Astral Chain is amazing.

Just finished it, wow. What a wild ride. Might write up a mini review but it gets a solid 9/10 from me.

It gets so good huh? I remember once you get Fusion, the game really opens up. You'll probably notice that on NG+ with Axe added to your arsenal it shines even more, such a great and utility-rich Legion. Have fun man, you're in for a massive treat with the bonus content.

Royta/Raeng wrote:It gets so good huh? I remember once you get Fusion, the game really opens up. You'll probably notice that on NG+ with Axe added to your arsenal it shines even more, such a great and utility-rich Legion. Have fun man, you're in for a massive treat with the bonus content.

Yeah bro, thanks for the recommendation and advising me to stick with it. I was literally gonna drop this shit on file 4 or 5 (where you have to look for Kyle and it gets tedious with all the detective work) but damn, after that section it gets crazy good and it gets better the more you play it lol

Post game you're literally a God. I've started PT ultimate playthrough and also done around 6 file 12 bonus missions. 

You can tell that the Devs really put a lot of work and effort into this game. File 12's bonus missions are actually like mini campaign missions, rather than lazy arena combat end game missions like "bloody palace" from DMC lol

This game is one of those games I feel like buying tomorrow, but just don’t. The cycle started all the way back in 2020.

It really helps that on NG+ you can just skip all the blue-cases, as they are not ranked so you only have to do the mandatory ones. And that's just a handful which you can finish in seconds. But yeah the biggest sin of this game is how insanely slow it starts out. I was very tempted to drop it myself, but edged myself onwards.

Fusion especially opens up the game, as you can cancel into it, it fully recharges meter, and you can recancel it and then do it again after a bit. Super flexible 'DT', honestly one of the best versions of the mechanic I've seen.

Don't sleep on items either. Fishy Water is an absolute MENACE in the damage buff it gives when stacked with other sources. SBK did some good videos on melting bosses which is great to see: https://www.youtube.com/@sbk3009/search?query=astral

> endgame
Honestly one of the best pieces of post-game content I've seen in an action-game since NG:B.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:This game is one of those games I feel like buying tomorrow, but just don’t. The cycle started all the way back in 2020.

I'd recommend playing on PC with the 60 FPS patch and at a higher resolution. Runs and plays great. Visuals look phenomenal.

It’s on pc? Will probably refund bayonetta and some other games for it.

Not officially - via Switch emulation. 60fps would be great for Astral Chain, tempted to try and set this up...

Thanks. Will likely get it there instead of the garbage switch system.

Though I'm not the best person to ask about this, I did feel it ran fine at 30FPS. More smooth would've been great ofc, but it's far from unplayable on the Switch.

I would assume it’s fine on the switch, but I just hate the structure of the switch in general.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:It’s on pc? Will probably refund bayonetta and some other games for it.

Nah don't refund Bayonetta lol blasphemy.

You can emulate it with Ryujinx

Royta/Raeng wrote:Though I'm not the best person to ask about this, I did feel it ran fine at 30FPS. More smooth would've been great ofc, but it's far from unplayable on the Switch.

Nah it actually runs great on the switch, even on handheld mode but it's 30 FPS. I like my action games 60 FPS minimum. I can only tolerate God Hand at 30 FPS because there's literally no other option apart from a broken 60 FPS patch

Gregorinho wrote:Not officially - via Switch emulation. 60fps would be great for Astral Chain, tempted to try and set this up...

Which CPU do you have

I'm always surprised about FPSrates. Like I'd swear God Hand and God of War 2 ran at 60fps, but they run at 30. I really don't notice it when it's gone haha

Royta/Raeng wrote:Though I'm not the best person to ask about this, I did feel it ran fine at 30FPS. More smooth would've been great ofc, but it's far from unplayable on the Switch.

Definitely! I enjoyed my playthrough on original hardware very much, it's certainly good enough. I am very curious what the game could feel like if you pushed it to it's theoretical peak though.

Royta/Raeng wrote:It really helps that on NG+ you can just skip all the blue-cases, as they are not ranked so you only have to do the mandatory ones. And that's just a handful which you can finish in seconds. But yeah the biggest sin of this game is how insanely slow it starts out. I was very tempted to drop it myself, but edged myself onwards.

Fusion especially opens up the game, as you can cancel into it, it fully recharges meter, and you can recancel it and then do it again after a bit. Super flexible 'DT', honestly one of the best versions of the mechanic I've seen.

Don't sleep on items either. Fishy Water is an absolute MENACE in the damage buff it gives when stacked with other sources. SBK did some good videos on melting bosses which is great to see: https://www.youtube.com/@sbk3009/search?query=astral

> endgame
Honestly one of the best pieces of post-game content I've seen in an action-game since NG:B.

Does it have RPG elements? I thought it's a pure action game so I wouldn't want to use items and buffs instead of fully engaging with the combat.

RayyanHayabusa wrote:

Gregorinho wrote:Not officially - via Switch emulation. 60fps would be great for Astral Chain, tempted to try and set this up...

Which CPU do you have

What kind of CPU is needed for 60FPS?

GN1 wrote:

Royta/Raeng wrote:It really helps that on NG+ you can just skip all the blue-cases, as they are not ranked so you only have to do the mandatory ones. And that's just a handful which you can finish in seconds. But yeah the biggest sin of this game is how insanely slow it starts out. I was very tempted to drop it myself, but edged myself onwards.

Fusion especially opens up the game, as you can cancel into it, it fully recharges meter, and you can recancel it and then do it again after a bit. Super flexible 'DT', honestly one of the best versions of the mechanic I've seen.

Don't sleep on items either. Fishy Water is an absolute MENACE in the damage buff it gives when stacked with other sources. SBK did some good videos on melting bosses which is great to see: https://www.youtube.com/@sbk3009/search?query=astral

> endgame
Honestly one of the best pieces of post-game content I've seen in an action-game since NG:B.

