Games I Beat in the Year 2024: Astral Chain (Switch)

Games I Beat in the Year 2024: Astral Chain (Switch)

Overview:
The third game I beat this year in my ever-growing backlog was Astral Chain for the Nintendo Switch. Thankfully, Astral Chain delivers the classic Platinum Games’ hyper-flashy spectacle-driven combat, avoiding the “we need some extra money” feel of games like Legend of Korra and Transformers.

Gameplay - Specifically the Combat:
The combat in Astral Chain is definitely the main draw of the game. As the player character, you have access to three weapons: a one-handed baton, a two-handed baton, and a gun. By yourself, you can evade, charge your weapons, power slide, install a detective mode filter, die; and a few other maneuvers I might be forgetting. That by itself would create a so-so game, but the name of the game is Astral Chain, not Regular Human.

Astral Chain distinguishes itself by introducing the Legion. Legions are pretty much stands from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure or Personas from… Persona. If you’re unfamiliar with JoJo and Persona, they are stylized fighting spirits that are bound to you that assist in combat. You have access to five legions that you unlock throughout the game: sword, arrow, fist, beast, and ax.

These legions expand your move set tenfold. With your legion, you can tie, bounce, launch, counter, follow-up attack enemies; and each legion has their own moveset and skill tree making them feel completely different from each other.

• Sword legion is your well-rounded starter, with its special action allowing you to slash certain walls and sever connections.

• Arrow is the long-ranged legion that… is the long-ranged specialist. Its special action allows you to slow down time and shoot things.

• Arm is the powerful legion where you can ORA ORA ORA ORA! Its special action allows you to wear the legion as a suit of armor which changes your moveset. You can also throw rocks which is a big part of my personality. As such, this one was my favorite.

• Beast is the fast legion. Its special action makes you sit on it and you can go fast like Sonic the Hedgehog.

• Ax is the defensive legion. It’s pretty powerful and its special action surrounds you with a barrier.

My favorite legion-weapon combo is the Arm and gun. This setup allows the Arm legion to take up space while I stay safe with the gun. If I need to close the distance, I could just jump into my Arm legion and barrage them with these hands. However, as with other Platinum Games, there is a ranking system that rewards you for changing up your weapons and your legions throughout a battle encounter (in addition to playing well).

Action games are defined by their enemies and bosses, and Astral Chain excels in this area. The game features a diverse array of enemies, each with multiple strategies for defeat. For instance, some enemies come with a floating companion that renders the main foe invincible when attached. To defeat them, you must first eliminate the floating companion—either by shooting it down or using a sword slice to disconnect it temporarily—before taking on the primary enemy.

Gameplay - For Everything Else:

Beyond combat, the game offers a surprising amount of exploration. My (second) favorite part of the game is when you first get into a case (pretty much what the developers call a level), you get to explore a small part of the city and do whatever cops with legions do - like chase some graffiti artists, stop crimes, recycle some tin cans, feed some cats, find treasure chests, heal the sick of their red disease, enter the red dimension, collect some red stuff, etc. There’s just something calming about wandering about a level and finding things to interact with.

Surprisingly there’s a decent amount of platforming in the game. You can’t jump, but you can move your legion to a catwalk on the other side of the room, and pull yourself to them. Legions enhance exploring because each legion can unlock different things in the level. For example, Sword can cut open some doors, Arrow can shoot down ladders, Arm can move platforms, Beast can sniff and dig, and Ax can… ax something open.

For Everything Else Outside of the Gameplay (Story and Content):
The plot is fairly straightforward: To sum it up, in a (very) stylish cyberpunk future, a brother and sister become rookie cops. After their first mission, they find out that they are exceptional at being cops and instantly get promoted to cops with their own legions. Then they do some cop stuff, predictable plot twists happen, predictable heroic sacrifice happens, then you save the day by beating up a big boy.

But that’s no big deal. If you go into Astral Chain for the sake of seeking spectacle, then you won’t even care about the story. The game has a pretty average length, but there’s a good amount of content - they have a bunch of challenges and things to find in each case, you can aim for S+ ranking and higher difficulty levels, and a long series of arenas with a special boss at the end.

Conclusion:

It feels really good playing a Platinum Games game again - their last game I played was Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. After that, they had started to make some throwaway games like the Legend of Korra game mentioned above. I know they’ve been making some good games as of late like Nier Automata (which will be a future post here) and Bayonetta 3, so it’s good that they seem to be in a renaissance (Babylon’s Fall not included).

Astral Chain is a highly satisfying experience packed with style and spectacle. Not much more to say, so if you’re looking for a standout action game - Astral Chain deserves a spot on your backlog.

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