Astral Chain is the latest and most accomplished model of PlatinumGames' ability to combine stylish action with player agency and accessibility. Exhausted storytelling and haphazard platforming also continue to underline their limitations. If Nier: Automata sought balance between power and ambience, Astral Chain finds power in power. It's a pure, grandiose spectacle.
Playing Astral Chain is like playing PlatinumGames’ greatest hits all at once. Bayonetta’s stylish action is the cornerstone of its melee combat. The Wonderful 101’s ability to accentuate and extend that combat through novelty companions mirrors Astral Chain’s formation of parallel player-controlled characters. Precision cutting calls to mind Revengeance, weapon upgrading remembers Transformers: Devastation, and character progression is an evolution of Nier: Automata. Character action is what Platinum does and Astral Chain is the latest example to showcase their explicit talent.
And yet Astral Chain can also feel like a regression. After Nier: Automata’s transgressive approach to game design and narrative structure, Astral Chain‘s depiction of dimension-hopping anime cops is delivered at face value. It’s fine! Astral Chain‘s story is a serviceable compliment to its police investigations and action set-pieces, but it doesn’t threaten the core tenets of gaming as a medium like Nier: Automata. It is obviously unreasonable to expect that kind of performance with every subsequent product out of Platinum, but a follow-up that doesn’t feel dangerous isn’t taking advantage of a clear opportunity. Astral Chain is exclusively interested in being a great character action game.
Coping with Astral Chain’s premise is a rollicking exercise in suspension of disbelief. The last human city rests upon an artificial island, the Ark. What’s left of mankind is under constant threat by Chimeras, interdimensional creatures of violence that pop out of the ether and indiscriminately wreak havoc on populace, either by abduction or spreading a despondent sickness knock as Red Matter. As one of two twin rookie cops at Neuron, the special Chimera-fighting unit of Ark’s police force, it’s your job to resist and combat the encroaching Chimeran threat.
I was surprised at how much time Astral Chain spent wheeling and dealing with its Neuron police force. I had expected jumping back and forth between cut-scenes and combat arenas, ala Bayonetta, but Astral Chain delivered a chapter-by-chapter progression of police station schmoozing, spacious crime scene investigating, and rudimentary platforming along with the requisite arena brawls, boss fights, and action set-pieces. Astral Chain disrupts Platinum’s’ structure and refashions it into a more recognizable action and adventure game.
At the same time, the machinations of Astral Chain’s universe may fall apart upon the slightest magnification. Ark functions as a normal society with and normal misdemeanor level problems (graffiti! thieves!) handled by normal cops. Despite its depiction of a human populace on the brink of supernatural extinction and a complete retreat from earthly resources, everything (other than traces of poverty) seems totally fine here. It feels strange to meander through Ark’s streets unaffected by the existential dread of trans-dimensional peril via phantoms of unknown origin.
Perhaps feelings of disconnection and detachment are found in the safety and security of the entity literally chained to the player’s wrist. Legions, Chimera transmuted to Neuron control and bound to act on the player’s commands, represent the other side of Astral Chain’s point of interaction. Legions aid the player in combat by doubling as a simultaneous and only partly-automated force of destruction. They can also use their unique abilities to aid the player in completing normal police work. Most importantly, Legions are where Astral Chain finds the definition and identity outside of Platinum’s traditional work.
Coming to terms with controlling the player and controlling a Legion is a tricky process. Typically, once directed at an enemy, the Legion will perform a series of basic attacks at the enemy until directed otherwise. Holding down ZL assigns control of the Legion to the right analog stick, essentially allowing the player to control two characters at once. This is hard to get used to! Thankfully Astral Chain keeps its first chapters fairly light, creating significant space for experimentation. Once unlocked in individual skill trees, Legions can also learn unique skills bound to cooldown timers and assigned to face buttons.
The player character is the recipient of Platinum’s traditional action suite. Your police service weapon, the X-Baton, can morph between a standard nightstick, a slow-moving but damage-heavy bludgeoning paddle, and a range-friendly laser pistol. X-Baton attacks are all bound to a single button and can be strung into extended combo sets. At the same time, the B button is responsible for dodging away from enemy attacks. A perfect dodge, performed right before an enemy’s attack would have made contact, is rewarded with your opponent slowing down for a few moments.
