It was February 2019. I was waiting for livestream of a Nintendo Direct. In the livestream, I saw [**a trailer**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brmmV3g4qqo) for an action game with some very familiar gameplay. This is some time after I finished Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, and NieR: Automata. Then I saw some familiar names: Takahisa Taura (director) and Hideki Kamiya (supervisor), followed by the PlatinumGames logo.
I practically exploded with hype. It’s an unexpected new IP, since PlatinumGames was also developing Bayonetta 3, which was announced back in 2017 (released in 2022). AC was a surprise since there was no prior announcement whatsoever (at least from what I know).
When Astral Chain was announced, the game is likely already in its final stages of development, as it was to be released in August 30th of the same year. In E3 2019, they showed a [**live gameplay**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX5V9uOVD4k) with the game’s director. I was practically sold even before that.
The game still has that familiar “Platinum” feeling, especially in terms of movement, dodging, and comboing. It’s one of those cases where it feels overwhelming at first, but once you master it, you’ll feel like a God. I ended up playing through the campaign and took a break to play other games. Turns out, the game still has quite a lot of content, and I ended up finishing the game 100% around 2021, and took me around 180 hours of play time, mostly spent on hidden item hunting, side quests, training, and the postgame fights (which are brutal but fun).
However, the game lacked any kind of DLC or post-launch content. Instead, there was only a single update to address some bugs, and that’s about it. It’s nice to see a game released in a polished, complete state these days, no?
Still, I’m hoping PlatinumGames (or Nintendo, since they published the game) expands this IP one day. After a strong start, this IP shouldn’t be left with just one game. In one interview, director Takahisa Taura mentioned that there are no plans for a sequel for now, but [**it’s still a possibility**](https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/06/27/astral-chain-planned-as-first-part-of-a-trilogy-no-post-launch-content-planned), should the game be successful, which I think it is.
by JMuXing
25 Comments
Picked this up on a whim one night a few months ago. Fell in love with the gameplay & art style. That lead me into picking up the Bayonetta series & Nier after I beat it. Astral Chain is definitely in my top 5 games of all time for sure!
I enjoyed the first half and some of the mystery and detection stuff, but it did descend into anime story tropes at the end that left a bad taste in my mouth.
I probably wouldn’t play a second one.
For me, it was a fun 7/10. I played it and enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t say it was super memorable and I’ve never really had a desire to play it again.
Last time Platinum talked about AC was on a Square stream last year when the Switch version of Nier came out. Mainly because they didn’t know what else to talk about because Nier has been released on so many platforms over the years. So they let Taura, the game’s director, talk about combat design and were allowed to use AC footage.
https://youtu.be/IBVBPefUOLI?si=Ll8V30Aw8Jx1F0Yt&t=759
Anyway, AC is a fantastic game. Love the setting, graphics, music, and combat. Made it as my GOTY in 2019.
No game has made me feel like I was actually playing a bad ass anime more than Astral Chain. That OP they did is such a banger. We NEED a Astral chain 2.
I’ve played it this past year. Super fun to play, fast paced, fantastic setting/world, really cool visually, and a lot of great story and character ideas. It just sucks you in and won’t let go lol.
But while I say it has great story and character *ideas*, unfortunately it’s just the concepts that are interesting. The execution of those characters and ideas is kind of not great.
The actual story is the only part I have a problem with. It starts out strong and has interesting moments throughout, but overall its just okay. A lot of characters are dropped or forgotten halfway through, some ideas/storylines are set up with no payoff (and the reverse, payoff for things that were not set up??), and some moments that should be emotionally impactful don’t really land.
The story is still engaging, but pretty much every other aspect of the game is so much better than the story so the difference is pretty stark.
But! It really can’t be emphasized enough how much fun this game is. Still absolutely a 8-9/10 experience. Definitely worth playing.
I feel like this game came out ten years ago
I owned a physical copy about 3 years ago but the combat just didn’t click for me. It felt kinda clunky in a way. It’s hard to explain. It just feels tedious to fight.
I grabbed it near launch but only played an hour or so and didn’t sink into it. I remembered liking the music though.
In 2021 I picked it back up when I had some free time and really loved it. I really liked the more open level structure compared to Bayonetta, and using your chain abilities outside of combat as well. The story was bonkers and a lot of fun. I’d say silent protagonist wasn’t necessary, but didn’t detract from it too much.
Yes, it was crazy fun once you got a knack for the movement and combos.
