@@rasul01 There are some aspects of that game that look pretty good, but for every one thing that looks good, there are five other things that look rough. Luckily it's a good game. I just hope their next Switch outing is an upgrade in the visual department.
@@nintendonerdjoseph the way you answered me makes it seem like you're answering to someone who thinks the game looks good when I already said that it looks awful
His affiliate (Nintendolife I think) has slapped a 9/10 on this already. And deservedly so. And they're not the only ones. I told ppl wailing at me about my hating on 2.5D indies and Fire Chess Emblem; it's 2019. This sort of beautiful mix of accessible 3D RTA hack n slash with an upgrade-system to boot in an actual passable storyline is huge for the Switch, if not gaming overall, it was choking under all these inides and re-makes,, ugh. Relief!!
@@frickthefuckoff - i keep seeing people say this - but its not a big deal it beat Nier and not surprising. its the exact definition of "standing on the shoulders of Giants". Nier came out and no one knew what it was - it didn't get youtubers streaming the demo, it didn't get people watching and reporting foreign review scores. I know people were still questioning what it was when others talked about it months later at "game of the year" conversations. Most people just knew that the original Nier was weird. This new Nier had very little hype behind it, (and i played and beat the original so i know I was excited). I guarantee the advertising budgets between the 2 games in night and day. Now Nier has come and gone, was super great and everyone knows its good - a Switch exclusive comes out on a hyped system from that hyped developer, (and Switch still doesn't have a ton to choose from right now), unless the initial reviews said it was absolute garbage - it was going to sell well. How many Asteral Chain videos did you see before last Friday? i saw the game mentioned at least 20 times the past few months whether it was talk of demo of release date or foreign review scores or Nintendo Directs. i saw Nier mentioned maybe 2 times before it came out and I was looking for it.
I wouldn’t dare because that’s bad, but when I was wearing the Lappy costume I tried just to see if I could use the toilet for the Sake of the Toilet fairy.
Xario Withoutalastname Yes, and traffic etiquette, and general etiquette, and perfectionist mood (and especially litter etiquette in this game because £ and also it made me loose faith in humanity when I was throwing cands away for legit at least 30 seconds straight). One side quest I had to get a drone, and I ended up breaking the drone, and I felt so bad I wanted to restart the file (chapter) but I was so far in it would’ve been a bad idea, earlier in the same mission there’s a side quest to get a girl Ice cream, and I kept restarting to try and get her the biggest one for a good 30 minutes until I gave up and got her a large with one fallen scoop.
The thing I've been loving about this game is how well it introduces you to the combat. I hate it when games start with a tutorial dump. In Astral Chain they start with action, you don't need to know what you're doing, it's just BAM, in on the action, and one by one they start giving you the mechanics, bit by bit. And then when I got my first Legion I thought they told me all that it could do, but then they give you a different one and THEN they give abilities to them, and the learning curve is helped a billion times by giving you a training room within the game. Not a tutorial menu, not a tutorial dump, but a training room within the story, that helps a lot with the immersion. AND THEEEEEN, they even change the person teaching you in the training room so it doesn't feel like tutorial, it feels like game and you're doing nothing but learning the attacks, and it feels fun and enjoyable!
I spent a lot of time in the training room specifically because I was testing stuff instead of being taught by force. Not only do you get to learn the controls, but you get used to the pacing of fights.
@@muntu1221 I thought I was the only one. I've spent most of time in training practicing evasion, combos, and how to control both characters optimally. I''m pretty sure most of my gameplay has been there.
Exactly! The way they introduce all those battle mechanics/gimmicks is so subtle. However, I did end up using sword guy, the punch guy and the dog legion way too often. I barely used arror and hammer legion.
It's so refreshing watching a Nintendo RU-vidr that doesn't get political. I love kicking back and watching Arlo and Vinny (Vinesauce) because they just do Nintendo. So many RU-vidrs from Somecallmejohnny to Alpharad have been slowly injecting politics into their videos over the years, and I've gotten to the point where I can't watch their videos anymore because of it. I watch videos about video games for the video games, and maybe a bit of personal stories from the RU-vidr. That's all.
