Astral Chain

Astral Chain is a curious action game that’s constantly mixing genres to try and offer something new to the player alongside its complex combat system. However, it ends up cluttered, suffering from too many underdeveloped ideas, and a story so shallow that it makes the original Bayonetta’s feel like Primer in comparison.

In Astral Chain, we control a cop in an artificial island called The Ark, which was built to protect humanity from terrible monsters from another dimension, the Chimeras. Our playable character, being the silent avatar that they are, doesn’t utter a word, and the Chimeras, being the monstrous beings that they are, just grunt and go graaw graaw.  The general structure is also simple: we visit sections of the Ark – which is a richly imagined setting with its rich districts bathed in neon and contrasting shantytowns – to fend off the monsters and save the day. Around the middle point, a human antagonist finally appears to shake things up, but their motivations take a while to be uncovered, leaving them without any interesting traits until it’s probably too late for anyone to care.

This disregard for narrative depth is reflected in the personality of all supporting characters. Our avatar’s sibling, for example, suffers from a severe Lara Croft complex, idolizing their father while trying to live up to his great reputation, which inevitably leads them to feelings of frustration and anger. But the problem is that everyone else also seems to share this same quality: the whole Ark appears to admire our father, with people always talking about how great, courageous, and strong a man he is. There’s not much that’s particular to our sibling, then, who sometimes can even be a robotic, thoughtless person: “All we have to do is believe in him and follow orders,” they say, referring to our boss, the shady Yoseph.

Yoseph is clearly up to no good, being shown early on talking to some strange beings. And the fact that he never shows empathy is the reddest flag of them all: after a Chimera attack or natural disaster, his speeches are usually about what he have to gain with it, never touching on the lives lost (“It’s breathtaking, we’ve got a tremendous amount of new data to consider,” he says after one tragic event). However, his motivations are ultimately bizarre, as he’s revealed to be an antagonist as shallow as the monsters that go graaw graaw in the night.

Some of these boring supporting characters have an inspired design, though, such as the renegade Kyle, who wears a black mask with a digital display that mimics exaggerated expressions, usually boasting two huge Xs for eyes. Kyle has an impressive look, there’s no doubt about that, but he lacks a personality to match – and it doesn’t help that he hardly matters for the main plot either.

And Astral Chain lacks a strong thematic conflict to make up for all these shortcomings. Everything narrative-wise here is too simple, too basic: we’re basically just fighting bland bad guys to save the day. The game doesn’t care about details such as what the antagonists stand for, what we stand for, if anyone has a character arc or an interesting motivation; unimportant narrative stuff like that. Bad guys go graaw graaw and we go and dispatch them.

This means that Astral Chain is at its best when it’s just being downright absurd, like when we are collecting different kinds of toilet paper to give to the precinct’s toilet fairy (yeah), or being creepily stalked by our precinct’s happy mascot, Lappy. Comedy doesn’t need moral complexity to work, so these moments easily stand out. On the other hand, when things get serious, the game just stops being quirky and falls into boring cliché territory. Bayonetta’s story was also shallow and badly written, with overly long cutscenes, but it at least had a very memorable protagonist with a strong personality to carry the narrative entirely on her back. Astral Chain switches the Umbra Witch with a mute character with nothing to say.

The game’s chapters, at least, are structured like a rollercoaster. We begin the slow ascent by investigating some strange happenings in the Ark to find that – surprise! – Chimeras are behind them. And then we have the rapid descend, as the action unfolds non-stop until it reaches a small climax – usually, a small boss battle – and, then, a bumpy ascent while traversing the Astral Plane (the Chimeras’ homeworld), where we solve puzzles, face platform challenges, and fight brief battles until the final exhilarating descent with the chapter’s big final boss.

Astral Chain keeps mixing genres, throwing puzzles at us, some platform challenges, and even RPG mechanics, but not all work very well. Most chapters have an investigative part, for example, in which we must talk to NPCs to gather clues to find out what happened (Spoilers: chimeras were going graaw graaw), and finally answer a quiz at the end to prove that we got it all right. But the whole process is too simple, too mechanical, and holds absolutely no surprises.

