Review for Astral Chain. Game for Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/08/2019
After the announcement of the cancellation of Scalebound in January 2017, PlatinumGames has announced a surprise new title for Nintendo Switch titled Astral Chain. Steeped in mystery, Astral Chain was born as a fantasy title where the protagonists fought monsters using magic, but under the advice of Nintendo itself, it became a title with a cyberpunk setting and with a more interesting and original atmosphere. Taking inspiration for the setting from famous manga such as Ghost in the Shell, PlatinumGames completed the work using as character designer Masakazu Katsura, famous mangaka of titles such as Video Girl Ai or Zetman, and the project was taken over by Taura, creator of NieR: Automata, under the supervision of Hideki Kamiya. After the official announcement complete with a full trailer, which showed two boys fighting at the same time with armed monsters tied to them with chains, the curiosity has certainly grown on the part of all those who see in a new work by Kamiya a worthy spiritual successor to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.
Puppets in chains
The story of Astral Chain revolves around a futuristic world, in 2078, where mysterious creatures from another dimensional plane called Chimeras have brought humanity to near extinction. The few survivors gathered on a secret island, called Ark, where they managed to live in peace for several years. But obviously this was not enough to avoid the threat of Chimeras and the red matter they bring with them to infect humans: it was thus created Neuron, a special police force that thanks to years of research has managed to develop a very powerful technology capable of chaining (literally) the Chimeras to a device which makes them a real puppet to fight alongside.
This is my Stand!
Avoiding clear references to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, the gameplay of Astral Chain is very interesting and fun. We will begin our adventure by choosing whether to be the male or female of the twins, adopted children of Captain Max, leaving the other the role of a simple companion npc. The selection will continue with a simple customization of the character, in which we will choose the hairstyle and color of the eyes and hair.
At that point we will find ourselves in a tutorial mission where the two brothers, still novices, remain embroiled in a fight against Chimeras and are awarded their Legions - as the captured Chimeras are called - having been recognized worthy by the upper floors. During this mission we will be informed of the basic commands, then the melee attack button (which can become a combo by pressing it several times), the button to change weapon and switch to the gun, and finally the dodge button that, Bayonetta style, allows a counterattack if pressed at the last moment. Once we get the Legion we will find that we can summon it with the press of a single button and launch it at the attack. The beast will autonomously attack enemies near it, but there is an energy bar that will drain with time or blows. It will therefore be necessary to withdraw your Legion from time to time to allow a very fast reload of this bar and then return it to the attack. If that gauge is completely zeroed, the Legion will be forcibly withdrawn and can no longer be summoned until the gauge is filled to full again, with a slower reload. If the hits of the enemies brought to the Legion affect only the duration of the summoning, the hits directed at our character, however, will lower our life energy. When it gets to zero a cardiac recovery system will automatically be used to get us back on our feet, a certain number of times (the number of uses per mission depends on the difficulty we are playing) before the Game Over. We will be able to buy medicines to cure ourselves, and within the missions it will also be possible to find some crates with "supply" medicines inside, that is, to be used exclusively within that same mission and returned at the end if they have not been consumed .
Once this short mission is over, we will arrive at the Neuron headquarters and we will meet the commander and all the various characters who will support us in the operations. This area is freely explorable and in it we will find shops, a training area, as well as strange close encounters of the third type inside the bathroom. Here we will be able to prepare properly until we decide to continue the story. From here on out each mission will have within it not only combat sessions, but also investigative parts (in which to find clues using an investigative vision mode similar to that of Batman in the Arkham series, or use our invisible Legion to overhear the speeches of others) and puzzle sections in which to use the main skills of one of our Legions, as you we will get new ones. The final grade we will take in each mission will result in items and experience points to be spent to upgrade our Legions by getting them new moves and abilities, but battles are not just muscles and button mashing: you have to use your brain. In addition to good reflexes to dodge the best, we will have the opportunity to control the movements of our Legion at will, taking advantage of the Astral Chain that binds us to it by exploiting it in various ways. For example, by spinning the Legion around an enemy, it will be bound by the chain for a few moments making it completely harmless and defenseless. By placing an enemy about to charge in the middle of the chain stretched between us and our Legion, we will stop his charge and throw him back and render him helpless. There are also other interesting uses of the Legion and the Astral Chain, such as the ability to reach otherwise inaccessible places by sending the Legion to us and making it pull the chain to make our avatar reach it.
There is also much more to discover regarding the Legion abilities, and we were really impressed with their large amount of uses both in battle and in exploration.
Take me away with you
As for the technical side of the work, the polygonal models are very well defined and the skilful use of cel-shading gives the whole an excellent contrast with the dark colors used for the very dark atmosphere in which we will find ourselves throughout the duration of the title. The fps are granite, and we didn't experience any kind of slowdown in battle, not even in the most excited moments. In any case, playing on the home TV inevitably shows some defects in the context of the texture of the environments, which made us much prefer the portable mode which, thanks to the smaller screen, allows you to enjoy the game at its best. The soundtrack was composed by Igarashi, same composer as Bayonetta 2, who used orchestral, electronic, or rock music depending on what each scene wants to convey to the player in terms of emotions. Two vocalists were chosen for the theme songs, one male and one female, to represent the duality of the two protagonists twins.
Astral Chain surprised us positively. If initially having Kamiya only as a supervisor and not as a real producer made us fear the worst, testing the game with your hand immediately changes your mind. Astral Chain combines the adrenaline of Devil May Cry and Bayonetta with a skilful use of environmental gimmicks, the chain and the Legion, which train one's decision-making ability and reflexes in every moment of the battles. The characters are all very well characterized but as usual, although at the beginning of the game the title is preset for English dubbing, we recommend that you change to the Japanese one as soon as you can return to the home screen. There are only a few days left until the release, and we are sure that Astral Chain will be able to “chain you” very well to the console.
► Astral Chain is an Adventure-Action game developed and published by PlatinumGames for Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/08/2019
