Astral Chain

I'm curious about it, and reviews seem good so far, but it probably is something I'll pick up down the line.

There's a good Digital Foundry video about it:



It's by the same director from Nier: Automata, my favorite game this year, and seems to be another solid Platinum Games' action game. The only slightly disapponting thing is that they went for 30fps instead of 60 this time, which is not ideal for fast action games. This is understandable, though, seeing as the game has more open areas and an art style that needed more complex graphics, so it comes down to the Switch being slightly underpowered for what they wanted to do.

Between this and the Bayonetta sequels (and Breath of the Wild, Link's Awakening remake and other things...), I'm really itching to buy a Switch right now. Two things are still holding me back: not enough money to spend right now on a new console and a huuuge backlog. I haven't even played The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls 2&3 yet, and I've bought them last year!

Was this one produced by Nintendo or there's a chance we'll be seeing ports to PC/other consoles?

I don't have Astral Chain myself, but from playing games like Devil May Cry before, I know these games aren't button mashers.

Usually what happens is that they are accessible for all people, which is a good thing, so if you just want to smash your way in, you can, but you will be dying a few times, and you will have to keep trying until you have some kind of small strategy.

However it won't be very satisfactory because you are almost an spectator at this point. This is usually what happens to many game journalists that review hack and slash games because they never understand the combat.

Most of these games often offer ranks for your performance, so once you start aiming to get S or S+ ranks, then you are basically forced to learn the combat mechanics because that's the only way to get those ranks. Also simply raising the difficulty does the same trick.

Once you get a hand of the combat mechanics and start getting those S ranks then the game becomes what is meant to be, and you start getting an appreciation for the gameplay because it becomes fun to the point that you end up playing these games for the gameplay alone.

They become like fighters, shmups, or racers, where the story won't matter, so even if the story is amazing, it is basically just a plus. Just like when you play racing games, those games don't have a real plot, but you play them for the gameplay.

In fact, many Musou games are this way. You know some people don't like them, but others love them, to the point that they even end up loving the story, and it all comes down to understanding the game mechanics.

I don't know if Astral Chain offers a tutorial, usually tutorials are boring, but offer a lot of information that can help. You will be surprised how even the smallest tips have some real significant impact on how you play.

If you have played these games for a while usually you can figure out on your own, but you will have to be putting a lot of attention to spot the things you want to find, on top of experimenting with different combinations.

Nowadays YouTube offers a lot of content, so most of the time we don't have to worry about figuring out stuff, back in the PS2 it was definitely a lot more difficult because unless you had a friend that can help you, it was you versus the game.

I don't have the game yet, but it looks exactly like the type of game I will like. I found an example of the kind of gameplay you can expect, and it looks cool:



I would say definitely give it a chance because it looks really cool, I haven't played it, but by looking at it, you may definitely find a lot to dig in, specially to get the most out of it.

I hear you man. Considering you are new into these games maybe it could help watching people play in expert modes on stuff you already have done, so you don't get spoilers. That way you can look at the things they are doing, and it can help you get a sense of the how to use different combat mechanics in the game.

Fighting games are like this too. Many people that don't like games like Street Fighter, or Tekken usually don't know any setups, links, or chains, but even once they start doing simple things like dragon punches, sonic booms, and spinning bird kicks regularly, then they start liking those games a lot.

Awesome to hear that man. Here is a very good review I saw of the game:

Eh, I love the guy.  You can tell when he is being nice, but is subtly slamming a game.  I like him, because he doesn't make a living off of faux rage.  I am starting to like the game quite a bit, though.  I just couldn't get into it at first.