Does it have RPG elements? I thought it's a pure action game so I wouldn't want to use items and buffs instead of fully engaging with the combat.

RayyanHayabusa wrote:

Gregorinho wrote:Not officially - via Switch emulation. 60fps would be great for Astral Chain, tempted to try and set this up...

Which CPU do you have

What kind of CPU is needed for 60FPS?

12700k

> RPG
No, but items aren't items in the DMC sense, more in the RE4-sense if you get me. You've got the odd healing item, but most items are things like grenades that are immediate knockdown tools, barrier shields that block off an area to ranged attacks, landmines etc. The standout for rushdown is Fishy Water, a drink that when taken acts like RTSR from Dark Souls. You deal double damage, but take 30% bonus damage as well.

The only 'rpg' element is that you can equip your Legions with specific chips to nudge them a bit more towards specific things. I.e. giving your bow-legion more meter regeneration or having your arm-legion potentially give a slow-debuff to enemies it hits etc.

I see, those kind of items actually sound interesting.

Playing through more of the post-game and I gotta say it's been really fun. The post-game missions have been a great challenge with enemies being really aggressive and doing high damage, and the variety in every mission is great. My favorite missions have been the ones where you fight multiple bosses at once (i.e Homonuculus a / Jena, Astraeus-Capaneus / Kyle,) and the really long missions where just you have to go through many encounters. They really give you a lot to deal with in these missions, lots of really cool mix ups in every mission too. The enemy design really shines in the post-game because of this. The enemy design of this game reminds me of DMC3 with how the enemies aren't too interesting on their own but fighting them together makes for really engaging encounters and there's a good amount of variety in the roster along with the bosses that the post-game missions makes sure to implement and mix things up with.

Learning the combat system of this game has been really fun as well. I've yet to play Chaos Legion but out of the summoner style combat systems I've played in other action games like V from DMC5 and Bayo3, I would definitely say Astral Chain's way of going about summoner style combat is the best way to do it. Bayo3 may have better weapons and more to do with it's moveset but I like the 5 legions more than the masquerades and Astral Chain's summoner system is more focused than Bayo3 imo. Every legion has a different use and the post-game does a good job at encouraging you to make use of everything you can do with the legions. There are some things I've disliked, the dodge in this game is bad which discourages use of the sync attacks which is a shame because I like the idea of making use of every legion's specific dodge sync attacks while weaving your way through the crowd of enemies. They're still doable even late in post-game but with the way some enemy attacks are you'll still get hit from a second attack either from the same enemy or another even if you get the sync attack so they become less useful. I'm not certain if I would change some enemy attacks or the dodge in this game because I don't think it really needs like a bayo dodge or something (dodge offset is in this game but it works pretty differently from bayo which I like) and I wouldn't wanna get rid of the aggressive enemies in the post-game just for one aspect of the legions. The axe legion is by far the best legion especially with the hold sync attack and 360 sync attack. I don't think I mind this too much though since you'll still be making use of the beast and arm legions with howl and gravity storm a lot and putting things like slow on sword and arrow legions help make them very useful so the axe legion doesn't make the other legions useless but it's the one you're mainly going to be using.

I'm at the point of the post-game where there's no more continues so i'm definitely nearing the end but as of now I can say the post-game has been really good, definitely some of the best bonus content for an action game

Finished the post-game. The final missions of the post-game was some of the most fun I've had in the game. A lot of the missions were basically boss rushes usually with encounters fighting multiple bosses and enemies at the same time. Having to do these last missions in one go was a fun challenge especially with how long some of the missions went on.

Aether was a good boss fight and ending to the post-game, not as good as Noah Prime but I still liked the boss. Could've been better if he had a bit less health but finding ways to maximize damage as much as possible in every chance you could get a hit in was neat and I liked his moveset. The second phase of the boss was what I disliked about it since Aether attacks so much more that it turns into waiting for Aether to finally stop attacking and then you can attack for a bit and barely do any damage. That along with all the health he had and one hit in the second phase basically being an insta-kill made the second phase really tedious imo. Still a good boss though and Aether having less health would be the only thing I'd change about it.

Overall the post-game was amazing. i already liked the game at first but after playing through the post-game Astral Chain has become one of my favorites, honestly might be my favorite from Platinum after TW101 and Bayo1

Yeah the missions are fantastic, really enjoyed how they dared to do wacky things in there like put three bosses together and "just figure it out". Feel that due to Wolf being a meterbased auto-dodge gave them the leniency to go a bit ham.

Aether is interesting to me in that there are quick kill setups, but if he manages to enter phase-2 he's just annoying like you said. For me he was a lot of running around on Wolf while doing occasional attacks in between his hours of animations. Perfect boss for a Soulsgame, but not here (kek).

Makes me wish more action games would do things like this. I could definitely see them doing the chaotic mix ups that they did because of the summoner system and wolf dodge giving you lots of options to deal with them so maybe it wouldn't work as well in other games but it would still be fun to see other action games try it just as some bonus missions.

I did see some of those Aether quick kill set ups after and its cool how many ways you can really quickly finish phase 1 with tons of different set ups, shame you can't really do any of that once Aether enters 2nd phase. I'm sure there's some interesting things you can do in the 2nd phase (one neat thing I tried was using the perfect dodge sync attack with the arrow legion against his quick dash attack so you can freeze him and then use howl to get an opportunity to attack) but with the high damage I just opted for the slowest safest strategy of just waiting out the one safest opportunity to use howl then attacking him for a bit and then waiting it out again.

>Perfect boss for a Soulsgame, but not here (kek).
First entering the 2nd phase reminded me exactly of DLC Radahn haha