Once again, shoutout to my friend who lent me this and other games. BACKGROUND:
This game caught my eye a couple of years back when it was announced, largely because it was a new IP by PlatinumGames. I did want to get it to fill the void of no Bayonetta 3 for the past five or so years, but I just never got around to it given it's still at full price. Lucky for me, my friend got the game and lent it to me after they were done. PLOT: Astral Chain is set in a far future on the Ark, a megacity on an artificial island. The last of humanity live here because the entire world is ravaged by interdimensional attackers called Chimeras, who travel between dimensions through gates and abduct people to drag them into the Astral Plane. The Chimeras also spread red matter wherever they go, which cause living things to "redshift" and transform into grotesque creatures. In response to the escalating threats of these Chimeras, the UNION (the Ark's government) established Neuron, a special division of the police force dedicated to dealing with these interdimensional threats. The most elite Neuron officers command Legions to fight alongside them, which are actually Chimeras who have been restrained with the eponymous Astral Chain in order to render them subservient. At the start, you choose either a male or female player character. Whoever you don't pick becomes your avatar's fraternal twin Akira Howard in the story. The twins are new recruits to the police force, and when they are dispatched to deal with a crisis, they are cornered by a couple of Chimeras. The two are rescued by Neuron officers Max Howard (their foster father), Jin Wong, and Alicia Lopez with the help of their respective Legions. The twins are issued Legions of their own by Neuron Commander Dr. Yoseph Calvert, and after defeating the Chimeras, they officially become part of Neuron. The story really kicks off on the first mission of the Howard twins, as shit hits the fan completely and Neuron team end up in the Astral Plane. Without giving too much away, the circumstances lead to all manner of disaster for Neuron, and long story short, their hopes now rest in the hands of your character. During this, a terrorist named Jena Anderson wreaks havoc on the Ark by unleashing Chimeras as well as Homunculi as part of her seemingly unhinged plan to save the world from the impending extinction the Chimeras will bring. The rest of the game juggles the conflict against her along with other plot lines (of which there are many). Overall, the story is straightforward, and while I found parts of it predictable, it still had a few surprises that I appreciated. What I enjoyed in particular is all the world-building; stuff like the involvement of the Aegis Research Institute in key parts of the plot, the mystery of the Pandemic in one of the quarantined Zones of the Ark, and even the backstory of the Howard twins were all elements I was intrigued by. Admittedly, the story doesn't explore these threads as much as I would have liked, and I personally would have preferred if the fallout of the Pandemic was a bigger focus of the main plot than the otherwise standard "you're the only one who can save the world" shtick that we get. I also liked the mini stories you get on the game's many side quests, as it really helps make the Ark feel like it's populated with people going about their lives despite the looming threat as opposed to simply NPCs filling space. I'll talk more about this in the gameplay section. There's a pretty solid cast of characters in this game. Akira is the obvious standout, as they are heavily featured in the main plot and get plenty to do. The other main Neuron officers (Jin, Max, Alicia) get strong characterizations (especially Max, who is your character's dad), though they are largely forgotten past the early stretches of the story. There are also other characters like the charming Neuron dispatcher Olive, the serious medical officer Brenda, the silly manager Marie (who is the star of the most hilarious part of the game), and the helpful hacker Hal, all of whom have distinct personalities and get a few character moments. The villains overall have a pretty standard motivation: it's mostly "I have a twisted view on how to save the world, and I don't care what lines I have to cross to do it" with a slight spin from character to character. I wish some time was spent fleshing out the specifics of why they are adamant about pursuing their goals, because I feel like the broad strokes of their reasoning just sound like terrible excuses to cause death and destruction. I think it would have been cool if, somewhere in the madness, there was some sense with what they were planning. The most baffling character choice to me is the player character themselves. Whoever you pick ends up as a silent protagonist, and this strikes me as absolutely bizarre given that whoever you don't pick is not only fully voiced, they also get to do a lot and have big character moments throughout the story. It makes no sense to me that your chosen character gets close to no spoken lines (despite there clearly being a voice actor for them if you had picked the other way around) and zero personality (despite having a literal family member to play off of and have emotional moments with). So many of the moments with Akira would have resonated