Good for you, it's probably one of the best I'd recommend you Bayonetta 1 and 2 on the switch, but if you have a PS4 or a good PC I'd recommend MGR and Nier: Automata
00:05 the floor reminds me of those moon rocks in Mario Odyssey which you can break once you beat the game. Anyone else feel the same or is it just me?
@@123christianac that's cause fighting a peep or item with info will always pop that up, however you can see those things and avoid placing your cursor on them.
3 houses got me back in fire emblem fates was sooo bad, and echoes wasn’t enough to ease my worries, then xenoblade 2 went full on waifu weeb pandering ( I know they’re separate developers but still) then we got the high school trailer, I almost skipped but began hearing very positive reviews from people who share my likings of games and am glad I gave it a chance, may even topple RD as my new favorite, but I think silver snow was pointless and they should have devoted the effort to give crimson flower a more fulfilling route
I jumped straight into the game on platinum standard. I feel like this game shines on it's higher difficulties. The whole Lettered rank system for levels and quests is satisfying af. I'm about to run through the game all over again Platinum ultimate!!
Best moment of play for me so far: While fighting the arm nemesis there are all these goopy glue puddles around that you're "ment" to avoid, but the boss has one attack that creats a gravity effect that pulls you in and deals damage if you're pulled all the way to the center. So what do you do, well you can just run away or use you legion to pull you away OR jump into the gloopy glue and get stuck and feel like a genius. That fight takes about 5 mins, the fact that someone took the time to create that great moment for me just thank you Platinum.
@@AlexysRM That's not really a fallacy. I mean, if you say it's automatic, then sure. But it's not fallacious to say that a certain developer is good at certain things and you trust them with new IPs.
The combat seems pretty basic and button-mashy at first, but it gets absolutely bonkers when you get further and get good at swapping between legions and start getting S+ rankings, especially once you unlock the moves that let you unchain your legions. Like, the average fight for me at the beginning of the game was basically: Press ZR. Press ZR some more. Press ZR even more. Occasionally press ZL. Press ZR again. But now the average fight for me is more like: Send the wolf into the middle of the enemy group and howl to stun them. Swap to arrow legion, call it back to me, unchain it to lay down support fire, swap to sword. ZL to send the sword out, ZL+ZR to pull myself into the group. Do the area chain attack to bind the whole group and sync attack follow-ups, then continue attacking until the arrow is done. Unchain the sword and swap to arm. Merge with the arm and MUDA MUDA MUDA everyone until sword is done. Unchain the arm and swap to whoever seems like the best at this moment. And repeat. Swap to legion, use ability, do some damage, unchain, swap to next legion, etc. And I'm sure there are a lot of options I'm not even using. Like I haven't figured out how to effectively use the axe legion yet.
@@Gankstomper - Yeah, it's pretty much the whole point of the unchained attacks. But you can only have one unchained at a time. If you unchain another one, it'll disappear.
Starting a game in casual at first just to get the feel of the controls and gameplay is nothing to be ashamed of Arlo. I sometimes do this just to practice and then, later on, I go on full force hard mode!
Hala Juventus Y nada mas Arlo says all of this in the actual video. It doesn’t matter if you play docked or handheld. It’s the same thing except the resolution is a bit better on TV. The game has three difficulties. Stupid easy baby mode, casual, and platinum difficulty. Which is the hard mode.
Feels like a game before HD era where it's not just cool combat but actual exploration without being open world, balances progression, paced out story moments. So amazing
I just recently discovered you so I'm here late. Astral chain is one of my favorite games that has been released on the switch. I was fully engaged in the combat system the instant we had access to the legion. I spent endless hours on the post game missions refining my strategies because the combat felt so rewarding. The game sold over a million copies by the end of 2019, and I think platinum games has expressed interest in a sequel dependant upon the overall reception so I think a sequel is likely.
