Astral Chain - review: considering that it was born from the ashes of the glorious Clover Studio, whose original role was to bring together some of the most irrepressible talents of the "old" Capcom, the fact that PlatinumGames to be seen today as one of the best hotbed of talent in the Japanese development world should not come as a surprise. It is a team that is often difficult to manage, where internal upheavals are not lacking and not all projects are necessarily successful, but whose cult of the beautiful game has influenced and evolved the entire action genre, forming many young people with the potential to become tomorrow what today are figures like Kamiya, Mikami and Inaba.
Among them, the most promising recruit is undoubtedly Takahisa Taura: a rather shy boy, gifted with the ability to always strongly give his own mark to the titles he works on; talent certainly not to be underestimated in an industry where most of the designers do nothing but retrace paths already traced by others in the past. Consecrated by Nier Automata (a game that, moreover, has boosted the team's not very flourishing finances when it was most needed) and closely followed by some of the greatest luminaries of Japanese gaming, the good Takahisa has therefore earned the right to face his final test: to cover the role of director of a new video game called Astral Chain. In short, wanting to forcibly paint PlatinumGames as a sort of videogame university, and the previous games on which Taura worked as her main exams, Astral Chain can easily pass through the degree thesis of this eclectic designer. Today, therefore, in the role of the "examination committee", we are ready to evaluate it ... and we assure you that there is no need to forget about praise.
A structure with no weak links
After completing Astral Chain, painting it as a sum of experiences seems to us the only possible move. This game is a yes after all action endowed with the usual extraordinary spectacularity that we have come to expect from Platinum titles, yet it is one of the most solid agglomerations of ideas ever sprouted from the house, capable of merging its main characteristics in a single and explosive experience where, despite the fight always acts as a protagonist, the remaining parts of the whole do not disfigure at all in direct comparison. In fact, it is not the case to be deceived by the fact that it is a first work by a young director, or with a less striking technical aspect compared to that of other blockbuster action in circulation: Astral Chain is not in any universe that can be considered as a "secondary project", and is indeed a painstakingly cared for work, capable of continually leaving anyone who decides to dive into his world speechless. Indeed, it could easily play a position in the "top 3" of the Japanese software house, and it is certainly not a statement that we make lightly.
Much of the credit is to be found in the perfect management of the pace of play, which keeps glued to the screen mercilessly despite a progression that is anything but fulminating (but not slow, it is clear). There narrative it accompanies the action in a great way, with very suitable "shonen manga" tones and a storyline that, while not devoid of ingenuity and banal moments, is tantalizing for the duration of the campaign, also by virtue of a rather well-studied science fiction background. More experienced users thus do not run the risk of feeling excessively limited during the first hours, as the calm general advancement of the mechanics is made adrenaline by the whirlwind of events in which one is catapulted from the first chapters. The fact that the complex combat system around which everything revolves is fed to the player in small spoonfuls is therefore a brilliant move, and leads to gradually learning the pros and cons of each Legion, how to adapt to the enemy offensive, and how to develop your character to be ready for any situation. In other words ... Astral Chain is designed to prevent any type of user from feeling bored, be it a neophyte of the action (for which there is also the possibility to face everything in an easy way) or a veteran of the blows virtual.
Standing on a legion
Since we have pulled out the Legions above, it is time to get into the details of the combat system, because when you decide to dive into battles, Astral Chain provides such an ocean of systems and brilliant ideas that you risk drowning a player unwilling to waste time. Everything revolves around these Legion, in fact: "trained" versions of multidimensional creatures known by the name of Chimera, and the only means for humanity to survive their attacks (which in the game have already forced the population to flee the earth by taking refuge on a huge space island called "Ark"). You will start with just one of these summons, however as you progress through the chapters you will get five, each with specific development branches and abilities that can be equipped at will. These powers aren't the only useful element of your floating companions, however, because the Legions can be mercilessly thrown at the various enemies of the game, actively used to perform special actions, manually moved at will on the battlefield, and exploited to block. or repel opponents thanks to an energy chain that binds them to (or to, since you can choose their sex at the beginning of the game and customize their appearance) protagonist.
Your alter ego is in fact equipped with quite basic combinations and a transformable baton that can turn into a gun or a kind of broadsword, but you should not expect particularly striking kung fu moves or complex combinations in solitude from him. The advanced mechanics are all directly related to summons and their use, and you will be able to put in place truly devastating series only after unlocking some specific combos (activated by pressing the same key used to recall the Legions during certain maneuvers), or abilities with strong synergy between them. To give you a clearer example: Some Legions are particularly suitable for stunning the enemy due to their speed, while others are perfect if used in a devastating offensive; just block someone with the chain (you just have to spin the Legion around the target) and stun the remaining dangers with the proper technique, then go directly to the next Legion, power up, and start a brutal burst attack capable of disintegrate almost any chimera. This is just a basic example, moreover, because the game offers plenty of choice when it comes to strategies: you may in fact also want to stay in the rear and shoot while sending heavy particularly resistant Legions forward; lure flying enemies to slaughter them while standing still; or even cover yourself with shields with the Ax Legion, free it from enemies, and attack with the Arch Legion from a distance well protected, while it unloads blows on anyone who stands in front of it.