more with me if my character actually said or done anything more than brief grunts and occasional gestures. PRESENTATION: Astral Chain has a cyberpunk aesthetic with a 3D art style that reminds me of Fire Emblem Three Houses (in that there's a slight cel-shaded look to the character models). The textures and such look a little weird if you stare at them long enough, and there's odd stuff like inconsistent lip syncing, but otherwise, I think the game looks pretty decent. The Legion designs look pretty cool (and they match well with the armored look of the Neuron officers), and the Chimera designs vary between freaky and badass (though some designs bleed together by the end). In terms of locales, the Ark has a lot of interesting and varied locations (busy commercial district, drab apartment complexes, seedy neighborhoods), and the look of the Astral Plane looks proper otherworldly (I did get sick of looking at it after a while, though). Your player character has some decent customization options available, and you have a few options for clothing articles that you'll unlock as you play. The voice acting is solid (though it still weirds me out that the character you choose doesn't get to talk much despite being fully voiced if you pick differently), and the music is quite varied in terms of genre (it's a mix of chill techno, dramatic orchestral music, and rock/heavy metal for action sequences). The standout tracks for me are the anime-style theme songs (the game's opening sequence straight up looks and sounds like an anime). GAMEPLAY: Like many PlatinumGames titles, Astral Chain is primarily a hack-and-slash action game where you beat the shit out of hordes of enemies with stylish combos. What sets this game apart is the fact that your character fights alongside a Legion, and the combat is built almost entirely around that fact. Your character wields an X-Baton in combat, which is a versatile weapon that can morph between the quick melee baton, a pistol good for ranged combat, and the hard-hitting but slow Gladius (which I liken to a heavy sword). Apart from a few neat command moves like a charged attack or a delayed strike, you're not going to get much in the way of insane combos like you would in Bayonetta. While I wish there could have been more depth in this respect, the Legions make up for it in my view. During combat, you can summon your Legion and send them towards targeted foes, which they'll attack automatically. Legions have a limiter meter that you have to manage by making sure they don't take too much damage or aren't out for too long, meaning you can't rely on them to do the work for you all the time. Calling them back recharges the meter, but if their meter hits zero, you'll be left to fend for yourself until it fills back up. I found this meter management business quite engaging. As you play, you'll unlock five different Legion types that you can swap between at will: the standard Sword Legion, the Arrow Legion (good for ranged combat), the slow but strong Arm Legion (which can throw objects in the environment), the Beast Legion (which looks like a robot dog), and the defensive Axe Legion. They all have their own strengths in regular combat, but what really sets each of them apart are their respective Legion actions, which are actions the Legion and the player perform in unison. These Legion actions have uses both in combat and outside of it. For example, the Arrow Legion's action is the ability to use the bow both as a powerful ranged weapon as well as to activate faraway switches. I always enjoy when combat abilities can be used outside of combat, and the Legion actions are utilized frequently to navigate around hazards and to solve simple puzzles in many sections of the game. However, it's important to note that these special actions consume a lot of the limiter meter, so it's ill-advised to spam them in combat. While you can let your Legion do its own thing, you're actually able to move it around manually, and that is where most of the fun came about for me. Being able to position them to deal with specific enemies or to divide and conquer adds a neat layer of strategy, and there are numerous opportunities that this mechanic is used to interesting effect (e.g. having the Legion defend you as the player is busy interacting with something else, or the other way around). The ability to move the Legion around yourself also has a bunch of awesome mechanics tied to it. First is the Chain Jump, which allows your character to leap directly to wherever your Legion is currently standing. Not only is this an amazing repositioning tool (allowing you to avoid danger or maintain offensive pressure on a single target), it's also used a lot as a platforming tool outside of combat. It's a lot of fun to zip around with it and keep enemies guessing. The very Astral Chain that binds the Legion to you is more than just a way to limit your Legion's range: it actually has some incredibly neat combat applications. First, you can move your character and your Legion around to wrap an enemy in the chain to perform a Chain Bind, rendering them briefly immobile and vulnerable to a full assault. You can do this on multiple enemies as well provided you can get them to stand around close enough. Next, you can perform a Chain Counter by using the chain as a clothesline