I don’t know what hocus pocus Platinum pulled out for this one but Astral Chain has no business looking as good as it does on the switch.
never finished (but might go back eventually). Controls were a little difficult for me to grow, would play a second one but hope it’s more intuitive.
Definitely one of the best looking games on Switch imo.
Never finished it, I fell off the during the mid-game chapter where there was a bunch of sidequests? I can’t remember exactly what you were doing. Anyways, I enjoyed the vibe of the game a lot, and the music was great
Any other Nintendo generation this would have been re-released as a 19.99 or 29.99 players choice game by now. Nintendo this generation, naw no price drops ever outside of the occasional holiday sale.
it’s a very well done game! Did find some parts a bit repetitive for some of the missions but there was a lot of action and options battle wise
That puzzle with the cars though
Had the pleasure of playing this gem last year
I wish we could get another one
(But no, not some solely combat-focused one without the “downtime”. That is a key part of what makes this game so good)
I couldn’t get into the combat, dropped the difficulty lower and lower until the game basically played itself and then lost interest about half way through (I guess). I hope that I someday will be motivated enough to start it again with a fresh mind as the setting is very interesting.
I really enjoyed it, but I felt like it had a problem that I’ve also found in other Platinum games, which is that the final boss is a MASSIVE difficulty spike compared to the rest of the game.
Like, I played the whole game on the “PT Standard” difficulty, and found it to be pretty easy. I’m not typically that good at this kind of game but I seemed to click with this one.
But when I got to the final boss, I just could not beat it on PT Standard. I probably gave it 30 tries before I just kicked it down to casual so I could see the final cutscene.
Now I realize that somebody could just tell me to git gud and that it’s a skill issue. And yeah sure, of course the basic problem is that I wasn’t skilled enough to beat the fight at that difficulty.
But when there’s such a huge spike in difficulty right at the end, I think that’s also to an extent a game design problem.
Like, let’s say that there’s a certain window of tolerance that the game gives for mistakes. Your game sense and muscle memory adapt to work within that specific window of tolerance. In other words, the window of tolerance is what teaches you how to “correctly” play the game.
IMO the proper way to do a difficulty curve is to slightly narrow the window of tolerance in an incremental way, so that the player’s skills keep getting a little bit more refined in every encounter. But if you have a wide tolerance window for the majority of the campaign, and then suddenly drastically narrow it right at the final boss, then the player has to basically re-learn everything from scratch because the tolerance window is so unfamiliar.
Anyway I’m ranting, I really did like Astral Chain a lot. But the end hurt my pride a bit and it’s PT’s fault.
The Astral Chain nod during the Bayonetta 3 trailer is promising. Astral Chain 2 might be closer than we think
I wanted to enjoy this game but found the controls too complicated with too many things to juggle at one time.
Love that game! Some parts felt like a slog, but the anime style hack-and-slash was pretty fun, especially on the easier difficulty where your “pet” has some autonomy in combat- definitely made the game more enjoyable for me as I liked to focus on the exploration/investigation stage of missions.
I’d compare the overall experience to be similar to Zelda Twilight Princess, with how the Astral World/Twilight World were incorporated in the game. Though Astral Chain is definitely much more intense in term of combats.
Collecting (adopting) all the cats was surprisingly satisfying!
I really tried to like it. Just got so convoluted by the mid point.
I played it during a tough time in my life, and I’ll always have a soft spot for it as a result.
When they first showed this game off in a Direct, I was hooked by the neon anime visuals and snappy combat. It was released the day before my birthday so I got it as a birthday present to myself.
I played it pretty much daily until I finished it. The opening sequence is brilliant and the gameplay loop of doing detective stuff and combat was pretty engaging. Granted, I did suck at the combat at most times, it was visually entertaining and smooth.
The story was sometimes predictable but I still appreciated it. Most of it did feel carried by the MC’s sibling, Akira and their struggles. There were other quirky characters but they were probably the most fleshed out. It did hurt the game to not have the MC fully voiced because it just made important conversations with Akira and other characters kinda fall flat when you had no response.
The last thing I’d mention is the music which across the board was very good. The police precinct music is still looping in my head and I loved the eeriness of the music in the astral plane. The OP, ED and Dark Hero vocal songs are all bangers and one of the vocalists , Beverly, has become one of my fave J-Pop artists.
Overall, I found Astral Chain to be a good game with a strong visual and audio aesthetic, and potential that could be worked on for a good sequel.