4.5/10?????? 

https://youtu.be/lG2dXobAXLI?t=515

It's like the opposite of this video 

The combat is easily one of the most fluid and satisfying I have ever experienced. That's why I love the game so much, because the combat is so much fun and also fast paced and complex. I haven't played Bayonetta, so I can't compare it, but it's in no way awkward. It's the best part of the game.

Astral Chain's combat is good. Not nearly as good as Bayonetta or Devil May Cry's, but its good albeit with some problems. Its the best part of the game.

Well, that's certainly encouraging to hear. A great combat system would be enough to carry an action game for me even if I don't vibe with the story or visuals. From what little I've heard the music sounds pretty awesome too, which would be a definite plus if so.

At least if the rest of the year doesn't have much to interest me, it will be good to have this in reserve as a backup.

I guess you meant 3...

Astral Chain is good for a debut game

Actually I found the story slightly better (or at least engaged more) than the fighting gameplay

Overall it's a 8/10 for me. I'm sure a sequel will solve most main my concerns about the repetitive-looking Astral Plane and the situational chimera usage

The story is pretty bad imo. It starts out as a harmless bunch of references to Nier Automata and Evangelion and then takes itself super seriously towards the end and gets a little cringey. Though I will say the part with the Hermit is pretty interesting and something I hope they expand on in a hypothetical sequel. 

I honestly am pretty defensive of the Astral Plane. I don't think it looks boring at all. I get the complaint that it's repetitive, and maybe that repetition makes it boring by the end for some people. But I wouldn't describe that as the Astral Plane being boring, moreso the repetition. It's super ethereal with a great aesthetic makeup, one of the best I've seen in a game. Really the bigger problem is despite the story literally showing how the Astral Plane portals can suck things in like a vortex, we never really see much environmental details showcasing this. We just have to sometimes find a robot. It's the kind of thinking that is needed to make repetitive visuals more less ... well, repetitive. 

The combat is pretty decent in my opinion, though the reason why I can't say it's as good as Bayonetta or DMC is that so much of Astral Chain's combat potential is essentially treating the game like a set of binaries that either do or don't happen. A lot of button combos act more like triggers for actions, like something you'd see in Xenoblade, rather than a standard action game. For example the legion move that essentially with automatically tie the enemy down and almost never misses, the dog legion move that does a stunning howl, etc. These aren't bad, but they are essentially the only complexities in the combat system. Because of this, the combo system just becomes what two button presses on a cooldown will I make next a lot of the time, it doesn't really require a lot of the real time quick decision making of something like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, nor the memorization of complex combos. I don't really mind that too much because it does represent a combat system that is unlike anything from other action games (despite ironically stringing together basically every idea PlatinumGames and even pre-PlatinumGames titles have implemented up until now, lol). It helps that it's very satisfying to tie down enemies. But it is naturally a bit more restrictive and gets too easy and repetitive towards the end. I agree with you that I basically used two legions towards the end of the game. Again though, because of the titles pacing, it's not too big of an issue given that you get your full set of legions pretty late and a lot of the overpowered moves for those two legion I seem to remember getting later. The final boss is even designed around switching out multiple legions. It is a problem nonetheless. 

As far as the level design goes, it's a bit of a mixed baguette. I think I do find a lot of the level design pretty good, I like how the Astral Plane takes after Zelda's dungeon design. But a lot of it for the human world is pretty cluttered. Lots of narrow pathways or giant areas leading to like one small optional bonus. Somewhat acceptable given it adds. One thing I find really interesting and kind of conceptually underrated about Astral Chain is how it has platforming that basically acts like an evolution of the kind of platforming you'd see in Ocarina of Time. The amount of height you gain from a jump is pretty much nothing and your destination is more or less already determined by the time you commit to the jump, what's mostly important is how much ground you cover in your jump. Astral Chain does it really thoughtfully with the legion's leash. But, man, is it fucking jank in the game. Like, you can basically create the perfect chain loop just as the game wants, and somehow the physics will work to just slightly catapult you off course leading to your total death. It's so fucking annoying, and it might actually be one of the few scenarios in a game where having less punishment for failing at platforming was as equally annoying as just making the player load a save probably would have been. Just constantly seeing your main character leash out of the abyss a million times to no fault of your own was infuriating in the most asinine way. 

Also, even though I feel like it's one of those scenarios where a developer thought of an ingenious way to tie story to gameplay and wanted to be really original with it, the matter of fact is "investigations" in third person games are super played out and boring. There's really no defense of it other than it makes a little more sense in Astral Chain than it does in a lot of other games. But they're dull. So eh, wouldn't mind them cutting them out. 

I'd give it a 7.5/10. It's a pretty good game but it's hard to take away too much from it when a lot of what it got right was fundamental at best. The music is fucking amazing though, along with Odyssey and Monster Hunter Rise it probably has one of the best original OSTs on the Switch. 

Welcome to the internets! 

Didn't imagine my self saying this, but the Mario golf game is looking really promising. It seemed full of content and enjoyable ones for a golf game.
It certainly will attract a new audience to the series.

New Mario Gold Super Rush trailer