Cyberpunk Cops! Astral Chain review!

Anyone remember a small video game company called Clover Studios? They made one excellent game (OKAMI) and then disappeared off the face of the Earth. Truth be told, the studio was struggling financially, and OKAMI was their last chance before facing bankruptcy. The game didn't sell that well, but was a critical success for the people who did play it. And thanks to the Internet, the game is receiving a lot of love retroactively. The retroactive praise (and sales numbers) revived Clover Studios, who after a quick re-branding to Platinum Games, dominated the video game market with fun, exciting, and hilariously over the top action games. What does any of this have to do with anything? Well, dear reader, today we're looking at Platinum's most recent game in their extensive library; Astral Chain.

But first, some things you need to know about Platinum Games before we continue to the review. Their whole shtick is making actions designed to make the player feel like an unstoppable superhero. Even some of their more "grounded" games have that distinct Platinum flair (Nier: Automata says hi). They are somewhat infamous for not really having good stories (Nier: Automata gets a lot of praise for its story, but apparently Platinum got a guest writer for that game). They put game  play and style over anything else. That being said, Astral Chain's story is actually pretty good, albeit a little cliche at times. So keep that in mind.

Astral Chain takes place in the year 2076. In a cyberpunk future, mysterious aliens known as the Chimeras have ravaged 90% of Earth. Humanity has survived the initial invasion, but only thanks to a heavily fortified artificial island-city called the Ark. Our tale follows the exploits of the Howard Twins, a pair of siblings who managed to become part of an elite police force known as Neuron. While the Ark is the only location that even remotely resembles what society looked like in its prime, the Chimeras are still coming, a dozen at a time to wreck havoc on a weekly basis. Oh, and the Chimeras spread a plague called Red-Shift that turns people into more Chimeras. And these things can only be seen by someone who has contracted Red-Shift (or are using special vision enhancing equipment). So yeah, humanity is in a bit of a pickle. Anyway, one eventful evening leads to your character (who can be customized), the older sibling in the Howard family, acquiring a Legion. Legions being Chimeras that have been rehabilitated and domesticated, to an extent. Legions can only be controlled by someone who is compatible with the titular Astral Chain, which links a human to their respective Legion. So now armed with a Legion of your own, you go off to solve crimes, beat up stray Chimeras, and unravel a government conspiracy. Because Cyberpunk cliche number 1, there must always be a government conspiracy.

The story is, like I said earlier, better than Platinum's usual work, but it can be really cliche. The good news is despite being a cyberpunk anime inspired game, it only pulls from the fun cliches of anime and cyberpunk. Namely over the top fight scenes, hammy melodrama, and the aforementioned government conspiracy. Like if you play the game with Japanese voice acting on the game suddenly becomes an interactive anime. That said, there are some things concerning the plot that I take issue with. Firstly, the story can feel a little inconsistent in tone. In the first six or so Files (this game's version of Chapters or Levels), the story is relatively grounded, with the Howard twins mostly doing normal police work (cleaning up litter, arresting graffiti artists, apprehending gangs, etc) with the occasional Chimera attack. But the rest of the game gets increasingly ambitious, and by the end it relies on the oldest anime cliche ever; the main bad guy becomes a god-like creature just in time for a final showdown, only to lose to the protagonist because of course they can take down a LITERAL GOD. That's not to say that the whole "anime god-killer" trope is bad (Xenoblade Chronicles did the exact same thing), but it kind of comes out of nowhere.

One thing I will praise is the world-building. The Ark honestly feels like a real place that could, in theory, exist. From its sleek, Times Square-inspired Commercial District to the dirty slums of Zone 09, the Ark looks and feels like something humanity would create in order to preserve itself in a forthcoming apocalypse. And Astral Chain doubles down on the cyberpunk aesthetic throughout the whole game. And the in-game database, while it can be ignored if you so wish, has a lot of extra world building details and background lore that I like. For example, all the vehicles in the Ark are powered solely by electricity, do require gasoline or similar substances, and get recharged simply by being on the open road (ergo, as long as the vehicle stays within the Ark, you can drive pretty much indefinitely with no need to refuel). I don't know why little details like that make me happy, but they do.

