By You know, I had no intention of writing an Astral Chain review. But Astral Chain called to me like the call for duty. So being a sucker for a good cop show, it was only right that I gave this a shot. The thrill of mystery, the flashy combat, doling out justice… and picking up litter? That might seem out of place, but Astral Chain excels at how well it weaves the mundane and the extraordinary. One moment you’ll be working a case, and the next you’ll be flying through a portal to another dimension. And oh my does the soundtrack compliment the game so well! A mixture consisting mainly of electronic and orchestral with some rock mixed in, sometimes I’d just let the game run as background music. Listen to this track, my personal favorite: Fragments of Hope
As I’m writing this, I’m starting to realize just how well Astral Chain does at bringing together all its different parts. Some might see that and immediately start the comparisons, or saying that it’s just a sum of this and that. But Astral Chain is more than the sum of its parts. To put it better, Astral Chain is something completely unique, that subtly calls back to the genres that inspired it.
Astral Chain, while being a mixture of a lot of things, is at its heart an action game with RPG tendencies. Developed by PlatinumGames, it offers all the flashy set pieces and bizarre scenarios we’ve come to expect from the makers of Bayonetta and Neir: Automata. You play as a cop whose job is to protect humanity from chimeras, or data monsters of another dimension, using the your legion, a data monster that’s handcuffed and forced to fight by your side. See, it’s as flashy and bizarre as it sounds.
Astral Chain Review: The Things it Could Have Been
All jokes aside, Astral Chain is incredibly fun. It’s obvious that PlatinumGames put a lot of love into it. Just looking at how they handled the policing portion of the game shows that. While there’s the standard catching criminals and fighting off monsters, there’s a lot of good, wholesome police work too. You’ll be rescuing cats, helping people move heavy loads, finding lost children, and other stuff in between. And picking up tons of litter. Seriously, the people of the Ark litter so much, it’s no wonder everything in this universe is trying to kill them.
I enjoyed Astral Chain, loved it even, which is why I’m about to sit here and give it the objective criticism it deserves. This game had so much potential. If it wasn’t for it’s flaws, I would’ve even dared to say that Astral Chain was to video games what Cowboy Bebop was to anime. Instead, Astral Chain ends up feeling more like Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I’m not sure if I mean that as an insult or a compliment. If you’re unfamiliar with Neon Genesis, this is what I’m trying to say. There’s a lot of highs and lows, and a convoluted story that collapses on itself, but is ultimately a great experience you’ll be happy to be a part of.
The Combat: Everything You’ve Come to Expect from PlatinumGames
From the moment you start Astral Chain, the game wastes no time throwing you to the chimeras. Since showing up on Earth, chimeras have driven humanity to the brink of extinction. Humanity then created the Ark, a mega-city atop an artificial island that serves as our final stronghold. The Ark is where all of the action takes place. Minutes into the game, you’re cutting and shooting your way through a highway under siege by the chimeras. And you’ll be doing a lot of cutting and shooting, which is fine. Combat is where Astral Chain really shines.
After your first scrap with the chimeras, you’ll be joining the Neuron Task Force. The peak of human ingenuity, those on the task force fight using legions, chimeras that have been captured and converted into living weapons. The only thing stopping your legion from going berserk is the chain around its neck, which is also how you’ll control it for combat.
The left and right sides of the controller will control your character and their legion respectively. Normally, your legion fights on its own, but if you hold down the left bumper, you can control it manually. This allows you to set up some cool combos.
All of this might sound complicated, but it works exceptionally well. By the end of the second chapter, my legion and I were so in sync that I began to wonder why Neuron needed anyone aside from me. And not just the legion, the chain that binds the two of you is a deathly creative weapon. Tying up your enemies and unbinding your legion to viciously attack is so cruel, yet effective. Some civilians that need protecting? Have your legion forcibly pull you towards enemies, knocking away anyone in the chain”s path. Counter attacks more your style? Spread the chain in the path of a charging enemy to fling them away, WWE style.
PlatinumGames Threw Some RPG in my Action Title
As if PlatinumGames felt the combat wasn’t fun enough, they added a skill tree, bringing more strategy to the table. Throughout your journey on the Ark you’ll capture different legions, each one bringing different skills to the table. You’ve got the sniper, the shield tank, the berserker, and even a good boy doge legion. Switching between legions that have strengths or weaknesses between different enemies is critical. And as you move down the skill tree for each legion, you’ll get new techniques allowing you to mix it up even more. For example, You can have one legion summon shields around you, switch out to the sniper legion, and safely pick off enemies from a distance. With a little creativity, you’ll find that there’s an incredible amount of depth to this fast-paced and clever combat system.
Who Needs a Uniform?
Almost as if to compliment all the different fighting styles, the game has surprisingly deep amount of character customization too. It makes sense though. When you’re humanity’s last hope, who’s going to write you up for being out of uniform? You and your legions will gain access to a crazy amount of outfits, styles, and colors. I was walking around with a holographic cat mask and a raven perched atop my head for the final boss fight. Because nothing inspires fear like an expressionless cat lady and her pet raven. Oh, and the purple ghost chained to her like it came from Christmas past.
