20:34 don't apologize. Taura has stated it is Platinum's destiny to show off good butts in Video Games, it'd be a shame to not show off their hard work.
There's nothing wrong with a nice ass. Remember it's a video game / anime, AKA FANTASY! It's meant to look like something you would never see or always wanted to see and over the top!
Hard disagree with you about the anime-esque songs. Saviour and Dark Hero are great songs and hearing them in the boss fights was so damn hype. Hearing saviour in the last boss in file 12 was such a good nod to how you'd hear the opening again towards the end of an anime.
This game is worth getting for the music alone, the soundtrack is so so good. Oh and also the gameplay and aesthetic are amazing too. Probably my favorite game on the Switch
Indeed. Though, to be fair, since it's my friend who owns the Switch and that damned C-Virus is making visiting him difficult, I'm not getting past chapter 3 anytime soon...
To be fair, Platinum's gameplay design goals has always been "easy to pick up, almost finish-able with poor skills" and "You will need to try everything to get it if you don't know how Platinum does things since Viewtiful Joe and God Hand to finish it on the hardest difficulty and on Platinum ratings".
I found this game to be the “Smash Bros” of character action games. The button inputs and combos are very simple to pull off. It’s one of the easier combat systems to get into. but there is a lot of depth when you start experimenting.
Playing as V in DMC5 also gave me flashbacks to that game. I was so happy to see parallel advances to the game mechanics from Capcom and Platinum Games!
Honestly, I found this story to be amazing!! It really shows just how far Platinum has come since Bayonetta and it shows in their writing, it was a refreshing change of pace.
@@ryanwood6754 did you not watch the video? one of the legions is literally blade wolf and the starter ones main function is blade mode. its not that the games are similar overall, but the gameplay is very similar, down to even the healing mechanic of finishing and absorbing enemies
Your channel is a love letter to games. Thanks for taking me on a guided tour through this game as a budding Platinum fan. Much more into ShiftUp, but Platinum has fun stuff and inspired ShiftUp a lot.
This looks solid. That said, I am completely, and unapologetically impressed that they got the shorts to move the way they do when the character is moving. Like, I get that that's "kind of" a common thing now, but it ALWAYS blows my mind when I see a game's developers actually put the time and effort into doing that. I mean hell, I still remember the moment i saw the horses muscles in the first Red Dead Redemption actually tensing up and relaxing as they moved. It never ceases to amaze me that games have progressed from the first time I saw Solid Snake move around in MGS1, along with Jill and Chris in RE1 when my cousin brought his PS1 down when I was in 1st grade, to where we are now, WHERE WE CAN ACTUALLY MODEL CLOTHES MOVING THE WAY THEY SHOULD. What a time to be alive lmao.
I started Astral Chain yesterday. Considering I'm only at the beginning, I can't say much about it but I would like to share one similarity I picked up right at the beginning. Monsters attacking humanity and only some people can "sync" with some of them that were caught reminds me of the premise to God Eater. In that series, some characters are able to wield weapons made from the cells of Aragami, monsters that are indestructible to conventional weapons and only these "God Eaters," essentially slaves to a mega-corporation that controls what's left of the world, are able to defeat, let alone damage, these creatures. It's an interesting competitor to Monster Hunter with a fascinating lore, although the story presentation can be a little cringey. I do like the comparison to Evangelion, and considering that, and Ghost in the Shell are two of my favorite anime, Astral Chain is definitely a game I plan on getting further into. I discovered your channel only recently, but you are quickly climbing my list of favorite reviewers.
This game really is great! My only regret is not picking it up much sooner, and I'm glad the initial review bombs didn't bring it down. I really hope it does get picked up for a sequel. That was my fist thought once I finished it. Even with the post credit wrap up narration it still felt so open.
Good job reviewing the game. One thing about this video commentary greatly surprises me, especially knowing you're a DMC fan. The biggest exploration of combat mechanics stems from chaining abilities from one legion to another for a single combo. One example would be using Beast to electrify a chain then swapping to the next legion to auto bind for lots of extra damage. Legions can be mapped in any order for custom combos. This is very handy since the legion menu freezes combat. Once you got that pattern down it doesn't really have to be that way though. Could go on for a while about how great these legion combos can get.
