Now that I am mostly finished with Astral Chain (40 hours spent, completed 80% of the missions, done a fair amount of postgame missions, 110/180ish orders) I wanted to give my opinions about it especially before the sub dies down. Prepare for a mininovel ahead.
For anyone concerned about spoilers, I will mark them accordingly as well.
Let me just say before hand that I really like this game! But nothing is perfect and can always improve.
And also I want to add that I was fucking hyped for this game when it was announced out of the blue. Platinum Games developed it, Masakazu Katsura (I’m probably one of five people familiar with his work prior to AC lol) doing the character designs with a cyberpunk setting? Just fuck my shit up man. Bloody shame I ended up having to pass at Daemon x Machina in return though...
But first lets talk about the positives
The aesthetic, the game is choke full of cyberpunk visual aesthetic and completely nails it. Despite being a Switch game it looks fantastic thanks to strong art direction and setting. From the overcrowded cities that take cues from NYC Times Square to the dilapidated buildings of Zone 9 with a seedy underbelly to the artifical Astral Plane that seems to always remind me of cleaner redder version of the Twilight Realm from LOZ: Twilight Princess to the unnaturally clean all white minimalism. Its gorgeous to look at and fits well for the look that they went for.
Combat is of course the highlight. Despite having only one primary attack button they manage to keep the combat deep and fresh enough throughout the journey by introducing new legions every now and then and different abilities and movesets. Having two primary attackers you control at once is interesting and there’s lots of stylish moves you can go with like using the arm legion to temporarily become a Jojo stand with its punching moveset. Its not perfect, but it works well most of the time.
Most of the files barring File 8 were very enjoyable but what stood out to me was 6, 9 and 10. 6 feels like an actual journey with how many sequences there are and you get a ton of space to explore. Kyle is a fun character to meet and his fight is delightful. Shit goes to hell later with tension handled very well when you escape the chaos at the end into a building only to have complete silence as you discover Douglas before ramping shit back up for the final boss fight. Akiras grand reentry being icing on the cake. File 9 is a nonstop thrilling ride. File 10 has my favorite boss fight in the game and gave me a rush with it also making me realize that there’s a not so subtle reference to the Switchs default joycon colors.
Music in this game is a great showing as usual from Platinum. While it doesn’t hit the highs of MGR/Okami/Nier for me, its no slouch. In particular I liked the Ark Mall, Jena themes, Aegis Research Institute -Combat Phase-, The Answer and of course, Dark Hero. The only track I’m not fond of is the opening, it just doesn’t jive with me and the copious amounts of autotune done to the male singers voice doesn’t help either. Considering this is Satoshi Igarashis debut as a main composer rather than doing sidework, I think he did a great job.
Contrary to what some people seem to dislike, I actually enjoyed the investigation segments. I dunno, just walking around and being able to take in the setting and talk to NPCs is chill and neat for me.
Its a more minor thing, but I like the emphasis on Legions being feral monsters that can go out of control. Some people may make comparisons to Pokemon, but its a nice breath of fresh air from the usual companion/monster collecting genre that what you have is essentially a wild animal.
The plot and characters are the biggest whatever, with the only ones I particularly liked being Olive, Hal, and Kyle (and Carlos for meme value). Plot basically exists as a vehicle to make cool shit happen and thats fine by me. I’m of the opinion that gameplay matters first and foremost and I’m fine with prioritizing gameplay over story in service of former. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a good story but you know.
And now for the things I was iffy about or didn’t like.
Maybe its just me but I found the beast legion to be much better than the other legions, mostly during postgame where the game limits your options and increases the difficulty. Riding it during normal gameplay is of course really nice to have for getting around quicker. But Howl is a really good clutch skill for hard fights since it stuns everything and riding allows for dodging, getting out of the way from getting hit, and just opening up more space between you and the enemies. Abusing these things made it much easier for me to clear postgame missions especially when you’re getting dogpiled.
The fusion form is a neat mechanic but it is way too underutilized. It takes way too long to charge up and doesn’t last long enough to be worth it the majority of fights. After it was introduced I only used it against the final boss and some postgame missions that give you a full bar instantly. Also the music should override boss music, just saying. I get the feeling that the devs didn’t want it to overtake the main combat system or something.
Silent protagonist is a trope I’m really really starting to get tired of, it doesn’t help that I’m fresh off the heels of playing Three Houses, DQXIS demo, and this, all of which have silent protagonists. With Astral Chain it feels so awkward when there’s plenty of scenes where the protagonist should speak. Shoutouts in particular to the flashback at the end of File 8 which has Max talking to his kids but the exchange is entirely between him and Akira with you just standing there (and the protagonist has their default look to add to the awkwardness) and the end of File 10 where Akira nearly fucking dies and goes berserk but our protagonist doesn’t comment at all. But what adds to the weirdness is your twin is their own character and voice and in the epilogue your character has their own monologue where they actually speak making the whole thing feel pointless. At this point silent protagonists feel like an exceptionally lazy way out of writing a character and to avoid alienating the audience so they can self insert. Its a shame because while I can still enjoy a game plenty with these protagonists, what helps elevates certain games into my all time favorites is having well written leads to follow.
Somewhat of an even further tangent but Platinum pulled off a silent protagonist trope better than most earlier in their career, as Clover Studios. Amaterasu from Okami was also silent but what made her way more tolerable to be silent was A) She’s a wolf and thus it feels a lot less weird for her to not speak B) She has a direct mouthpiece in the form of Issun to speak for her and C) She emotes in other ways a ton, so its more like a mute protagonist if anything else. While the two teams involved with the projects are bound to be very different its still kind of ironic given how poorly they pulled off the same trope but worse many years later.
But that’s enough of a rant about silent protagonists, moving on...
Stealth fucking sucks. Its out of place in an action game like this and feels so unnecessary when your power levels are practically godlike compared to the normal policemen you’re evading. Toss it out, it feels awful to play with compared to actual combat.
File 8 sucks, yeah everyones complained at this point about it. But what irritated me the most besides the dumb minigames was the timed second on the rooftops. The janky platforming at times is usually fine, but here it feels intolerable since you’re on a timer and it feels so finicky compared to the rest. Definitely one of the only times the platforming actually bothered me, the other being the first section of the final boss.
I was really disappointed in how few motorcycle segments were in. For something that is literally the first bit of gameplay you actually experience I expected there to be a small handful of them. But after the tutorial one you get exactly one more motorcycle sequence in the game and that’s it. I would have gladly taken another motorcycle segment over the amount of stealth sections since it is just combat but tweaked.
Overall I rank it a 8/10. Comparing it to other Platinum Games I’m familiar with: Okami/Nier > MGR > Astral Chain > W101. Considering I rank Okami/Nier up there in my top 5 favorite games of all time and MGR around top 10 its not a bad mark at the game at all, it just didn’t reach the highs the other games had going for it for me but was still a solid experience.
Can’t wait to buy the sequel Day 1 again (and this time dont skimp on a collectors edition for NA!
Submitted September 17, 2019 at 11:39PM by planetarial https://ift.tt/34Sj4H2
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