But what Astral Chain does best is style. This is a Platinum game, and a Platinum game that ISN'T stylish is a crime against humanity. While the whole "controlling two characters at once" thing takes some time to get used to, it is actually really fun and engaging. The way the controls work is you directly control the older Howard twin (who I shall call Howard for simplicity's sake). while the Legion attacks automatically. But by holding down on the left trigger, you move the Legion around yourself or make it use one of two Skills (basically super moves you can unlock through an upgrade tree). But the titular Astral Chain isn't just a stylistic choice to represent the bond between human and Legion. It also is a corporeal object that can trip up charging enemies or even restrain them completely. While you can't completely immobilize bosses (or obvious reasons) using the Astral Chain to tie them up instead weakens the boss in question, making it still worthwhile to do. And even though you yourself can only attack with one button (the right trigger), you can still do a variety of different combos by using the D-pad to change your weapon (going from a speedy stun baton, to a long range machine pistol, to a powerful great sword). At the end of each combo you can do a Sync attack, which involves Howard teaming up with their current Legion (the exact kind of attack depends on a multitude of factors like your current weapon, your current Legion, etc). Sync attacks are, at least until you get a very late game ability I won't spoil, your main source of damage output, especially for Sync attacks that hit multiple times (such as the Sword Legion Sync attacks). I should mention that you get five different Legions as you progress, and all of them are unique and useful. The Sword legion is fast and can hit multiple times, the Arrow Legion can attack flying enemies with no problem at all, the Arm Legion is a beefy tank that can dish out as much damage as it can absorb, the Beast Legion can force stealthy enemies out of hiding and stun them all with a piercing roar, and the Axe Legion is a defensive powerhouse (as well as the only real way to block incoming attacks, since your only defensive action is a dodge roll). 

Unlike a lot of Platinum's other works, Astral Chain actually features a fair amount of down time between battles. While they usually have you go through action scene after action scene with no breaks, Astral Chain mixes its game play up with a plethora of optional side stories and mini games. Including the greatest application of motion controls of all time; Tilting the controller to balance a tower of ice cream so you can cheer up a crying girl. It is literally the only time in the game with motion controls, and I love it for how strangely wholesome it is. Now while the game isn't Open World per se, it is rather non-linear in its over-world design. Basically, it works kind of like Xenoblade Chronicles. There's large areas you can explore for goodies and side stories, but you can't sequence break and go somewhere you are not supposed to go at that point in the story (ergo, you can't visit the dirty slums of Zone 09 until after you are supposed to go there for story reasons). It's a kind of linearity that while notable, doesn't really detract from the experience. Unlike a modern Pokemon game, which (in my experience) are so linear it feels like you're on an invisible railroad during the whole adventure.

The character customization is decent, though it does have some issues. Namely, you can't adjust the facial features outside of eye color. So the nose, mouth, ears, and everything else is locked in place no matter what. You can use accessories to circumvent the lack of variety in the facial features (my character rocked a black-and-magenta gas mask), but not even having three or four preset face designs to choose from is lacking in my opinion. I also wish you can give a male character facial hair, but that may be because whenever I play a male character that can be customized, I like putting grizzly, masculine Aragon the Ranger style beards on them. Honestly, a lot of my custom characters in video games look like they came straight out of Lord of the Rings. My female characters (when I decide to play a female for once) usually wind up looking like vampires (pale skin, black hair, red eyes, etc). Why? I have no idea why I do this. I guess a part of my brain subconsciously loves vampire ladies. That was a sentence I was not prepared to type out when I woke up this morning. The outfit customization is better much better, however. With a slew of accessories, costumes, and equipment, you can customize your character to be the police officer of your dreams (I made mine look as much like S.P.D. Power Ranger as I could).

The supporting cast of Astral Chain seem to vary between "Instantly iconic and would love a spin-off game starring them" to forgetting that they even exist. I wasn't the biggest fan of the main antagonist, Jena Anderson. A terrorist who keeps ranting about becoming the savior of humanity by fusing human and Chimera DNA to create horrific abominations. Why do I not like her? Because her "plan" involves making some vague threat, waxing philosophical on the nature of humanity, and then leaves without clarifying her riddles. And then later she says "Don't you understand what I'm trying to do!?" when she has in fact not made it clear what her goal, or even what her plan is. Heck, even after she is defeated and Director Yoseph Calvert takes over the role of main antagonist, they still don't explain what her goal was. I understand that had she explained her plan and motivation clearly, Calvert's government conspiracy would be exposed, but the way they handled it made it clear they had no idea how to handle her without making the game several Files shorter.

