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Astral Chain Discussion (Nintendo Switch) [game]
 
Astral Chain on the Switch
8.25/10 from 2 user ratings

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Astral Chain is releasing this week, are you HYPED?!

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08/26/19, 16:18    Edited: 08/26/19, 16:19
 
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Reviews are in. I have to be honest, I had hopes for this game but didn't expect a ton for reasons I can't explain. Looks like I was wrong. It's getting very good reviews.

88% between 23 reviews at Metacritic right now
08/26/19, 16:20   
I am hyped! I have the game on reserve from the library as soon as they get it in, whenever that will be. If I had disposable income I think this would be a game I would just buy, honestly. It really appeals to me for some reason (I'm not sure why?).
08/27/19, 05:26   
Sounds super fun. The Nintendo Minute on it was very cool. I’m definitely getting it, but I don’t know if I’ll buy it or use a voucher on it.
08/27/19, 06:07   
Edited: 08/27/19, 13:56
Definitely plan to pick this up in the future. I watched three reviews on it yesterday and all made it sound and seem great.
08/27/19, 12:47   
Reviews are insane. I guess I'll keep my preorder!

After all, I want to support badass action games on the Switch. The mechanics look super fun, too.
08/27/19, 17:22   
Edited: 08/27/19, 17:22
These games aren't my style, but it looks good for those who are into it.
08/27/19, 21:21   
Not my kinda game either. I was hoping to get into it when they showed footage of it and stuff but nope, not happening.

Saw my bro playing it, confirmed what I thought: not for me.
09/03/19, 09:41   
A demo would be nice. I don't know if it's for me or not. I have too much on my plate right now anyways though.
09/03/19, 11:51   
Hinph said:
A demo would be nice. I don't know if it's for me or not.

Same!
09/03/19, 22:02   
I've basically not heard anything but great things about this so far, and it's been so hard to stop myself from rushing out to buy it. Just no funds, and too many games to play I already own at the moment.
09/04/19, 22:15   
I wish I had more discerning taste in games, because (especially lately) it seems ALL games are up my alley. Except FPS games. Those are still on my "don't care" list. A fact that, ironically, makes me a little sad since apparently these DOOM and Wolfenstein ports on Switch are really, really good. I feel like I'm missing out, even thought I know I'm really not. But it *feels* like I am. Oh well.

In any case, looking forward to spending some time with Astral Chain! Platinum makes good stuff, and this seems like one of their better efforts. And it's good to have something to hold us off on until Bayonetta 3.
09/04/19, 23:11   
@GameDadGrant

The Doom and Wolfenstein ports are impressive because they are running pretty well on Switch, but they're easily the worst versions of the games and really don't look as good as something designed from the ground up specifically around the hardware (such as Astral Chain). If you're not a fan of the genre, you indeed shouldn't worry too much about missing out on anything.

I would suggest giving Doom 2016 a try if you ever get the chance though, because the gameplay is much more fun than most recent games in the genre. I'm really not a fan of most modern FPS games that take cues from Call of Duty, because they're boring as hell, but Doom 2016 is an action packed gameplay first kind of experience. Best game in the genre in well over a decade if you ask me.

This video still makes me laugh because it does a great job of demonstrating why I stopped playing FPS games:

09/04/19, 23:39   
@Hinph
Yeah, I used to be a big fan of FPS games like DOOM, Unreal Tournament, Perfect Dark, and No One Lives Forever, but the genre kind of lost me when it was modernized. Like Metal Gear Solid, Half Life was a good game with a terrible effect on the industry. Maybe the same could be said for FFVII, but I haven't played it.

Man, what I would give for a spiritual successor to Perfect Dark on the Switch. Even a port of the 360 port!
09/07/19, 18:46   
Edited: 09/07/19, 18:50
Just finished the 3rd mission, which is kind of the the 1st as that's when you can actually practice/have access to a tutorial. I've liked what little I've played of it so far.
09/08/19, 20:06   
I'm on file/mission 9 or 10 or something and the game has me pretty captivated. It's a ton of fun, does a lot of neat stuff with a lot of variety, and is just really really polished. The combat is great, but I like obsessively hunting down the side missions outside of combat too. I really like finding the toilets too... because that exists in this game.

