Since its inception, Platinum Games she has always managed to get a lot of talk about herself, for better or for worse. We have seen the arrival of various incredibly valid products such as Bayonetta, Nier: Automata and Vanquish, but at the same time we have found ourselves faced with filthy disasters, just think of Star Fox: Zero or Trasformers: Devastation. Despite a few missteps, however, the development team managed to enter the hearts of millions of users around the world thanks to products with incredibly refined gameplay combined with an underlying spectacularity that can hardly leave you indifferent, videogame works proved capable of being remembered for years and years. Taking this into account, it is therefore easy to understand why Nintendo Switch owners exploded in a chorus of euphoric joy when the software house officially presented its Astral Chain, a new third-person action-adventure that will arrive exclusively on the Nintendo hybrid console this August 30th. An announcement at the time as unexpected as it was unpredictable that was able to catalyze the attention of the public thanks to an enormous amount of content flanked by interesting ideas and apparently well blended in the playful structure. However, Astral Chain also represents an important step for Takahisa Taura, who in fact managed to earn the deserved chair of director after several years of apprenticeship as a designer, a real test of fire in which the developer has dedicated body and soul, all with the ultimate aim of bringing to light an experience capable of leaving us all speechless. The wait has been long and exhausting, but the time of suppositions and prayers has finally come to its conclusion and now we are ready to give you our final judgment on the new Platinum-branded creature. Will Astral Chain really be a must have for hardcore action users?
On the abyss of the precipice
In the not too distant future, the tranquility of human life is suddenly shaken by the arrival of a meteorite that violently hits the planet Earth, bringing death and destruction to every corner of the globe. As if that wasn't enough, the meteor also turns out to be the bearer of a terrible evil, a strange matter that begins to contaminate every living being within reachbe it plant, man or animal. The "contamination" - this is the name chosen to describe the phenomenon - also opens the way to the Chimeras, violent beings wishing only to destroy the human race and located in the so-called Astral Plane. In a desperate attempt to safeguard the future of mankind, governments around the world finally decide to put aside their mutual disagreements to collaborate in the construction of the Ark, a huge artificial island designed to shelter the survivors. The project proves to be a success, but after a few years of general tranquility numerous portals to the Astral Plane begin to appear throughout the Ark, throwing humanity into chaos, once again one step away from extinction. To cope with the threat, the government thus decides to set up a new police force, the Neuron Unit, a small group of well-trained men and women who possess the innate ability to connect with a Chimera to turn her into a valuable ally to use in combat.
Among the new recruits of the Task Force, two twins in particular manage to stand out more than anyone else, talented fighters ready to do anything to protect the defenseless. We will play the role of one of these two recruits, thus finding ourselves having to face a threat that no living being has ever encountered before. Narratively speaking, Astral Chain showcases a script that is undoubtedly intriguing and capable of capturing the interest of the player on duty, who will find himself dealing with numerous twists, heart-pounding moments and a huge amount of secondary characters that we will learn to know and appreciate mission after mission. In short, the work manages to keep the attention high thanks to a story that, while never deviating from the classic stylistic features of the genre, proves to have some apt ace up its sleeve, all wisely merged with that exaggeration and that taste for distinctly Japanese fan service, never intrusive but always present. The result that is thus presented is summed up in an adventure to be followed with the utmost attention from the introduction to the end credits, a journey that manages to show itself with great strength without ever losing its bite.
"Astral" conjunctions
It is under the most distinctly playful profile that the work, however, shows off all its real qualities. At the base of the experience, what we will be dealing with is a pure and simple action adventure, in full Platinum Games style. Moving within a central hub - useful for training and interacting with the background characters - we will be able to launch ourselves at the time of the next mission to be faced, where we will often find ourselves having to clash with various creatures ready to do anything to eliminate us. . Our digital alter-ego will have three different weapons to use depending on the situation, or the baton, a weapon that perfectly balances speed and attack, the pistol with which to strike from a distance or to eliminate flying opponents, and a particular sword as devastating as it is slow. However, what differentiates the title from many other productions already seen in the past is summarized in the so-called Legion, creatures bent to our will thanks to an unidentified technology capable of creating a real collar with a chain around the neck of our unlikely ally. These beings - available in five different forms - represent the real flagship of the production and contribute to giving consistency to an extremely dynamic and deep combat-system. Once our Legion is activated, in fact, we will be able to use a Joycon to control the protagonist while the other will serve to control the strange creature that will be giving us support, a real cooperative combat alienating in the first moments but incredibly intuitive to learn and master. Once we understand the many possibilities available, on our screen will suddenly open up a myriad of possibilities capable of making every fight incredibly fun to face. Here, therefore, that among combos, final attacks, special moves and QTE-style actions in which to press a button to perform a move useful to recover some health, some particularly atypical play solutions will also arise and designed to take advantage of our Legion. To give a practical example, by moving the protagonist and his Legion in two opposite directions while an enemy is charging us, we can entangle him in the chain that binds us to throw him in some corner of the map or, again, in front of well-defended opponents, we can move the Legion on duty around the opponent to twist him in the chain and make him vulnerable for a few precious seconds. But if you think that the fun is over here, get ready to be blown away, as in reality we have only scratched the tip of the iceberg.