Working the Beat
Once you’re ready to show off your keen fashion sense, you can answer the call of duty and patrol the Ark. Incredibly designed, and full of detail Astral Chain’s world is a joy to explore. From the bustle of the mall district, to the contamination infested slums of Zone-09, investigating cases is one of the more charming, if a little underused, portions of the game.
The game’s chapters tend to follow a set pattern for the most part. You get called to the scene due to some otherworldly shenanigans. Neuron is sent because there’s a 99% chance chimeras are causing the trouble. You investigate and then you fight the big bad chimera responsible. It’s pretty formulaic, but you’re given a good amount of freedom to explore when out investigating. And there’s a lot of fun to be had snooping around and interviewing the people of the Ark.
While out investigating whatever a chapter’s bizarre occurrence is, you’ll take notes on things of interest, like a true detective. Some of those notes though, will have nothing to do with the main objective. Further investigate them, and you’ll stumble upon one of the game’s many side quests. These quests are incredibly charming, and usually have nothing to do with fighting chimeras. They’re actually wholesome police work, like adopting cats, delivering ice cream, or beating up the local gang. These missions help make the world of Astral Chain feel real. One mission involves you babysitting a kid because their mother has to visit a struggling family member. By the end, you’ll have the kid convinced you’re a magician by tricking her with your legions. It was a great touch, and nice to use your legion for something other than violently killing chimeras.
The Astral Plane
Occasionally while investigating, you’ll stumble upon portals leading to the Astral Plane, the endless dimension where chimeras reside. In the Astral Plane, things work a lot like a Legend of Zelda dungeon. You’ll use your legion’s abilities to solve puzzles, platform, and fight off hordes of chimeras. Honestly, this portion of the game is among my least favorite things.
Unlike the beautifully detailed Ark, everything in the Astral Plane looks exactly the same. Red and endless. Not to mention everything there wants to kill you. As much as I love Astral Chain’s combat, there was nothing more irritating than trying to complete a puzzle only to have to stop and fight unavoidable enemies. The puzzles weren’t interesting either, their difficulty only comes from how tedious they were, and how easy it was to screw up the game’s poorly designed platforming sections.
The Problematic Platforming
The platforming could’ve been a nice touch, if it didn’t feel like it was there to just pad the game. The way your character moves is terrible for platforming sections. It’s slippery and not meant for precise steps. Sometimes, your character will slightly adjust their footing after a close jump, and end up walking right off the map. The legion jump is poorly optimized too. Often times, your momentum will break because you got caught on a random piece of debris. And if you do finally make it across, it’s very possible you’ll fall just because it’s hard to make nuanced adjustments with the games wonky movement.
The above issues aren’t exclusive to the Astral Plane mind you, the Ark has some platforming too. At least failing on the Ark isn’t as impactful since you don’t take fall damage and it’s usually for an optional collectible. The Ark, however, has stealth missions with heavy platforming.
The platforming really detracts from what could’ve been cool stealth missions
Astral Chain has a handful of stealth missions that involve using your legion jump to clear gaps above unsuspecting patrols. I can’t tell you how many times I got caught because I got stuck on a fence mid jump, or my character couldn’t quite stick the landing. Sometimes, your character will just walk off the ledge, because when you make a turn you have to walk in a full circle. There’s also no option to just fight your way through the guards. So getting caught means being forced to start the segment over.
While I appreciate the attempt, platforming just doesn’t fit with Astral Chain’s design. It’s clear the game was designed to run around fast-paced, visual combat, and it makes those portions that much better. But by trying to add platforming afterwards, it just feels like putting a circle peg in a square hole.
The Story (No Spoilers)
The story is the only other aspect of the game that’s disappointing. Without getting too much into it, you won’t realize how bad it is until after you complete it. Which is a good thing I guess. The game hooks you in with interesting characters, compelling mystery, and an interesting world. You’ll uncover more secrets, come to appreciate your team at Neuron, but there’s ultimately zero payoff. Not to mention the main villain’s poorly explained ambitions are even more of a mystery than the lack of explanation behind chimeras and the Astral Plane.
At the very least though, the story manages to keep up its facade of coherency until the final moments. It isn’t until the credit screen hits you that you’ll realize your favorite characters are shallow or under explored. The post-game isn’t bad though. It focuses on chimera battles that constantly increase in difficulty, and there’s a lot of them. The lack of post-game story is disappointing, but maybe it’s better that way. The post-game focusing on its stellar combat instead of trying to explain a sub-par story is probably better off.
Final Thoughts
In summary, I can forgive clunky platforming and a poor story because the rest of the game is THAT good. The menagerie of game play mechanics end up coming together to create a unique experience you definitely won’t find anywhere else. Despite the lackluster story, I still returned to Astral Chain’s captivating world so I could find collectibles and replay the game. Whatever the future is for Astral Chain as a series, I look forward to seeing where it takes us. I could sit here and sing praises of the game, but if you’ve made it this far, the next thing you should do is just play it for yourself. Because Astral Chain is something that’s worth experiencing, flaws and all.
Thanks for reading!