to stop charging enemies, which will launch and stun them briefly. Lastly, you can weave the chain around one or multiple enemies and perform a Chain Jump, and this will let you kick any enemies on the way to the Legion for a bit of extra damage. I absolutely adored how the chain is utilized in combat. I wasn't expecting it to be used in any way, but it ends up being such a valuable tool to give yourself openings and deal with things like massive crowds or charging attacks. Between these and the Chain Jump, I was highly encouraged to always keep my Legion's position in mind, and I found juggling that while also fighting to be a fun challenge. Depending on certain conditions (including but not limited to: finishing combos, performing certain command moves, perfectly timing certain actions, Chain Binds), you'll see your Legion briefly flash. If you press a specific button during this, you'll be able to perform a Sync Attack and do serious damage (or perform some other worthwhile attack like a launcher that sends opponents flying). It's pretty satisfying to pull these off (especially the ones tied to counters), and there's also a wide variety of them depending on the action and depending on the currently active Legion. Some of the characters make a big deal about your character and the Legions being in perfect harmony, and you actually feel that in a sense when you execute these Sync Attacks. As you defeat enemies, you'll earn Gene Codes, which you spend in the Legion Learning menu. This is essentially just a skill tree for each Legion, and it's where you unlock stat boosts/passive buffs, additional actions, Ability slots (more on that later), and Legion skills. Legion skills are what I'd say are the game's equivalent to spells. You can equip two at a time, and they can range from buffs (like additional damage or speed) and a small assortment of unique attacks (AoE moves that can clear a crowd, or even powerful attacks that make use of the Astral Chain being positioned on an enemy). I didn't rely on these skills as much, but they're great in a pinch. There are also Command skills which are separate from these; they work like your fighting game special moves where you perform a specific input, and your Legion performs a special move when you do so. I wish there were more of these because I found it fun to have fighting game command inputs in a game like this, but alas, there are only a few of them. Once you start unlocking them in each Legion's skill tree, you can equip Abilities that you pick up or receive as you play through the game. These are pretty much just passive buffs that apply when the Legion is out, like healing after taking damage, increased stats like movement speed or critical hit rate, or even more novel ones like Self-Destruct (a shockwave is unleashed when your Legion limiter hits zero). Some abilities are certainly more impactful than others, but your success in combat doesn't necessarily live and die by having the best ones equipped (as far as I can tell). Also, I'm not sure how much of these Abilities are random drops or if some of what you acquire are fixed, so it's a crapshoot to rely on them anyhow. In addition to all that, you can use items to aid you in combat. You have your standard recovery items (healing, energy refill), various grenades (that I have trouble aiming), energy barriers that briefly block attacks, and even support drones that attack for you. I didn't really feel the need to use the more combat-oriented items and stuck mostly to the healing whenever I was in danger. There are a decent variety of enemies both in terms of design and mechanics. Some can be dispatched in any number of ways, while others will have you use specific Legion abilities to weaken them (a tricky challenge when you're being swarmed by enemies). Fighting waves of enemies doesn't feel like completely mindless button mashing since you have to manage your Legion's meter, though there are some enemy types that you can get away with pretty much anything with. The boss encounters are plenty challenging and feel mostly distinct from one another, and it feels extra good to hit Sync Attacks on them or Chain Bind them for big damage. The game is structured like a bunch of other Platinum titles I've played. You have eleven main story chapters (excluding the post-game "chapter"), and each chapter is split into "cases" that are essentially your main story missions/battle encounters (this is not unlike the "verses" in Bayonetta). You can replay any of these chapters simply by accessing a menu, so there's no worry about missing anything. The game also has a bunch of different difficulty options: Unchained (for people who don't really care about the combat and just want the story), Casual (has combat, but is more forgiving), Pt Standard (the one I played on, and is on par with the normal modes of other Platinum titles), and Pt Ultimate (unlocked for each chapter only after beating them normally and is obviously tougher). Both Pt Standard and Ultimate have the signature grade rankings present in other Platinum games, though from what I can tell, the grading in Pt Standard is more forgiving than something like Bayonetta (I don't think taking damage is penalized as heavily, for instance). While the combat is easily the core experience of the game, you get a lot