Astral Chain - PlatinumGames action title

[Talby]

Playing it now and it's pretty mediocre. If you're thinking of getting this because you want something like Bayonetta or Revengeance, you'll be disappointed. It's not really an action game, you feel more like a summoner guy in an RPG where you stand back and let your pet do all the fighting. Your weapons do chip damage compared to your pet. It's also full of tedious "investigations" where you walk around and use detective vision AKA Batman Arkham games.

 

[bertram_tung]

It's not really an action game, you feel more like a summoner guy in an RPG where you stand back and let your pet do all the fighting.

This is patently false. You directly control your pets (legions) and your character. The action is very inventive and fun. Somewhat similar to "V" in DMC5 but not a direct copy, and your character is actually more involved than V was. If you "stand back" you will die quickly unless you are playing on baby difficulty.

My earlier impressions hold. Quickly: story is dumb as shit 14 year old Evangelion fan fiction. Typical bad anime.

If you watched any of the marketing material that shouldn't be a surprise at all. If you don't like cheesy anime why the hell would you get a game that is obviously marketed as a cheesy anime?

 

[Talby]

This is patently false. You directly control your pets (legions) and your character. The action is very inventive and fun. Somewhat similar to "V" in DMC5 but not a direct copy, and your character is actually more involved than V was. If you "stand back" you will die quickly unless you are playing on baby difficulty.

But you only control their movement, and only when you hold down a button. The pet decides when to attack, what attacks to use, when to dodge. Am I missing something?

I'm playing on the highest difficulty the game would let me.

The anime story and visuals I really like, the character/Legion designs are really striking and the use of colours are great.

 

[Carls Barkley]

Somewhat similar to "V" in DMC5 but not a direct copy, and your character is actually more involved than V was. If you "stand back" you will die quickly unless you are playing on baby difficulty.

Show me a combo video of Astral Chain that's superior to this

 

[bertram_tung]

My earlier impressions hold. Quickly: story is dumb as shit 14 year old Evangelion fan fiction. Typical bad anime.

If one watched any of the trailers and expected otherwise,

This is patently false. You directly control your pets (legions) and your character. The action is very inventive and fun. Somewhat similar to "V" in DMC5 but not a direct copy, and your character is actually more involved than V was. If you "stand back" you will die quickly unless you are playing on baby difficulty.

But you only control their movement, and only when you hold down a button. The pet decides when to attack, what attacks to use, when to dodge. Am I missing something?

I'm playing on the highest difficulty the game would let me.

Yes, you are missing something.

"You only control their movement"
wrong. How far into the game are you? 1st or 2nd stage ? The combat opens up after getting to the 3rd stage.

Yes, you control their movement, and you also choose what attacks they use, you choose when to pull them back or lunge them forward, you choose when to tie the enemy up with their chain or trip them up with it. You level up the ability tree of all 6 legions you eventually obtain and assign unique skills w/ cooldowns to each one that can be executed in combat. Your character performs specific maneuvers in order to perform "sync attacks" with your creature that will allow you to do major damage. Yes, if you sit there and don't press any buttons the legion will auto-attack with basic weak attacks, but it wont be effective and it will be killed easily. You can see this by watching some basic youtube videos on the game's combat -- it's disingenuous to say "you stand back and watch your pet fight" if you are beyond the first stages.

5 second youtube search (this is super early in the game before you have most of your abilities and it still shows dynamic combat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0nNdxG6gs

 

[Onionguy]

Great now go play Devil May Cry 3 & 5 so you can understand what a real action game is supposed to be like

I've always felt that DMC 3 was slightly overrated. Its gameplay is really limited unless you play the pc version with the style switcher installed. The next thing is that, the majority of enemies, except the basic ones, are shit and the only boss fight I enjoyed was Agni and Rudra.
DMC 4 , although having its own share of problems, offers much more flexible fighting style, and overall a more consistent enemy design. But yeah, I do not know much about bayonetta, but Dmc 5 seems to be the current champion of the genre.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Somewhat similar to "V" in DMC5 but not a direct copy, and your character is actually more involved than V was. If you "stand back" you will die quickly unless you are playing on baby difficulty.

