Have to admit, I’m not the biggest anime fan but enjoying Astral Chain… it’s taken a little while to get used to. I went in trying to play it like Bayonetta and kept getting my arse kicked, not to mention playing it like that makes it feel like a brainless button masher given the fewer attack options. But once I got used to i’s quirks I was well on board. It’s a much slower more measured experience for sure, without the over the top ballet.
The world is really compelling, just hanging out at the police station between missions is a joy in the little details and sublime soundtrack. It does annoy me a little the way Platinum switch up the controls though, moving attack from a face button to a shoulder button and having weapon select on the D-Pad left me pawing the controller a few times… I find it nowhere near as intuitive as Bayonetta.
We’ve standardised first and third person shooter controls for years, and even with beat ’em-ups to some extent, so surely with this and Devil May Cry 5 doing well we’re due to do the same for the ‘side-scrolling brawler’ (agree with GC these are the true evolution of the Streets Of Rage formula)?
It’s not perfect however, the camera is pretty terrible (though some extensive options in the settings can help) and while the art style is terrific the tech does look dated, more PlayStation 3 than 4 with a lot of ‘jaggies’ in handheld mode. The whole thing does feel slightly less responsive than Bayonetta too (especially the second game, which might possibly be the lower frame rate?) and the main character just doesn’t react as fast as I’d like. Ut might be a deliberate attempt at a slower style but last second dodging in particular can feel sluggish. There’s a little lack of polish in some areas, like lip syncing and animation during story segments and characters/Legions getting stuck on the scenery.
I’ve probably made those sound like bigger gripes than they are though, overall it’s easily the best Switch game and best ‘exclusive’ on any console this year to date. It’ll probably end up as best Switch game too. Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Zelda: Link’s Awakening look fun but fairly low key and. like a previous reader, I’m loathe to pay out for Zelda unless there’s a significant content increase over what we’ve seen so far.
The original game with new graphics and a dudgeon editor doesn’t cut it for me. Pokémon looks like a HD 3DS game, similar to Fire Emblem, and Daemon X Machina isn’t previewing too well… but we’ll see.
Marc
GC: We’d go along with most of that – the camera is certainly the game’s biggest weak point. We don’t like the idea of anything being standardised though. That’s acceptable in something like a shooter, where you’re always just shooting a gun in first person, but anything that encourages games to be more similar to each other has got to be a bad thing.