Gameplay like a Swiss Army knife
Think of it this way: if V of Devil May Cry 5 could be considered a valuable but only partially successful attempt by Capcom to create a modern - and valid - version of the gameplay of Chaos Legion (an old classic based on the concept of the summonable monsters), Astral Chain is what is born when a team like Platinum starts from that idea to structure an entire combat system: a real pleasure for any aficionado of heart-pounding action. Then there is another gem to fully improve the experience, or the "puzzle element" of almost any advanced battle. There diversification of enemies it's still impressive here, and some of them have abilities that can nullify your attacks, stun you, or generally make things a lot more complicated than they should be. The careful use of Legions during similar situations allows you to bypass these obstacles, since each of them has, as already mentioned, the ability to perform special actions: the Legion Beast unearths enemies that dig, the Ax one is able to explode the barriers energy and parry large bullets, the Sword to cut the connections between offensive chimeras and those capable of enhancing them, and so on. If that were not enough, all these actions are translated with great naturalness within the exploration and investigation phases, giving shape to that balance between the parts that we enjoyed at the beginning of the article.
The various chapters of Astral Chain, in fact, are not a simple succession of battles, but offer slower and more reasoned interludes, where the player has the opportunity to help the population of the Ark in various ways (he still plays a police officer) , or he has to walk the psychedelic maps of the Chimera dimension. The secondary missions of this type are many, and even if some are nothing more than additional fights or minor fetch quests, the variety of tasks remains remarkable thanks to the diversification of the talents of the Legions necessary to solve the environmental puzzles present. A praise therefore to the originality of the Platinum Games, which have been able to make even missions that require the delivery of a large ice cream to a child challenging and hilarious.
As for the alternative dimension, on the other hand, even with a scarce artistic variety of settings, you will find often surprisingly complex maps waiting for you, so much so that you will gladly waste a few hours looking for all the chests hidden among the red crystals that fill them, or looking for the right one. combination of powers to advance. This breakdown of the phases of the Astral Chain campaign brings the longevity to far exceed that of other pure action, so much so that it will take you about twenty hours of gameplay to complete the main story.
Care in technical implementation and lethality
However, we are facing a Platinum title, and as such its longevity is certainly not limited to just completing the campaign. Also in Astral Chain the replayability it is an integral part of the product - each battle and secondary red quest assigns you a score - and indeed, precisely because of the Legion, it is particularly recommended to retrace the already completed chapters again, since from the very beginning you will find optional blocked areas that can only be explored with certain evocations obtainable only later (so you won't be able to get the highest scores without having them all available). Fortunately, you can replay the previous chapters thanks to a convenient terminal in your office. Also for the completists, Astral Chain contains a system of achievement interior complete with prizes in the form of objects and customizations, and a system of modifiable costumes and colors that demonstrates a considerable commitment by the team in the development of every single aspect of their creature (there is even a terminal where it is possible to clean the own Legion by crystals of the alternating dimension, as if to imitate the "brushing" phases of recent Pokémon).
Everything flawless then? Not really; on the other hand, perfection is not a thing of this world, and even Taura and his people, however skilled, make mistakes. In the case of Astral Chain, part of the problems depend on the frame rate (which unfortunately does not exceed 30 fps, with rare drops in the most excited situations) and some other cracks in the gameplay, clearly not enough to ruin it but still capable of preventing it from overcoming other classics of the genre in this aspect such as the aforementioned Devil May Cry 5, or Bayonetta himself. To adapt to the frame rate, in fact, the dodge of the game boasts a window of invulnerability that cannot be underestimated, but at the same time a recovery period after the movement longer than usual, which prevents using this burst defensive maneuver. There is obviously no shortage of alternative protective options - a timed summoning of a Legion equates to a perfect parry with counterattack, and the Legion Ax materializes defensive shields - yet the dryness of the maneuver can catch off guard, and sometimes the combination of powers. enemies makes it really difficult to get out of certain series of combined attacks unscathed (also for this reason, the final score seems to be affected very little by the damage received). It is not a choice that everyone will like, but it is at least sensible to respect the rhythm of the fights; less well instead camera e targeting, with the first having the usual flaws of many actions (sometimes it is too close, and with the considerable number of enemies on the screen or the need to follow your Legion it can become confusing), and the second that does not always aim at the enemy closer, creating some difficulties with specific adversaries capable of making the other chimeras invulnerable (which for obvious reasons should be eliminated as soon as possible).
Impossible to penalize such an atypical and successful combat system for such things that much, however. Astral Chain may not reach the almost beat-em-up technicalities of the latest Devil May Cry as Nero and Dante, or the perfect marriage of fluidity and complexity of the two Bayonettas, but its formula so far from tradition - and the incredible flexibility of the itself once you have learned to properly combine the Legions - it undoubtedly places it among the best actions in circulation, with the addition of a seriously more sophisticated and enjoyable "outline" than the games mentioned above (and the vast majority of Japanese actions in circulation). Just think, as icing on the cake there is also one local cooperative rather hilarious, which allows another player to use your Legions. If you add to all this good things then one colonna sonora respectable - with sudden gender changes and some masterful accompaniments in the most impressive scenes - the final result is without a doubt one of the most successful titles for Nintendo Switch.
Comment
Resources4Gaming.com9.2
Readers (127)8.4
Your voteWe have amply specified it in the review, but Astral Chain could have been a terrifying baptism of fire for Taura, which the good Takahisa managed to overcome by putting in place everything he has learned during his career, and giving birth to a unique and variegated, capable of reworking the fundamentals of PlatinumGames works in a new structure that is excellent in almost every aspect. Don't be fooled by the slightly dull color palette and the non-stratospheric art direction: this title is one of the most bombastic, fun and memorable creatures to come out of the Osaka team, and if you own a Switch you really should make it yours at the most. soon.
PRO
- Original and brilliant combat system
- Spectacularity typical of PlatinumGames games
- Incredibly varied gameplay even in the secondary missions and exploration phases
- Longevity exceeding expectations, and remarkable replayability
- 30 fps, and some camera and targeting tricks
- Rather dull art direction