Show me a combo video of Astral Chain that's superior to this

Do you actually play the games or do you prefer to wank off to combo videos on YouTube?

 

[Tigranes]

My earlier impressions hold. Quickly: story is dumb as shit 14 year old Evangelion fan fiction. Typical bad anime.

If one watched any of the trailers and expected otherwise,

you had to say this twice huh

i expected nothing from the story and still found it poor. not just anime but lazy copypasta. a neural network could assemble this from eva fanfiction.

as i said, i still enjoyed the game as a whole. not sure why i have to be for or against it unilaterally.

 

[Carls Barkley]

Great now go play Devil May Cry 3 & 5 so you can understand what a real action game is supposed to be like

I've always felt that DMC 3 was slightly overrated. Its gameplay is really limited unless you play the pc version with the style switcher installed.

DMC3 is only limited when compared to later entries in the series, but it's still one of the most complex action games ever made.

Even DMC4 which is considered an overrall improvement, was dumbed down in many ways.

• It got rid of Crazy Combos, DT bursts, and Ultimates.
• There are less styles and weapons to choose from.
• Nero is even more limited than DMC3 Dante, and you play him most of the campaign.

The next thing is that, the majority of enemies, except the basic ones, are shit and the only boss fight I enjoyed was Agni and Rudra.

DMC 4 , although having its own share of problems, offers much more flexible fighting style, and overall a more consistent enemy design.

This is an unpopular opinion. Most people in the community view DMC4 as a step back in terms of boss design, enemy design, encounter design, and level design.

 

[SecondAmendment]

Playing Asyral Chain now. On File 04. Very cool game. The action is pretty tough for me on the Platinum Standard or whatever the highest default difficulty is. The main cause is the difficulty in actually knowing what the hell is going on. Enemies fill the screen, arena borders interfere, and it can get just too hectic to control the camera, your pet, and your char while trying to combo/dodge/do the magic move which disables the baddie.

Controls are difficult for me, with almost every button being used often. It is probably my soft, weak RPG flesh that can't handle the amount of inputs required and the speed at which they are demanded. I am getting better, though.

The music is adequate, but repetitive. Loud, simple hooks repeat endlessly, and I found the default mix to have music too loud and voices too quiet. The English voices are competent to excellent. No complaints at all.

It isn't exactly what I expected, but I am entertained. It looks amazing and has a great deal of style. I don't agree with the storyfags who say the plot being generic is a disadvantage. It is a stylish action adventure game, not a Sci Fi novel. The plot so far seems serviceable and provides adequate motivation for plot and pacing.

I'm enjoying AC more than I did BotW. AC is exceeding my expectations pleasantly, where I found BotW let me down in almost every way. The challenge is welcome though as I said I wish half of it wasn't from the camera and controls.

 

[Carls Barkley]

The postgame challenges have slightly redeemed the game in my eyes. It's nice being able to kill shit without all the garbage filler inbetween.

The true secret final boss is very good. Reminds me of Father Rodin in Bayonetta.

 

[Tigranes]

I am appreciating the difficulty of the postgame challenges. And as an action game casual, the regular game files on PT Ultimate is also challenging enough to be exciting. I wish they could have given PT Ultimate from the start.

 

[Carls Barkley]

PT Ultimate is still very easy considering it's the highest difficulty level. It's the equivalent of...

• Normal in DMC3 and Ninja Gaiden Black
• Hard in Bayonetta or Very Hard in MGR:R
• Sons of Sparda in DMC5 (SoS is much harder if done after the Urizen exploit)

Although I don't mind, since getting all S+ ranks is still a worthy challenge.

 

[SecondAmendment]

You guys on Platinum Ultimate are studs. I bet you have your choice of mates. Platinum Regular is enough for this Incel.

 

[Tigranes]

I'm playing PT Ultimate as a NG+, with the accumulated skills etc. I think that's actually the intended course of affairs, because that's how you unlock some of the little secrets & side missions by bringing all 5 mechs to the early levels.

Until when you walk on a boom boom trap and lose 1600hp instantly and your max is 1600

 

[Carls Barkley]

That's standard for a Character Action game.

In the DMC series, bosses and enemies wont use their full moveset until you've completed the game twice.