This is my favorite game on the switch, and will be for years to come. I don’t feel bad for anyone who hasn’t gave this game a chance, it is pure art that that appeals to a certain kind of person. Anyone who feels like this game was made for them, you already know what im saying.
I can agree so hard with everything mentioned here. 4 years on in 2023, I'm still playing the heck out of this game. I've picked up every collectible, beat every mission with the highest rank, and did it all on all 3 difficulties just for fun. (We don't talk about unchained mode in this house.) When I first got the game I wasn't so sure about it because of its steep learning curve. But once I just embraced it and fully immersed myself in the game, WOW was it rewarding. Platinum were firing on all cylinders when this game was made. My favorite legions are sword, beast, and axe, as they're the most used for me. Arm and arrow are all fun too, but they don't get as much use out of me unless I'm really working with all of them. Poor Arm, a heavy hitter, but struggles with accuracy. The lock-on button's your best friend when using the Arm legion btw. As for everything after the story ends, it was decently challenging. Though, my scrubbiness was showing on a few missions the first time I went through it all. I actually had to give up and start the whole game again fresh, and once I did, it was SO worth it. I understood the importance of leveling up your legions to CX, giving them all good abilities, and really dove into the possibilities that skills presented and made crazy openings. A few of the last file 12 missions were borderline unfair due to the enemies presented. Mostly because of the black boss chimeras and throwing multiple of them at you alongside Kyle or Jena, sometimes at the same time. Then came the true final boss, Aether. The goddess of the astral plane and a being powerful, she makes Noah Prime himself look like chump change. And that's BEFORE she gets angry. lol This video really does sum up the best and worst parts of this game. The story is good for the most part, and I agree it was kinda sequel baiting. Which I would welcome, btw. The gameplay itself is the real star of the show here. You're given the tools you need to make stylish kills, and look good while doing it. This game really is a love letter to Platinum's history and wears its inspirations proudly on its Ark Police uniform sleeve. I only hope this game gets a sequel soon. We did get an Astral Chain reference in the Bayonetta 3 trailers before the it came out, so it gives me hope.
I adore this game!! Played it a few times and go back to it every once in a while. In my opinion it’s one of the most beautiful well designed Switch exclusive games
Fallout 4: Collect Garbage to make some stuff Astral Cop: Collect Garbage and dispose of it in proper way, because it is a right thing to do. You lost again Bethesda.
Dumb comparison. Platinum games are fun but I could never spend 70 hours in a platinum game while I put 70 in fallout 4 easily and I didn't even finish it. And I enjoyed my time more than I did in any platinum game.
Might get this seeing some of the Revengeance influences in the gameplay. I'm a massive fan of that game, and I was soooo happy seeing what was essentially my boy Blade Wolf being in there! But now I'm sad we'll probably never get another Rising game... 😭
Bayonetta and Astral Chain alone will keep you glued on new game plus binges for DAYS with their endless combo mechanics. Not to mention the first Bayonetta comes with 2.
Just wanted to say I finally got a switch and I’m finally getting to play this game! thank you so much for this in depth video I’m excited to explore this world!
Can we reflect on how wild the Switch's summer has been? Between its start on June 21st and its end on September 23rd, Nintendo published Super Mario Maker 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Astral Chain, Daemon X Machina, and Link's Awakening. Six exclusives in a three month span. And while the two minor ones - Marvel and DxM - came in with modest scores around the 7/10 range, the other four bigger ones came in at 88, 89, 87, and 88 respectively on Metacritic with lots of acclaim. That's just plain nuts.
I am really glad to see one of my favorite RU-vid channels cover what might well be my game of the year for 2019 - even in spite of this being easily the best year for video games I've had in quite some time. Sure, I felt like DMC5 and Sekiro might have been strictly better, but Astral Chain felt new and fresh. In spite of its flaws, it gave me that feeling of being a kid again, playing a game that I didn't feel like I had already played before. And that makes it my favorite game this year.
