#4: Astral Chain
This game did to me the unthinkable. It managed to top Super Mario Sunshine while not being a Zelda game. When first seeing Astral Chain I knew it was for me, I was intrigued by it's style and gameplay. I got it late last year on sale on the eshop and the next week or two Astral Chain was all I could think about. I just always wanted to continue playing it when I wasn't. I couldn't let go of it.
The world is incredibly intriguing and interesting, all the places you visit have their own identity and atmosphere. The Astral Plain is one of the coolest looking places in any game. Detailed levels with some great puzzles and alot of sidequests with incredible variety. From fetchquests, over motion based quests to difficult puzzles where you need to clear a street from broken down cars. Side quests where you chase a criminal down or spy on one to get intel or simply save someone, show off your shooting skills etc. I love the variety. The characters are mostly very well written and the dialogues are great.
The story is nothing special but it does it's job greatly, with some nice twists thrown in it's pretty good. The game is quite cinematic in places. Huge monsters jumping from building to building around you looks really impressive. They artstyle is right up my alley. It looks darn cool with some strong color themes. The detective work is surprisingly fun and works really well in between the action.
The combat is where the show is really at. It fantastic. Works really well and is way more fun than I expected it to be. Seriously great. The legions all have their own skill tree where you can unlock more possible combos. The combos are fun to pull of and sometimes very satisfying. Each legion also has it's own additional skills that come in handy when solving puzzles which are Zelda level great. The enemies are great with some greatly creative designes. The bosses are fun to fight, the final boss being the absolute highlight with an extreme challenge that takes alot of skill and some very different phases. The ending is very impactful and greatly written.
An incredible game, dare I even say a masterpiece. Very underrated imo. I love it.
Astral Chain is my favorite Switch exclusive.