more to do apart from that during the course of the campaign. The game's many levels are far from open world, but they hold a surprising number of hidden nooks and crannies with all sorts of secrets and optional quests that you can find. Plus, combat is far from the only thing that pushes the story forward; there are a few platforming sections that utilize Chain Jump, a good amount of puzzle-solving using your Legion's abilities, a couple of simple stealth sections, and you actually do a lot of detective work (because you are still technically a cop). Investigations are where the game's pace slows down, but I found them fun to tackle despite this. You'll do a lot of asking around NPCs, who will give you keywords that you'll go over later after you've acquired enough intel. You then get a bit of a pop quiz section where you try and piece together what happened and answer questions with the keywords you heard from NPCs. It's nothing on the level of Ace Attorney where you have to really think about the case at hand, but I like that it has you pay attention to what people are saying. Your Legions are also valuable in these investigations, as they have additional skills you can use to acquire information. For example, you can have the Sword Legion analyze camera footage, use the Beast Legion to track scents and find someone, and you can even use them to eavesdrop on conversations. Hell, you can even Chain Bind uncooperative suspects and guards in stealth sections, which I thought was awesome. Again, I love the versatility of the Legions, and I enjoy the fact that you're doing some actual police work in this game. In addition, you also use what's called the IRIS, which is a heads-up display that is basically the Detective Mode from the Arkham games. You'll be able to see through walls, identify interactable elements, view information on people walking around, and even see the health bars of enemies (they are not visible by default in combat). It's quite handy; in fact, it's almost too handy. It feels like cheating in some sections like in the stealth missions (where you can even see a guard's line of sight with it). There are a ton of side quests in the game, and many of them involve you helping normal citizens of the Ark with problems of various degrees of urgency. Most will simply have you use the tools you have at your disposal to, say, rescue trapped civilians, some end in battle encounters, while others are mini games (which can be hit or miss; I despise the ones where you have to balance something with motion controls). There's a decent variety of them, and they give out useful rewards (like upgrade materials for the X-Baton), plus the little stories of each side quest help make the Ark feel populated. It's also nice to play a cop who, you know, actually helps the citizens. I already mentioned this briefly, but yes, you can upgrade your X-Baton. You can do this in the Neuron Office, which serves as your hub area, and you spend both the upgrade materials you find by playing and the money you earn from completing chapters. You can also get money by selling the salvage materials you pick up from various places as you play; these salvage materials serve literally no other purpose and I found it odd that the game implies that they can be "recycled". You can also purchase extra consumables in the hub area as well as change your outfit, though unlocking most of the options (like palette swaps and clothing pieces) will require you to complete certain quests and fulfill Orders (which are the game's equivalent to achievements). The Orders are quite varied in terms of what constitute as achievements, and they can range from easy (just play through the game), kind of grindy (most "milestone" achievements), challenging (getting high ranks or beating chapters on Pt Ultimate difficulty), or tricky (finding the game's many collectibles, and there are a ton of collectibles in each chapter). The game has a photo mode, which works like most photo modes in any game, and has the added feature of giving you info if you take pictures of certain characters, objects, and locations. Great if you want some lore. VERDICT: Astral Chain feels like quite the fresh new IP, and not just because that's what it is. The main gimmick of simultaneously controlling your player character and the Legion leads to some of the most engaging hack-and-slash combat I've ever experienced, and I appreciate how these Legions see a lot of use outside of combat. Though I have my few issues with the story (especially with the silent protagonist weirdness), I liked the setting and the world-building they did, and I enjoyed the police aspect of the game where you get to play detective and help the people on the Ark aside from simply battling hordes of Chimeras. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this game, and let it not be said that new IPs can't succeed or bring something fresh to the table. Unfortunately, this game is a Switch exclusive, but if you ever get the chance, this is definitely a must-play for anyone with access to the console. If you're big into hack-and-slash action games, are intrigued by the cyberpunk setting of the story, or anything about the Legion mechanic sounds interesting to you, I think this is worth your time. - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|