When I was at about 10 hours in, I read that the first playthrough has ~15 hours, so I was disappointed about being almost done and decided to play less hours a day, since it's still some time until Zelda comes out. Also while I was already exploring a bit (about 80% per chapter done), I decided to be even more thorough for the remaining chapters, so I can stretch the time even more. I'm now at ~28 hours playtime at the start of chapter 11. I guess I will end the game with around 30 hours of playtime. I'm unsure, if I will make a second playthrough or will complete each chapter with 100% and do all tasks (or however they are called in english in this game). I usually like completing stuff, but as I understand it, chapters will be reset completely when redoing them, so I'll have to find everything again I already found, which means I can't forget a single thing on each try. I'm not sold to this idea. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is three things: - I like that game very much (despite not having it mentioned in the first paragraph) - For anyone fearing it's way too short: There is easily 30+ hours of content, if you don't rush it, but keep exploring. - I really wonder why people rush all the games. As another example: Fire Emblem Three Houses most reviews mentioned ~70 hours playtime, I cleared it at ~110 hours. Yes, I did some grinding, because I changed classes with most characters, but it wasn't 40 hours of grinding. Just because there are many interesting games releasing, doesn't mean we should rush them. There will be times when less interesting games release and then we will have games left to fill the gap.
My favorite thing about this game (and multiple action games for that matter) is that you can have beaten the game and then watch someone trying things out in the lab and you’ll see an attack or technique you’ve never seen before and think “wait a minute, you can do that?!” A good example is in this very video I had no idea you can pull off a sync attack after landing a successful slash through an opponent’s attack and now I’m trying to find practical uses for it during boss fights to up my score. This game just seems to have endless depth and I love it!
@@TheBlackShinigami As a person who played it, the game is 100% complete-able with just the gamepad. They would have to tweek a couple of obstacles, but most of it can be played with one screen.
Gamestop has this game (digital version) like 60% off for Black Friday 2021! I've had my eye on it for a while but thought I'd check what the internet had to say before buying. This Arlo stamp of approval was all I needed to push be over the edge and get it.
Im playing on the hardest difficulty right now and honestly, its painfully fun. Its so fucking good. Its just the right amount of difficulty so retry a boss once or twice
Other reviewers: “You play as a special forced operative who is tethered to.a Chinera, a nightmarish monster from a parallel world...” Arlo: “It’s you, and you got a monster chained to you.” Thanks for being concise!
The game foreshadows the plottwist that joseph is the bad guy so strong that you always wait for it, but it takes so long that you think it‘s not coming anymore but then the story presses that whole plottwist into two files
I discovered your channel a few months ago from your breath of the wild review, and I am so glad that I did. You provide the most in depth and honest (*cough cough ign*) reviews that I have found, and entertaining at that! I don't have any plans to buy astral chain, but I still watched the review because of how much fun these are to watch. Thank you for making great and passionate reviews :)
I love this game. Been dying to get it ever since I happened to watch the E3 reveal and fell in love. and I finally did! Haven’t finished it yet but it’s one of my favorites for the switch for sure. It’s so much fun
For me, it's going to be hard to pick GOTY between Fire Emblem and Astral Chain for Nintendo. While I'm certainly excited for the games releasing later in the year, I just don't see them being as good as these two. I know other people probably don't like Astral Chain as much as I do - but dammit if this game wasn't made for me.
@@justin02905 That's...one of the weirdest ways I've seen this games be reduced. Astral Chain is a combination of ALL Platinum games (it has the Zandatsu and core-stealing mechanic from Revengence, the chain mechanic operates very similarly to Wonderful 101's line drawing, and the 'glimmer' mechanic comes from Transformers of all things). -but on top of that, it's also a simple but fun police-simulator in what is essentially a rip-off of Neon Genesis + JoJo. These are my favorite things, so I dig it. It's definitely not trying to be a masterpiece like Nier: Automata, but it's exactly the kind of game I like. -and Bayonetta is already perfect. If I want to replay those games, I'll just replay them for the 30th time.
