Astral Chain -- August 30th 2019

[drahkon]

Oooooweeee, what a stylish game this is  Really digging the art style. And that music...spectacular.

Not sure what I think of the battle system, yet. It's still very early days, though. Surely it'll get more complex  

Found a cat stuck under a trash container  I'll be back, my cute little friend, don't worry.

[drahkon]

File #3 is done, four hours in. My thoughts so far:

• Astral Chain is a beautiful and stylish game
• sound and music are on point
• love the setting; cyberpunk but set in a kind of noir future works great
• the lip-sync...oh, the lip-sync; what the hell is that? It's very lazy and takes away lots of emotions in cutscenes
• fights are very button-mashy so far; not what I expected
• why oh why, PlatinumGames, did you have to put the stupid "press L and then the right stick to slow down time in order to cut through stuff"-mechanics in battles? It's so stupid...kind of like a manufactured quick time event; I don't mind it outside of fights but it ruins the flow during an intense battle
• and one more thing: the "platforming" sections are unnecessarily iffy

tldr: Gameplay has been meh, so far, but the setting, characters and story are intriguing.

[drahkon]

File #4 - complete.

• still don't like the "manufactured" quick time events in battles
• combat is not focussed on precise movements - it's much more about tanking your way through battles; it took me a while to get used to that but now the battles are a little more enjoyable; so far, however, Astral Chain has the worst battle system PlatinumGames has created
• I'm liking everything that takes place inside the city; gathering information, exploring the area, the occasional quick fight; 
• as soon as the action moves to the Astral Plains it gets much more intense, which is not a bad thing; I do think that these sequences go on for too long, though
• platforming still sucks

 

[drahkon]

My diary continues  

Nothing has changed. It's fun, but still nothing really special.
t's obvious the game wants you to revisit previous files to discover areas with new abilities, but I can't be arsed  I think this is just a "complete the story"-affair for me and I'm fine with it  

[MindFreak]

@drahkon What difficulty level are you playing at? 

[drahkon]

1 hour ago, MindFreak said:

@drahkon What difficulty level are you playing at? 

The normal one. Standard PT, or whatever it's called.

[drahkon]

Oh PlatinumGames, you almost commited a crime...instant-failure stealth sections.  Thank goodness you get the option to just kill everyone once you're detected.

Anyways, finished Files #5 and #6. The best ones, so far. Mainly because the sequences in the Astral Plain weren't as long as in earlier chapters. 
Story seems to be at the half-way point. It's not been a very creative plot but it works with the setting and action, so I'm not complaining.

Combat is still just a matter of mashing buttons and the occasional healing item. The latter became less and less necessary because my almost fully upgraded Sword Legion is quite powerful.
Unless there will be some major changes, Astral Chain will turn out to be "just" a solid game; definitely not up to PlatinumGames' standard.

[drahkon]

What a mess Astral Chain is. 

The Good

• it's stylish as fuck
• very pretty
• music is amazing, so are the sound effects
• cool enemy design
• can be fun at times
• some of the battles need you to put more emphasis on dodging - those fights are awesome
• detective work is enjoyable at the start
• the story is ok, if a little predictable

Now here we go...

The Bad

• the battle system is unfocussed 
  • button mashing is the name of the game 95% of the time
  • you generally only need one Legion unless an enemy requires you to counter one of its moves with a certain Legion's power; it's uncessesarily "complex"
  • needless to say, if the battle mechanics in an action game are bad...doesn't bode well for the game, does it?
• missions get repetitive really fast, you do the same things over and over again
• chapters are way too long in general
• the Astral Plains are uninspired, boring and tedious to traverse
• speaking of traversal, the "platforming" is iffy as all hell and absolutely atrocious
• there actually is an instant failure stealth section - cardinal sin in gaming
• lip sync is ridiculous
• combine that with a silent protagonist who only groans and moans awkwardly and all emotions are sucked out of every cutscene
• the final boss is probably the worst boss I've ever had to fight (I'll put the info in a spoiler tag - there will also be a spoiler for the penultimate chapter)

Spoiler

• don't give me a Devil Trigger rip-off right at the end of the second to last chapter and make its recharge time so slow you barely use it again until the end of the game
• and that final boss, man...
  • he has an insane amount of health, it's not even funny
  • his attacks can take away almost all of your HP from every range
  • you can hit him only 3-5 times until he teleports across the field and starts a barrage of energy beams and missiles and bullets and whatnot
  • the difficulty spike is ridiculous; I consider myself a very good gamer who can deal with the highest difficulties but this fight is just unfair and unnecessarily long

I don't understand how Astral Chain is rated as highly as it is. It is an unfocussed mess that's only fun at times. PlatinumGames is certainly capable of much better. I'm glad my journey with this game is over and I can move on.