It's great, definitely check it out
09/09/19, 16:34   
I just finished File 03. The first 2+ chapters are very tutorial-y (which I guess makes sense, the game really does throw a lot at ya) and now I feel like I'm "in it". It's a bit different than what I was expecting, but I'm really enjoying the gameplay loop. I appreciate that it's not just combat-combat-combat and that there are plenty of mundane activities/quests to do in between all of the heavy action.

The combat is fun but it hasn't totally clicked with me yet. I haven't found much of a reason yet to use anything other than baton mode. And sometimes your legion gets stuck on a piece of geometry and doesn't do what you want it to do.

Love the game's style. Is anyone else getting Suda 51 vibes from this? And it's not just the (literal) toilet humor, but I think maybe its the types of little small side quests you do between the big combat encounters, it reminds me in some way of No More Heroes. At least it reminds of games of that era in some way.
09/16/19, 05:50   
I'm gonna be honest. I was looking forward to this game, but then I heard you play as a cop. And there's this quote where the director wanted to make the police look like heroes. He said that he hopes you come away from the game with a more positive image of police. And with how limited my free time is these days, that pushed Astral Chain down my list of priorities.

Like, I assume it's just a game about police fighting monsters. Or at least something similar. But when my free time is at such a premium, I don't want to use it playing as a cop.

It's something I'll probably get to eventually. But the excitement I had for this game has diminished.
09/19/19, 02:58   
@Hero_Of_Hyrule

I hadn’t heard that from the director, but thanks for pointing it out. Makes me appreciate the game even more. Maybe I won’t wait until I’m done with Fire Emblem to start playing playing this.
09/19/19, 15:23   
I'm on the last mission and am really having a blast with this.

File 08 is really the only egregious misstep so far. It had many of the game's least-enjoyable side missions, and there were too many stretches that were either timed or prevented you from backtracking, which worked against the mostly leisurely pace that the game allows for you to explore for secrets. Oh, and the frame rate pretty much dies during that chapter, which is weird considering its the only stretch of the game where it noticeably bad at all, and in general it didn't seem any more technically demanding than the other areas of the game.

Anyways, with that business out of the way the combat finally clicked for me right around when I got my 3rd or 4th legion, and started to unlock skills and abilities for each. I still think that only one of the three X-Baton weapon modes is worth using, but I started to find the combat variety I was missing by switching constantly between the different legions during battle. My actual attacks are still pretty "mashy", but much more of the engagement comes via timely switching between legions and combining their various skills with my attacks. And as the game goes on, there are less and less combat encounters that force you to use left bumper "legion actions", which work well during environmental puzzles but always felt clunky and disruptive during combat.

It reminds me some ways of last year's Spider-Man game, where the combat really wasn't doing much for me until I had unlocked much of the abilities and skill tree. All of a sudden I had all of these different tools available to use, and much of the fun came from utilizing all of them in different combinations and keeping each encounter feeling fresh. In that game I went from avoiding all combat missions to later seeking out as many as I could, and I'm at that point now in Astral Chain. I'm getting S+ ranks on pretty much everything, which I rarely ever pull off in character action games, and it feels good and I want more of it. I wasn't planning on going back and doing the earlier missions again and finding stuff that I had missed, but I'm almost certainly going to now.
09/24/19, 15:13   
Edited: 09/24/19, 15:13
@Hero_Of_Hyrule this is a Japanese developed and published game and it's worth noting that while both Japan and America are grappling with debates over what role the police should have in society the similarities begin and end there.

From my understanding, which is extremely limited, the debate in Japan basically comes down to the fact that a lot of people there feel Japan overall keeps a fairly large police force for how small the crime rate there actually is. It's nothing like the rabbit hole we get to deal with over here although I'm sure the one there goes much deeper than what I described.
09/27/19, 01:40   
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