Skinner McLane the investigation segments felt like boring filler meant to pad out the game's playtime. Personally I liked Platinum more when they were Clover Studios and just focused on the action
@@justin02905 I can totally understand why a lot of people wouldn't like the other stuff. I'll openly admit that a lot of parts are genuinely bad (kicking the soccer ball across the district in Chapter 3 is hilariously tedious, and the writing in some scenes make me want to gag after coming from the high mark that was Fire Emblem). -but hey, I still enjoy it. It lets me make my own character and be a badass and letting me look like Armitage the III while using EVA Unit-02 to beat up samurai-monsters with flaming naginata is something that overrides flaws like some scenes being garbage. I could believe that nobody in the world would like the game as much as I do, but it seems others like the side-content, too. -and if it helps a more casual audience get into Platinum games and support Bayonetta 3 when it comes out, all the better.
Arlo it's very nice to come to your reviews to see a simplified version of big corporate reviews. I love how IGN will take a minute explaining a basic gist of combat and you just say "you're a dude and you got a guy chained to you".
Couldn‘t say it any better! This game came out of nowhere and simply blew my mind. It exploded on youtube and I was a bit skeptical about the hype. But man… Best surprise on the switch since I bought the system. It ramped up to one of the best games I ever played. This game is packed and I think the story is way better than the usual platinum games action hack and slay games. It is actually one of the best things in this game. Can‘t recommend it enough. Cheers
I still can't get over these gorgeous graphics. This game proves that you can't take the switch lightly. I'm hoping for more quality titles like this one in the future.
This game seems to be based off an old ps2 game called Chaos Legion. You controlled spirits/familiars in a God of War-esq style while also using them to traverse the world.
I absolutely loved chaos legion! This is definitely a spiritual successor type of thing for astral chain. Got AS a few days ago, and have been enjoying every second. Special mention to the music as well.
The way this main character run speed and animation (and slows quickly to a stop from a run) looks just like 2B from Nier: Automata. Another amazing game by these guys. And thats A-OK
Astral chain needs as much attention as possible, it's so good. Also, am I the only person to play on the hard mode and not really consider it that hard?
Another exclusive to add to my wishlist for when I pick up a Switch. I was following _Astral Chain_ briefly when it was announced but had no clue it was already out. Nice to see that impressions are good, though I kind of expect that when Platinum is doing original content.
Thanks for the review, you just convinced me to pick this up. I really like skill-based games that reward you for getting good at combat (Kingdom Hearts, BotW, even Metroid: Samus Returns does it well enough!) so this looks like a good one!
So, I played Astral Chain right after Death Stranding and it dawned on me as soon as the intro was over that holy shit, these 2 games share their basic premises, you have a government job in a post apocalypse brought about by creatures from another plane of existence, and there's a huge on emphasis on the chains and strands that link us together.
I fell in love with this game and enjoyed it WAY more than I anticipated. I jumped straight into the game on platinum standard. I feel like it shines on it's higher difficulties. The whole Lettered rank system for levels and quests is satisfying af. I'm about to run through the game all over again Platinum ultimate!!
That moment at 11:23 was magical. Games, especially 3D big-bucks action ones lack this touch so much nowadays,, and even the indie / 2.5D trash are too stuck up themselves to take a break (ahem cough,, fire emblem) xD
Never heard of this but I guess it’s cool? Looks awesome from the gameplay. Considering picking up a copy for myself.. Edit: Bought a copy! Enjoying it
DW, you're not the only one playing this game on casual mode. I'm not really that good at action games, but this game can get pretty demanding at least for my skill level, though after six hours or so i feel like i'm getting a hang of the game. However, i might try playing this on standard once i get used to all the legions.
I'm going to buy the game but right now money is short, especially for a teenager, and I only have a total amount for 1 more game and I planning on that game being luigi's mansion or dragon quest 11 But yeah I won't buy it now but it definitely interests me