When inside the Astral Plane, things are much better, since now there are puzzles that require the use of each of our Legions’ special abilities. Legions are creatures the Ark’s cops use to beat up what they believe to be the bad guys (I hope real-life cops never learn about this power) – and these monsters are linked to them through a special chain, which we can say is… astral in nature. Our dog Legion, for instance, can track scents and find hidden items buried in the ground, while another one is able to move heavy objects with its gigantic hands, and a third Legion can cut lines of energy with its sword.

We can also encounter some platform challenges there, which often require us to use our special chain to cross huge gaps or move our Legion to specific locations. The Astral Plane, however, is a paradoxical area: while it’s a place where the gameplay is at its most engaging, it’s also the most visually generic setting we can find, being made of only obsidian blocks and blood-red crystals. It can be an oppressive location at first, sure, but after the fourth visit, it becomes visually repetitive – and we get to visit it much, much more than four times. In a way, then, we really get why the Chimeras want to leave: more hours there, and we would go graaw graaw too.

Astral Chain at least shines in the way that it finds new uses for the same objects and mechanics. Each of our Legion’s abilities, for example, has a specific function while exploring the environment, but also another one during combat: the dog Legion can also find hidden enemies in battle, while the one with big hands can throw objects at them. The chain that connects our character to their Legion can also tie up enemies, repel some attacks, be used to dodge others, and even help us jump on enemies

This means that Astral Chain is an unusual action game, in the sense that we’re basically controlling three characters at the same time. We have the protagonist, with just one attack button, but three weapons that can be switched on the fly: with him, we must perform a simple combo that ends with a synch attack with our active Legion while dodging incoming blows. In isolation, that would be too simple for a combat system, but here we’re also commanding the Legion itself (which thankfully attacks automatically, meaning we must activate only its special abilities and moves), and the astral chain, using it to tie up enemies and block attacks in real time. The combat can be intimidating at first, then, as it’s indeed complex, with lots of moving parts, but when we eventually master it, it’s great.

And talking about complexity, just listing the side activities in Astral Chain can be a daunting task. Like any good cop, we can save and adopt stray kittens, clean the streets from litter, find children who got lost from their parents, and even arrest street artists (at least, we’re not asked to beat up protesters, legally murder people who are unsavory to the powers that be, and form militias. Maybe in the sequel). Astral Chain keeps presenting new mechanics at a rapid pace, with even new legions being acquired periodically.

However, as you can expect, with so much stuff thrown in, not everything here is able to receive the proper care and attention. Some RPG elements, for example, can feel tacked on, having no impact whatsoever on the gameplay: each Legion has a small skill tree, which gives them new abilities and slightly better stats, and each one can also equip loot to boost those same stats, but the practical difference all these things make in combat is pretty insignificant, at least in the normal difficulty.

Between main missions, we’re also encouraged to “clean” our Legion from red matter, lest they become less effective in battle. This so-called “Maintenance” is just busywork we must do before starting each chapter, where we hold a button while aiming at an infected spot in our Legion and pray the red matter is wiped out before the creature decides to move. And the game encourages us to do this with every Legion after every chapter. If the goal was to make us bond with the creatures, I’m sorry to say the effect is actually quite the opposite.

Talking about red matter, we can also collect pieces of it in every stage as if they were coins in a Mario game, which also feels like needless busywork, since they rarely challenge us in the same vein coins do: while some are placed in seemingly out-of-reach locations, they always require us to perform the same simple action: to extend the chain so that our Legion can reach them.

Finally, each level is full of secrets to uncover, such as hidden chests and portals to special battles in the Astral Plane, which can present new enemies and even some bosses. Sometimes, however, the level design can feel artificial, breaking immersion and taking us right out of the game: there is one moment in which we must find higher ground so that we can send our legion to a far-away platform, but there is a bloody staircase leading to that very platform right there, totally in our reach, but one which we simply cannot use.

Astral Chain, then, may suffer from a shallow story and some underdeveloped ideas, but it makes up for that with its unique blend of genres and combat system.

August 05, 2025.

Review originally published on January 30, 2020.