Man this game has a lot more going on than I thought it did at first, thanks for covering it! By the way, have you heard of a game called Crosscode? It's a great pixel art action RPG. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if that's something you're into. I think it's an amazing game with a pretty good story.
After finally beating the game a few hours ago, Spherehunter pretty much voiced everything I felt about the experience. I absolutely loved it right from loading the game up. I love all the anime tropes they wire in all over the place I think Sphere probably "got" the combat system earlier than I did, lol. But now that I understand all the mechanics, I'm super excited to play through the game again on a higher difficulty. I feel like I played boring, since I stuck to Sword legion and the default color schemes/costumes. Maybe next game I'll mix it up. Next game on the list is Daemon X Machina, so might be a bit. Great vid!
I'm both proud and annoyed that I beat the whole game without levelling, not because I was trying to, I just forgot. I'm coming back to the game realising how much I missed and it was easier by actually playing the game
Me, having just discovered the channel: Oh, Astral Chain, nice! Sphere Hunter: I'm not really a fan of the anime-style opening song. Me: So you're saying this just wont work between us. Still love the videos though.
I love how you used Nier's soundtrack in the background sort of like a little nod. The subtle "I know, you know, we all know" when speaking of a Platinum game.
With all the advances made in stylish action over the years, whether human-sized melee or gigantic mech, it'd be oh so nice to see a new Zone of the Enders game on a next-gen console, maybe with lofty inspiration pulled from Astral Chain and similar titles.
That nier music around 5 minutes in made me super nostalgic for nier, that game was what put me onto platinum games, since then I've gotten both bayonettas and astral chain, I've yet to play vanquish tho
Its been a while since I last played this game. It was the closest game to feeling like my Switch was worth it. I think how I came across this this game was seeing it at a Walmart and my curiosity was peaked. I remember thinking this game was super shiny and I liked it. I've been thinking about playing it again lately.
I was really intrigued when I first saw this game. It reminded of Chaos Legion on PS2. I remember renting that game for weeks lol. So when I saw Astral Chain it felt almost familiar. Great vid btw.
I had thought initially that the first 2 chapters intentionally limit your capabilities to make you feel like the rookie officer with an incredibly daunting task (while also chained to a creature that could kill you at any moment), without necessarily needing a scripted sequence where you're simply forced to lose. I was actually really into that.
In addition to arms base combo, you can actually perform other moves like the spin attack and lunge attack while wearing it. My favorite is the latter because you can follow up with a sync attack that shoot dozens of lasers in a first person point of view
She didn't mention it, but you can also use sword's slash mode to stun attacking enemies by clipping the red strand things that show up when enemies are attacking. This is pretty important as it can be the most reliable way to stop some attacks that can be hard to avoid, like spinning attacks.
The combat scores you for every different thing you do, but only once for each. This means the best way to get high scores is to use every one of your tools at least once (one multi chain bind, one chain jump, once chain jump attack, one charge move, etc.) and switch legions and batons. Just go into combat with the mindset, "what haven't I done yet?" and you'll get S+ ranks easy.
God the title to this video sums up my thoughts about this game.Not only a love letter to those games, but also to the fans that recognize them. One nice thing I like is the multiple control set ups (no full custom control set is something I do knock off a few points for). Another nice thing about this game is the evolving title screen. I was getting Spec Ops The Line vibes from that. All in all. Not a bad title from Platinum Games
Finished playing the game, hecking loved it, I had the game for a while and a couple of months ago started it but the pacing started to feel a little slow and stopped for a while, this week whoever I picked it up again and enjoyed it, there was a part where it took like 2 hours to actually continue the story (detective work takes a while) along but after that, it was smooth sailing and I really loved the story and how it started to pick up finally, the final boss kicked my butt so hard but all in all, hope to see a sequel for this franchise. Also don’t apologize, the butts literally pop out, it was very hard not to notice the rumbuttious of my avatar
