Astral Chain - Action RPG Game for Nintendo Switch - Play Anytime, Anywhere for Epic Adventures

I just finished the main campaign of Astral Chain, and I haven't started the post-game content yet beyond the chapter opening cut scene. My quasi-review, with no spoilers.The game is fun. The TL;DR is that I think it deserves a 9/10. I guess 5 stars if I'm forced to use a 1 to 5 scale (because that's how rounding works). It's a fairly deep fighting game glued together with investigation, a sprawling character upgrading mechanism, platforming, and even stealth sections, but somehow it all works.Astral Chain is visually stunning. The Astral plane itself is a bit samey and not super distinct, but that's basically the only thing. Characters are interesting. Most locations have a lot of personality. The tech is ridiculous but cool looking. It simply looks amazing.My only real visual complaint is that it'd benefit from anti-aliasing. If Nintendo makes a Super Switch that runs normal Switch games, I'd be pretty content if they added anti-aliasing, and if the rest of the horse power was enough to max the existing scaling resolution options locked to 30 frames per second. Because the game's got tons and tons of style, and it'd show through a lot better if the edges didn't look a bit weird.The non fighting stuff is pretty straight forward. Want to climb a ladder? Walk up to it and press A when prompted. (This gets seamless after you do it a couple of times, and you can basically get the timing at a run once you're used to it.) Most of it's a matter of paying attention and choosing the right tool from your options.Maybe the weakest part of the non-fighty stuff is the platforming. It's not actually bad, but some sections are a little meh, and it's not always totally clear what the end goal is. One time the game stole the camera from me, so it became much harder to platform quickly for that one scene. I'd be upset with this whole thing if it was a 3D Super Mario game, but since platforming is a secondary task, it's merely fine instead of quite good like the rest of the game.Fighting gets incredibly busy.First there are lots of enemy types. Sometimes there are lots of them on screen at once. Some you'll want to quickly take out, others ought to be fought at range, yet others really want hit and run tactics, etc. In some cases you'll get monsters with different optimal tactics on the same screen, so you'll need to decide what to do.Second, you get some basic fighting game options as time goes on and you upgrade your gear. Like there's a thingy that lets you push away, then towards plus attack, and you do a flying kick. There are only a couple of these, but they're present.Finally, and by far most complicatedly, there's your Legion. That's the thingy that's chained to you. You have tons of options with them. By the end you've got 5 of them, so you need to choose which to use. Then you have up to 2 special skills assigned to each one (and it changes from Legion to Legion). Beyond that, you need to decide whether to let your Legion go off on its own, or to control it directly with your right stick while you control your main character with the left.And let me just say, controlling 2 different characters at once when their positioning can matter a lot is a bit of a brain stretch. Like if you want to wrap some monsters in a chain and momentarily bind them, you need to maneuver both of your characters so that the chain that connects them forms a closed loop around your targets. Which is fine if there's like 1 or 2 monsters, but sometimes there are more like 10, and you've got to do a lot of dodging around. With 2 characters.The story is a bit basic, but it does the trick. I found the characters to be mostly personable, although Akira (your character's sibling) gets a bit pouty at points, and a bit mean at others. But mostly the characters and plot and general flow works to get you from place to place.Your basic mission works something like this. The station gets a call. You go to a place. Once you're there, you need to investigate a thing. There are a bunch of optional side mission bits (sometimes fighting, other times finding things, tracking down criminals, whatever). Some of the side bits are repeated with new paint, but every once in a while someone'll do something like challenge you to a shooting contest or some other totally random thing. I found that generally most were worthwhile. There'll be some point of no return, then you'll do a little platforming and exploring, and then there'll be some increasingly hard and dramatic fights, eventually leading to a major plot revelation and an end boss.The game has 3 difficulties to begin. One basically plays the fights for you so that you can explore, solve crimes, and watch the major plot evens unfold like it's anime. Casual is the easy difficulty. Standard is the hard one. Once you beat any given chapter, you get access to a very hard option so you can go back and play through again and have the game really beat your ass.The whole thing is well constructed. The plot is functional The game generally flows well. I didn't notice any major glitches, and minor ones were appropriately minor. About the only thing I'd do if I could wave a magic wand would be the anti-aliasing I mentioned before, because the art style is great and I think it deserves it. Controls are good, even if they take a bit of getting used to at first.It's good stuff.This game has become harder and harder to find since the print run is over for it. It's still well worth playing though, and a fantastic exclusive for the Switch. Keep in mind you are not buying a US version of the game. I got an Asian import of it. It's fine though, it still plays on any Switch. I just found that a little odd since it wasn't advertised as an imported version of the game when I purchased it.I absolutely love this game, a highly underrated Switch exclusive. I love the variety of game play, the unique style of combat, the overall art style, and music. I do have complaints however, though they aren't enough to really affect my enthusiasm. I wish I could rate this 4.5 instead of just 4, but there are a few issues that could use some polish.Cons:1. You can only save via auto save or the terminal at the police base, or your hub. This isn't that uncommon of a thing, even with today's games, but I honestly wish all games let you save whenever you wanted. The auto save is pretty generous, but I still end up losing progress sometimes.2. Though overall great, the controls could use some polish. For the most part it feels good and responsive, jumping with your Legion can be wonky sometimes and can cost you life points that it shouldn't have. Also not a big fan of the motion controls; the missions where you have to balance something while carrying it were the only missions that straight-up annoyed me. If you could disable them, that'd be a nice feature.3. The targeting feature can get very wonky when there's a lot of enemies. Sometimes you'll be trying to focus on one enemy, and you and/or your Legion will veer off and attack something else you don't want to attack and leave you open. This is really the only feature I'd say absolutely needs work, it led to some frustrating moments. It wasn't an issue until later in the game when you get challenging cases.Really, that's it as far as cons, at least noteworthy ones.The story is good, maybe not unique, but good. It's the whole "humanity faces extinction and you and a few select others are our last hope" trope, but the characters flesh it out enough you care enough to keep going. You can probably guess the main villain by the time the main theme song is over, but the person performing them goes a good job.The gameplay is amazing. It shines the most in its combat, what with the combos, using the chain, buying upgrades from a skill tree (every Legion has their own), how flashy and stylistic it all looks, the different weapons and upgrades you can get not only for your Legion but your character.The game has a semi-open world aspect between missions where you can wander around, find collectibles, and do mini/side quests. Cat enthusiasts will enjoy one of these, lolWhile I wish they expanded on it more, or gave more choices or made them more readily available, you can also customize your outfit and colors, as well as your Legion's colors.Astral Chain also has investigative missions that require you to gather clues and pay attention, and minigames throughout, and more. I highly recommend this game, and I hope they make a sequel someday where they can iron out a few of the flaws. If so it could be PHENOMENALMe llegó nuevo y sellado el mismo día de salida y con un precio más bajo de lo previsto.Excelente juego de platinum games.Excelente título con la calidad de Platinum Games. Un juego que todo poseedor de una Nintendo Swich debe de tener.El producto viene en buen estado y funciona de maravilla, un buen juego para disfrutar el rato.Muy recomendado si te gustan los juegos de acción estilo hack and slash. No había buscado más del juego fuera del primer trailer que lanzaron y la verdad que me gustó bastanteexcelente juego! uno de los mejores de Nintendo Swith, llegó el paquete temprano el dia de lanzamiento y en excelente estado.