But on the other hand, Kyle! He was a fantastic antagonist! He only shows in one file, but that one file alone convinced me that Kyle would be a much more compelling antagonist than both Jena and Calvert combined. Kyle is the leader of the Hermits, a gang of hackers, delinquents and other such ne'er-do-wells who detest the government for their mistreatment of Zone 09. The whole Zone was quarantined 20 years before the events of the game (due to a particularly nasty Red-Shift epidemic that has since been cured), leaving the survivors of the plague to make due with a dirty, run-down city that clearly has seen better days. Kyle isn't a one note mustache-twirler, either. He is a complicated, Chaotic Neutral party who genuinely wants what's best for the denizens of Zone 09. He initially treats Howard with little more than annoyance, but once they best his whole gang in combat, he respects and even praises you for your skill. And even on a thematic level, it makes more sense to have Kyle be the main antagonist of the story instead of Jena. Jena is a terrorist with a savior-complex. Kyle is gang leader who commits crimes in the name of improving the livelihood of the Red-Shift survivors. I feel like having a gang leader be the the villain in a story about police officers would make more sense. Plus, villainous terrorists are overused in media. We need more gang leader villains. I do acknowledge the issue concerning how quickly Kyle agrees to help you once you give him a reason. But hear me out. If I was to rewrite the story of Astral Chain, I would have Kyle take over Jena's role as the main antagonist for most of the story. Kyle's gang would cause a problem, Neuron sends you to deal with him. He warms up to you over time, respecting your skills and conviction and forms a sort of friendly-rivalry with the police force like in the original game, but now the change of attitude is gradual, over the course of several Files. Then when Calvert takes over, Kyle does his Heel-Face Turn and helps the remaining Neuron officers save the Ark from the government conspiracy. Heck, you can even have Kyle be the one to give a hideout once Neuron disbands instead of the anti-social engineer Hal. Not much changes, and you can easily rewrite the Homunculus (human-Chimera hybrids) as being an unusually strong breed of Chimera, or they were escaped test subjects for Calvert's plan, as opposed to being Jena's pet project gone wild. Also, side note, but I really like Kyle's design. I especially like how he's wearing a mo-cap mask that just projects a hologram of stylized emoji. The emoji even change depending on his current mood!

But that's enough ranting about a missed story opportunity. I've covered everything that I wanted to cover and it has occurred to me that I reviewed the game play before the story, when normally I do it the other way around. Huh. Anyway, to wrap up the review, the presentation of Astral Chain is pretty good. It's not the prettiest game out there, and the outlines on some characters' faces are a little too pronounced, but the character designs are, as a whole, good. I already said that I love Kyle's design, but Hal is another character with a good design, and I wish we get to see Hal in person during the adventure, but the spends the entire game communicating through a remote control drone and later, a hologram projector. The environments look great, as I have elaborated beforehand. But the crown jewel of visuals would have to be the attack animations and fight choreography. It looks amazing. And of course, the attacks and combos looking amazing is yet another thing Platinum is known for. I also like the Augmented Reality Scan that you can use to highlight points of interest while exploring (pictured below).

The English voice acting is decent, but not outstanding (although Cassandra Lee once again steals the show, this time as the bubbly, excitable Neuron janitor, Marie Wentz/Lappy the Police Dog). I've heard that the Japanese voices sound better, but I'm a Dub before Sub kind of guy, so I may need to do a second play through with Japanese voices to compare (I wouldn't mind doing so, this game is really fun to play). It is obvious that the lip sync was done with only the Japanese voices in mind, so if that bothers you, you are going to see a lot of English voices talking while the mouths aren't moving (or vice versa) in this game. The music is mostly techno, but it does sound surprisingly good (speaking as someone who doesn't care for techno music. I prefer classical orchestra myself). At first, I didn't care for the opening theme song, Savior, but the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It honestly sounds like the opening of an anime series. And that's a big thing about Astral Chain, it is very much an anime inspired game. But hands down the best song in the game is definitely Dark Hero. They recorded two different renditions of this song depending on which gender you made Howard at the beginning (if you made your character a boy, the song has male vocals, while if they are a girl, the song has female vocals). Both sound amazing, and the song plays every time you use that aforementioned late game ability that is very spoiler-specific. 

In conclusion, Astral Chain is a great game and while its story could use some polish, its style and game play is great enough to look past it. Despite having a concept that sounds like it would be a nightmare to manage, the control scheme is surprisingly accessible, especially for people unfamiliar with Platinum's previous works. If you have never played a Platinum game before, Astral Chain is a good place to start. With all this being said, I give Astral Chain 9 anime police officers out of 10.