A Legion’s most obvious benefits to combat are also its most effective. If an enemy is charging toward the player, typically forecasted by a faint red path, blocking their path with your chain performs a Chain Counter and cartoon-slingshots the Chimera backwards and knocks them out for a few moments. Wrapping a Chimera with your chain creates a Chain Bind and locks them in place until those chains are broken. Both provide exceptional opportunities for the player to beat the snot out of their opponents and justify the existence and participation of their Legion partners.
Sync Attacks are the heart of Astral Chain’s combat. Certain instances—delivering a combo, Chain Binding an enemy, reaching a certain damage threshold—will cause the screen to flash blue. Tapping ZL at this time performs a Sync Attack, where the player and Legion will briefly combine forces to absolutely whale on an opponent. After unlocking skills of certain Legions, Sync Attacks can even build off other Sync Attacks, orchestrating highly effective combo strings. I made my way through most of Astral Chain by building up my Sword Legion and relying on a series of predictable but effective Sync Attacks.
Each Legion also boasts a unique combat ability through the L button. The Sword Legion performs Raiden’s screen-encompassing blade slice from Metal Gear Rising. The Arrow Legion transforms into a gigantic bow and grants the player precision ranged attacks. The Arm Legion can shift into a giant suit of hazard-avoiding armor. You can ride on the Beast Legion’s back and drive it like a car because it’s an actual quadrupedal beast. While cumbersome, the Axe Legion’s shield is valuable in the later acts of Astral Chain. Specific bosses and enemies respond differently to each Legion’s abilities, providing a reason for the player to switch between Legions with relative frequency.
Jumping through gates and exploring the astral plane consumes as much of Astral Chain’s run time as its combat. It’s also the source of its greatest frustration. Much of the challenge of astral plane is a simple issue of navigation; use the Arm Legion to move square blocks and solve simple puzzles, use the Axe Legion to shatter otherwise impenetrable walls, get out the Arrow Legion to slow down time and fire arrows at switches to open doors. The astral plane is caked in monochromatic red and black and constructed with harsh, threatening geometry. You don’t move through it as much as you search for a path forward, and there’s always a secret around some out-of-the-way corner.
Frustrating issues arrive anytime Astral Chain starts to rely on basic platforming. Without a dedicated jump button, Astral Chain expects the player to position their Legion on the desired platform and push the ZR button to cross the gap pull themselves over to that Legion. Slipping off the edge of a surface removes 20% of your health. I did this all the time. There are also floor surfaces that rely on having a Legion present or they will disappear, cannon balls that can push you off your path, magic gusts of wind coming out of airborne enemies, and boss fights with platforming (while dodging attacks) as a central component. I have no idea why Astral Chain spends so much time finding ways to push the player off of platforms. It teaches little and frustrates the senses more than it ever engages or cultivates any kind of skill.
The other half of Astral Chain is dedicated to performing ordinary but engaging police work across the Ark. Most of Astral Chain‘s twelve chapters are premised on solving a strange, astral-plane related phenomenon somewhere in Ark’s urban trappings. The player will have to speak with the local populace, collect keywords related to the disturbance, and put together a basic idea of what happened when reporting to a higher-up at Neuron. There’s no penalty for getting any of the facts wrong, or missing out on specific pieces of information, but it does affect your cash payout at the end of the chapter.
I liked patrolling Astral Chain’s streets and performing (comparatively) menial tasks for the local populace. I don’t agree with arresting a graffiti artists, but I did like helping a kid find his mom, adopting a bunch of homeless cats, and generally using my Legions to perform supernatural feats and confuse the hell out of otherwise clueless criminals. Legions can perform unique tasks here, too, like using the Beast Legion to track scents, the Sword Legion to cure plague-ridden citizens, or the Arm Legion to…destroy dumpsters? Every Legion sure has its purpose.
Other attempts to go outside of Platinum’s comfort zone are met with mixed results. Does Astral Chain benefit from sticking the player in muck and slowing down combat? Were stealth missions, where you have to avoid line-of-sight of patrolling enemies, necessary in a game like this? Are escort missions fun in 2019? Is there a practical reason for a side mission to use the Switch controller’s tilt function to carry a stack of boxes? At least collecting Red Matter, omnipresent bobbles populating every corner of Astral Chain’s world, serve as an unobtrusive and appealing way to facilitate exploration.
