Breaking the chain

When it comes to the genre of Character Action, Platinum Games is one of the best in the business with titles like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier:Automata under their banner.

So, when they announced a brand new IP in the form of Astral Chain, my excitement was palpable. However, before the official launch of the game, I began hearing some troubling reports, one in particular that had me worried- that the game would be locked at 30FPS.

Naturally, I understood the limitations of the Switch as hardware but traditionally, this was rarely the case and I was concerned that this would be a case where the hardware holds back an otherwise great experience.

After completing the game and seeing all it has to offer, I can’t say that my fears weren’t entirely unfounded but rather that despite the limitations, Astral Chain is one hell of a good time.

Way to be a downer, dude.

MSRP: $59.99
Platform: Switch
Voice Acting: JPN/ENG
Length: 25~ hours

The curtain opens to a world in peril as after a devastating meteor strike, gates begin opening up around the world corrupting the land and its inhabitants with mysterious red matter. Retreating to a safe zone aptly named “The Ark”, the remnants of humanity enjoy a small respite until the gates begin appearing within its walls. In order to combat the threat of the invisible Chimera, Neuron is formed and a new weapon is unleashed in the form of the Legion, chained Chimera which can be controlled by its operator. However, such power comes with its own share of risks and things don’t go quite according to plan as a bitter war begins for the future of mankind.

Despite the grim setup for the story, there is a surprising amount of levity in the world and the various characters portray plenty of quirky personalities. Just exploring Neuron HQ to see what the other officers were up to was enjoyable in itself and each encounter with Neuron’s mascot, “Lappy” was a highlight every time. Even though the story arc as a whole had little in the way of surprises as it all went down more or less as I expected, the various set-piece during the important moments of the plot made it entertaining to watch all the same.

In fact, much of the bombastic cinematics were enhanced by stellar direction that really had me engrossed in the action and the game’s cel-shaded presentation serves as yet another point to the idea that art style trumps polygon count any day of the week. The high energy synth soundtrack also helped to bring the neon colored world to life and really sold the vibe of the atmosphere.

Cops that follow traffic laws? Now that’s unrealistic.

As for the true meat of the game, the combat is typical Platinum Games Grade, which is to say that it’s excellent.

Before I get into the actual mechanics of the combat itself, let me address the elephant in the Astral Room. The 30FPS lock is very apparent and does affect how the game plays. If Astral Chain wasn’t such a hectic, action-packed game, perhaps it would not have mattered but given that this is a Character Action game, I found that dodging enemy attacks was tougher and acting with precision took a bit more guesswork than just timing in some instances as I simply had less time to react. There is no doubt in my mind that if this was on another, more powerful platform it could benefit greatly but thanks to the strong core mechanics of the game, it still ends up playing great.

I also was a bit concerned at the prospect of controlling multiple characters at once as in Fighting Games, I never liked the archetype of “Puppet Master”. Thankfully, the way the concept is implemented here felt easy to grasp while leaving some room for depth. By holding down the LR button, I could move my Legion around using the right analog stick and by simply tapping the same button, send it out towards my locked-on enemy or back to my position. LB would activate a special function like the ability to wear the Arm Legion like a suit of armor or ride on the back of the Beast Legion like a mount. The RT buttons controlled my own attacks and pacing them out resulted in different moves as did using it in tandem with the analog stick.

In the beginning, I was having trouble controlling even one Legion but as I continued to hone my skills, I found myself seamlessly switching between the five different Legions as the situation called for and getting S+ rating in every combat mission.

Given it’s a combat system unlike any other, it might take some more time to get adjusted to but I for one am very happy that I stuck with it as it became the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

Using the right Legion at the right time makes all the difference.

Outside of combat, I was tasked with helping my fellow officers with their tasks as well as assisting the citizens in need. This ranged from a wide variety of tasks like finding a lost child to investigating acts of vandalism. During investigations, I could use the IRIS function to scan my surroundings for clues which reminded me of detective vision from the Arkham series of games.

As I began knocking out these side missions, I found myself traveling back to the Astral Plane time and time again and even though the otherworldly appearance looked striking at first, the more time I spent there, the more I began to dislike it.

The saturated red and black that paint every surface made me feel like I was looking into a Virtual Boy and the various puzzles involving platforming felt more like a hassle than a challenge. Even so, I wanted to do every side mission since I wanted to get a good rating at the end of each chapter so I could get resources to upgrade my equipment and Legions to make them even more effective in combat.

To pace out the investigation and combat segments were some mandatory stealth and chase sequences and as one would expect, they were obnoxious and felt like unnecessary padding.
Luckily they weren’t too frequent but as I’ve said previously, if I never slowly stalk some NPC to a destination again for the rest of my gaming career, I would be perfectly happy.

This is the police! Drop the knife! What do you mean the knife is your hand!?

Despite the hardware limitations and a handful of odd design choices, Astral Chain is one of the best new IPs to hit in recent years and one deserving the attention of every Switch owner.

Fun Tidbit – Axe Legion is straight broken and if you want the game to be easy, you should power it up the moment you gain access to it.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Great soundtrack
  • Fun and interesting combat engine
  • Spectacular set-piece moments
  • Impressive visuals and quirky personality
Bad
  • 30 FPS Locked Platinum Game?!
  • Mandatory stealth segments
  • Astral Plane visuals and level design
8.5
Great
Written by
Jae has been a gamer ever since he got a Nintendo when he was just a child. He has a passion for games and enjoys writing. While he worries about the direction gaming as a medium might be headed, he's too busy playing games to do anything about it.