ACAB. That’s my one word review of Astral Chain, the new cop action game on Nintendo Switch. It’s an acronym that stands for “Astral Chain is the Anti-Bayonetta.” I don’t mean that in terms of quality (although, spoilers, I do think Bayonetta is a better game). Rather both of these Platinum Games titles start at the same source and then diverge in opposing philosophical directions.
I praised Bayonetta 2 as a perfect flawless shining diamond of a video game. And it pulled that achievement off by stripping away everything that got in the way of its exquisite raw combat mechanics and ludicrous violent camp aesthetic. But Astral Chain is overflowing with gameplay ideas and chains them all together into a single package. Most of these ideas are good, great even, but the kitchen sink approach results in more awkwardness than I would’ve expected from a developer this famous for polish.
In Astral Chain you play as a police officer who fights alongside monsters chained to your arm called Legions. Everything in the game comes down to exploring these conceits to their logical conclusion, obsessing over them with very Nintendo-like passion. Even the anime theme song story, which mostly just made me glad I finally watched Neon Genesis Evangelion and could understand the references, does little more than provide justification and set up an effectively moody urban noir cyberpunk atmosphere. The bump down to 30 FPS lets the game pile even more vibrant visuals effects with its slick cel-shaded art style.
Let’s start with the Legions. The combat here is still recognizably Platinum. You do a lot of dodging and quickly switch between different weapons like guns and batons. But your Legion changes your entire approach to fights. They act semi-autonomously, lashing out at nearby foes. But you can also manually guide them. Already the strategic options open up exponentially. Team up against one big foe. Split your attention to control crowds. The chain binding you two together is also a weapon. Clothes-lining or physically wrapping up a monster by spinning the analog stick is the most fun virtual lassoing I’ve done since Red Dead Redemption 2. It also has shades of Platinum’s underrated Wii U game The Wonderful 101.
The specifics of each Legion matter, too. Over the course of the campaign you’ll unlock five different varieties to switch between: all-purpose Sword, projectile-based Arrow, strong Arm, wily Beast, and defensive Axe. Along with their own innate strengths and weaknesses you can upgrade legions with accrued currency and teach them new cooldown skills. They’re like action game versions of Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s Blade companions. You can even change their colors and clean them off in your little Resident Evil 2 police HQ. It would be cute if they weren’t so creepy looking.
But wait there’s more! Legions come in handy even when you aren’t fighting, and you spend a surprising amount of time in Astral Chain not fighting. The game fully commits to the idea that you’re a cop, drawing influences from the Batman: Arkham games or Ace Attorney or Yakuza. Nier: Automata may also provide some context for this greater shift towards action-adventure RPG from Platinum. However, while the gameplay variety is admirable, it’s in these exploratory phases where the game gets much more inconsistent.
A lot of it is fun. Legions have various powers you’ll need to solve various environmental puzzles. Detect and slice through invisible energy currents to sever connections with the Sword legion or have the Beast legion sniff objects to track targets. And again the chain is a useful tool in and of itself. Send your Legion to a faraway platform and pull yourself towards it like a 3D version of Ice Climbers. A lot of the game takes place in an Astral Plane dimension that’s trippy and beautiful but also graphically repetitive. Fortunately, the different ways you’re asked to navigate this realm help it feel fresh.
Unfortunately, evenly mixed in throughout the clever ideas are bits that just feel like padding. Investigating the hub levels is weird in a cool way. They’re nifty to look at. You have to obey traffic and can use the toilet. The side quests are also a fine diversion, classic cop tasks like finding lost cats or eavesdropping on perps. But I don’t want to track down and talk to literally every NPC to hear enough clues to solve a logic puzzle that doesn’t actually matter. It kills the pacing.
Worse are the sections where the game’s complicated dual-character controls, while fine for combat, just can’t keep up with whatever new thing it wants you to do. After a fantastic boss battle that felt like the end of the game, I suffered through a fiddly precision platforming sequence and a forced stealth section that were among the worst things I’ve played all year. I can’t imagine playing the optional two Joy-Con co-op mode even with highly forgiving adjustable difficulty.
It feels like Platinum is trying to address the complaint that their games are too short. But the purity and speed of Bayonetta makes its fun to replay over and over. There are parts though from my 15-hour Astral Chain play session I never want to slog through again.
Still, Astral Plane’s failures in a way make it feel like an even more fascinating essential part of the Platinum Games canon. You can’t grow without pain. And I’ll still take anime cops over real cops every time.