Astral Chain projects most of its police as a source of unbiased good. Inside its heart, of course, is a strain of impossible corruption and inevitable resistance, but there is no question of what side you’re supposed to be on. It’s here where Astral Chain had an opportunity to go against the grain, resist worn anime storytelling tropes, and create a profound statement on the nature of Ark’s police, the apparent enslavement of Legion’s as compulsive companions, or the purpose of violence in a closed-system absent of serious crime. Instead, it’s a hastily assembled collection of ideas from Evangeleon and Ghost in the Shell. This isn’t necessarily a negative, but it’s another instance where Astral Chain opts for something expected instead of something meaningful. It’s average in a game that projects itself as anything but average.
Progression systems also help drive the player forward. Gene Codes are earned as combat and investigation rewards. These can be invested in Legion’s skill trees and unlock unique skills and passive abilities. The abilities, in particular, can shape a player’s investment in combat. Do you want your Legion to self-destruct when its hit points run out? Increase your skills’ cooldown speed? Increase the length of your chain? Boost critical hit damage? Astral Chain doesn’t short the player on viable combat options.
While a single run through Astral Chain isn’t a short experience (I clocked 24 hours on my first playthrough) replaying individual case files is encouraged. Legions that may not have been available on your first run can be used on successive plays, opening up additional opportunities for astral plane investigations, the chance to complete certain optional objectives, and using unique abilities (Arm destroying dumpsters, Beast digging up treasure) unavailable the first time. You also have the added incentive of collecting more money and more Gene Codes, making the remainder Astral Chain a bit easier. Lastly, my initial run through Astral Chain only completed about 75% of the available case files in each chapter. There’s more out there if you’re willing to look for it.
Since Bayonetta 2’s touchscreen-only play option, accessibility has been a major component of Platinum’s core objective. They create best-in-class action, but aren’t exclusively interested in appealing only to the hardest of the core. Astral Chain’s opening difficulty options list Platinum Standard as the hardest available (unlocking a true hard mode after a chapter is cleared under Platinum Standard). The only difference (I think!) between Standard and the default Casual difficulty is the amount of recharges/continues afforded to the player before a game over screen. A story-focused difficulty option, which more or less mitigates combat, is also available.
Even on default difficulty, it’s possible to move through Astral Chain without much resistance. I completed every optional objective in sight and always had a surplus of money, meaning I could afford all of the healing items I needed. I invested most of my rare materials and Gene Code in upgrading my Sword and Beast Legions, and, by the end of the game, I was using Sync Attacks to flatten every non boss-level encounter. I am by no means an action game savant, but it made me wish the hardest difficulty was available from the beginning.
Astral Chain also may be one of the most visually impressive games on its hardware. The particle effects bouncing all over the place during battles, the sheer amount of activity on screen during combat encounters, the gargantuan size and fluid motion of bosses, the lighting and draw distance in Ark’s urban areas, and the ease at which all of it is able to be parsed by the player is a testament to the power of coherent game design and inspired art direction. Astral Chain’s neon wasteland is a technical masterpiece on an underpowered platform. It also suggests 30 frames per-second, as opposed to the 60 usually obliged in Platinum’s work, may not be so bad after all.
As a complete work, I can’t stop thinking about a quote Astral Chain’s director, Takahisa Taura, gave in an interview with Polygon. As opposed to Nier: Automata, which was designed with Yoko Taro’s scenario in mind, “the central pillar of this game really was this idea of controlling two characters at the same time, and thinking of things like the scenario and the world after that.” This speaks volumes for Astral Chain’s objective and performance. It’s Platinum returning to its core. It’s the only artist on the track instead of collaboration. The product is purity but it was only sourced from a house production team. This leaves Astral Chain as both more and less interesting, depending on what’s more valuable to your gaming tastes. It’s one of the best action games of its generation and it doesn’t aspire to be anything else.
Astral Chain is the latest and most accomplished model of PlatinumGames’ ability to combine stylish action with player agency and accessibility. Exhausted storytelling and haphazard platforming also continue to underline their limitations. If Nier: Automata sought balance between power and ambience, Astral Chain finds power in power. It’s a pure, grandiose spectacle.
