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Astral Chain - Switch’s 2019 GOTY - Official Review Thread


Brian

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The fact that the character you don't pick has lines of dialogue just shows how fucking stupid and convoluted the concept of a silent protagonist has become. Just let my character talk! Anyone who "identifies" with a mute dude is either a mute themselves or a fucking psychopath. "You inject yourself into the story," no, bitch, your character still nods and shit and everyone talks to you in a way that gives your character a de facto personality anyway! Except now every conversation with your character is either one-sided awkward trash or even more awkward someone-talking-for-you trash!

 

That said, I haven't had much more time to play yet, but I really enjoy the weight of just walking around with your character.  The game also generally has a really cohesive look and a solid aesthetic due to its art style, and manages to be visually impressive right off the bat (even though it's technically unimpressive, especially city buildings) because of smart use of shaders and art assets. It actually looks very similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but nowhere near the awful performance or pushing the system far beyond its limits. I wonder if Monolith helped out in the tech department.

 

Combat has some fun stuff that I didn't know about as all I'd primarily seen were some gifs and a couple early trailers that frankly I thought looked terrible, but using your astral chain itself in combat to lock down or send enemies flying is very satisfying. As is sending them flying after a perfect dodge, which again looks suspiciously similar to juggling enemies in XC2. You'll have to excuse me if Monolith is indeed involved and it's common knowledge or something, as I said, I knew very little coming in, but the apparent shared tech seems super obvious. As a matter of fact, the side quest and general "most characters have a line of dialogue above their heads but you can only interact with a few" is also super Xenoblade. And the mouth movements and whatnot. Huh.

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2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

I’m using my other Nintendo game voucher and downloading this tonight. I forgot I had a second one. SCORE!

 

So nobody answered my question. Are you playing as a male or female?

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I'm a dude, who looks nearly identical to his sister, but my pants are longer. 

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This game seems completely fantastic so far. Platinum is generally hit or miss with me, but this game seems to build on a lot of elements that I generally find weaker or lacking in their catalog. The combat gets consistently more complex and freeform, and not just in having lots of combos to do. You really feel like you have many ways to tackle any given fight, but also exploration. And the areas seem REALLY dense. Not huge, but packed with stuff. I've found so many areas that would be incredibly easy to miss, it's not just like a hidden room here or there. There's the critical path, which is fairly short and simple, and there's the rest of the area, which is all little branches and secrets absolutely everywhere. I'm loving the game so far.

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