobody really talks about it for some reason...
Astral Chain is PlatinumGames newest adrenaline shot, that's clearly inspired by a lot of previous titles from the studio. It takes the best of out of all those games and delivers a kick-ass adventure that's a must play for the fans.
Astral Chain is one of PlatinumGames' finest acts this generation, cementing itself as yet another stellar exclusive for Nintendo Switch. It doesn't reach the heights of excellence achieved by Yoko Taro's NieR: Automata, but can more than hold its own thanks to an excellent setting, experimental combat and so, so much style it hurts.
It's tough not to consider Astral Chain something of a small disappointment, especially when you know Platinum Games' talent for beat 'em ups. We not only highly commend the fight mechanics in this latest title from Takahashi Taura, but also its universe — original and supported by a high-class artistic direction. However, the overall game is pulled down somewhat by a structure of missions that doesn't match the studio's desire to mix the beat 'em up and investigative genres, and further by large approximations and other technical problems — all of which have a significant impact on the enjoyment of the game.
The coolest animation on a game. Feels so weird that the game captivate me with its running animation. It's just an animation, come on.
The combat moves also feels so slick and awesome. Although most of it is just smashing button but the game provide a more in-depth kind of move-set and combo that you can learn and make the combat more engaging(?) I guess.
The exploration is decent, not really that great but good enough to make you attach with certain chapters. The game design is good so you won't get lost while exploring the area but you might miss out several side quests because some of them not live on the map.
That being said, I understand why some people said its getting pretty tedious as I feel the same way. As you progress in the game, exploring feels more like a chore rather than you explore out of your own curiosity. When in combat, the game always throw you to red places (never pay attention to the naming of that place) which feels that you always keep repeating the combat again and again even thou you are fighting a different monsters in every chapters.
The rest of it is fine but why every developers follow that kind of trend where the protagonist can't talk? Is it to make it feels like we are them so we can make our own reaction or response to certain situation in the game?
Finish the game and I don't think I will replay or even revisit every chapter to complete it.
This game does a lot exceptionally well, but sometimes it feels like it’s doing too much to the point where it seems to have an identity crisis. To start with the strengths: the graphics are fantastic, especially considering it’s on the Switch. The art design is really cool, and everything in the game has a truly unique feeling that it’s hard to compare anything else to it. The environments look good, the aesthetics look good, and while the enemies look good, they feel a little bit like random/generic. The music is fantastic and very creative use of a soundtrack. I would have never considered to use all of these styles of songs on one soundtrack, but they pulled it off perfectly. Everything from the smooth techno of the precinct, to the low tuned background guitar while exploring the city, to the hard rock during combat. The sound design is one of the things that stand out the most about this game. The overarching plot isn’t anything special, but the setting of the world is extremely cool. Playing as a supernatural police officer who uses astral ghosts as weapons that are not observable to most others - super awesome concept.
The gameplay is good and engaging while in combat. It starts slow, but as you unlock more summons and more abilities, it really makes it very involved. It’s pretty unique controlling both your character and your summon at once, especially in a twin stick control layout. It works well, despite it being a bit overwhelming sometimes. However, the detective part of the game is where I found it to be very weak. It’s nice because it gracefully adds context to what is happening, but it completely ruins the pacing. 15 minutes of action hack and slash immediately followed up by 30 minutes of walking around and talking to witnesses, trying to find the one clue that is tucked away in the one spot you didn’t look. This is the identity crisis I was referring to. As much as I enjoyed it, I had a hard time really getting focused on the game because it would fluctuate between two vastly different play styles. That and it constantly tried to sneak in RPG elements, but they were so minor that I often forgot about them. For example after an hour long mission of rotating between detective gameplay, platforming gameplay, and combat gameplay, it takes you back to the precinct where you can level up - I completely forgot to do this between most missions because it felt like something that was an afterthought, rather than a core feature of the game. This is what kept me from scoring the game higher. Overall, it’s an extremely unique game that brings a lot of good features, but it suffers from a major identity crisis that makes it difficult to really fully engage with.
Spoiler-free.
Most overrated game on Metacritic, probably.
- Story gets only told via text documents and still many things won't get explained.
- Silent protagonist ist super pointless in this scenario.
- Camera movement is borderline broken.
- Fight-System is okay and sometimes fun.
- Graphics are very good for a Switch game.
SummaryAs part of a police special task force, it’s up to you to fight against mysterious, alien-like creatures who have invaded the world. In the Ark, a multi-cultural city in the near future, disaster strikes when gates to another dimension suddenly appear! Dangerous creatures begin to emerge, attacking the people and polluting the land, and...