As mentioned above, in total we will have five Legions that will be unlocked as we advance in the adventure, each with its own characteristics and designed for specific fighting styles. During a fight, however, we will also be able to choose in real time to change allies to give life to violent attacks combined with dozens of hits in which each of the Legion will have its role, as well as it will be possible to "bind" to our partner for a unique move. very useful to overturn the fate of a clapper. The Legion armed with bow will allow us to aim with its mighty weapon to launch powerful darts, the Armored one will turn into a real armor that we can control, the Legion Beast will become a practical mount with which to launch the charge of the enemies and so on . Be careful though, since each of the creatures at our disposal can only be used on the battlefield for a limited time before the power meter is reset, in fact forcing us to have to see it alone for a few seconds waiting for the Legion to be activated again, a peculiarity that also puts on the scales a pleasant strategic taste in which you must always study the situation to understand when it is better to attack and when it is more appropriate to aim for a strategic retreat. Platinum Games, however, is a software house that has always aimed at excellence when it comes to controls and that is why he wanted to offer some interesting features useful to make players more skilled and enterprising essentially flawless. In addition to the normal somersault with which to avoid opponent attacks, in fact, we can decide to dodge at the last moment so as to be able to carry out a violent counterattack useful to overturn a critical situation. At the same time, by launching into the charge in a continuous non-stop combo, we will be able to activate a devastating final move - which can only be activated when the bracelet on our wrist lights up - useful for taking down even the most resistant creatures. Plus, for players eager to aim for perfection, There will also be a final scoring system that will take into account all your actions which will thus assign us a final evaluation, as already seen in other Platinum Games titles. The general difficulty stands at excellent levels, in fact always trying to put the player in crisis without ever bringing him to frustration, either for the extra lives that we can use once defeated, or for the various consumables useful to restore precious HP.
Novice policeman
By completing missions, obtaining ratings and eliminating opponents, we will get two different currencies, one designed to buy items or to upgrade your paraphernalia and the other specifically designed to improve the Legions. Each of the five allies at our disposal will in fact have its own specific skill tree with which to enhance it and improve it in attack and defense, without forgetting the various additional skills and techniques that we can unlock and equip. As if that wasn't enough, we will then be able to apply numerous power-ups to each Legion, tools specifically designed to obtain useful passive skills such as automatic regeneration of life, greater resistance to hits and much more. Furthermore, as we proceed from mission to mission, our protagonist will also climb the hierarchical ranks of the Neuron Unit, where each new rank obtained will offer various useful bonuses. Astral Chain, however, is not a title in which we just give it a good reason to whatever could hinder us and indeed, the play system emphasizes various additional elements designed to further variegate the experience. First of all, there are the investigative phases, situations present in a good number in which it will be our task to examine crime scenes, obtain information by questioning various witnesses and retracing past events to reconstruct what happened. These phases appear quite guided, probably not to risk breaking the gameplay too much, but at the same time they require the player a good dose of gray matter since at the end of an investigation we will be asked to take stock of the situation, all through a answer system where the more questions we get right, the more experience points we will get. Secondly, however, although the adventure has nothing to do with an open-world, rather aiming towards a more linear structure, not infrequently we will find ourselves being able to move in slightly larger maps in which we will be given the opportunity to complete various secondary police assignments that will range from catching some criminal to recovering the balloon of a child who got stuck in a tree. The side activities presented themselves in good numbers and on more than one occasion they put us in front of some pleasant minigame, between targets to hit to get the best possible score to huge ice cream cones to have to carry to a crying child trying not to drop it. To all we must then add the possibility of using your Legion to interact with some objects of the scenario and thus unlock new useful ways to reach some useful secret.
The end result is an experience in which the risk of monotony is fortunately put aside to make way for an adventure that works in every respect, or almost. Indeed, after having praised the work with so much vigor, I regret having to note that some background smudges have unfortunately not been lacking. The various settings that we will be able to explore have in fact turned out to be rather anonymous and repetitive, in particular due to a color palette tending to gray and a level-design made up of corridors and arenas on which one could certainly have worked with more effort. We also noticed some camera issues in the most hectic stages, with the view struggling to keep an eye on both main characters in motion. From a purely technical point of view, Astral Chain showcases a work that is characterized by different highs and some lows. What has been done generally appears to be of a good standard, with a really pleasant glance, excellent animations, well-made light and shadow effects and characters characterized by an appreciable polygonal count. On the other hand, looking at everything a little more closely, it doesn't take much to notice the limits of a production designed for a somewhat backward console, between textures that are not always well defined and various background details that are not exactly at the top. Said this, all the problems encountered on your television pale when you decide to opt for portable mode, where the game appears as a real splendor. Too bad only for the block at 30 frames per second, a choice dictated by the desire to avoid the risk of annoying collapses of the framerate which in our test only occurred in a couple of occasions. Excellent work as regards the audio sector, with a very high level soundtrack flanked by a dubbing - both English and Japanese - valuable, all obviously followed by the localization of the texts in Spanish.
