By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
mZuzek on 22 July 2021
Kakadu18 said:
RolStoppable said:

I thought the low point of the game is chapter 6 because it's so damn long relative to the others. Astral Chain closes out on a high note, so the final two chapters shouldn't disappoint you. Yes, only two.

File 12 is post-game where you can freely move in the office to talk to everyone again, but first and foremost it's all about accepting a huge amount of combat challenges from Olive. So there's no more balanced content anymore as the focus shifts entirely to the combat gameplay. If you've enjoyed that, there's plenty more to do in the game, but take note that the difficulty level is predetermined, so eventually it gets brutal. Should be roughly 20 challenges on medium difficulty, roughly 20 on medium-hard and then about 30 which are tough stuff.

The hard ones are insane. Played through the whole game again to upgrade my legions to maximum and get better to finish those and it was worth it.

Honestly, after my first playthrough on casual even the first batch already felt insane, I gave up on them pretty quickly. Thankfully there's no story content locked behind any of it, not even flavor text or anything, so it's not like you're missing out if you don't feel like going for it. After my second playthrough the gameplay really started to flow and I got through all of the post-game, they can be some pretty satisfying challenges to complete.

Also, personally I think File 6 is the high point of the game. That chapter just adds so much to the worldbuilding and makes this game so much more than it otherwise is. Sector V shows a completely different side of the game's world, which otherwise feels pretty generic, and Kyle steals the show. The chapter's pretty long and drawn out, yeah, but I feel it remains interesting throughout and is paced amazingly well in how it builds up to its insane ending.

I'm not sure I'd say it's my favorite chapter, because the last one is breathtaking, but I do feel like it's the one that adds the most to the game. As in, if you were to remove any chapter from Astral Chain, File 6 is the one where it'd impact the game most negatively.




I make music, check it out here on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Youtube!
my top 50 games

Around the Network
curl-6 on 22 July 2021
RolStoppable said:
curl-6 said:

Just finished File 9 in Astral Chain and holy moly, this game is epic. Unless the last three files are bad, it's worthy to stand alongside the likes of Bayonetta 1 + 2 and Vanquish as one of Platinum's best.

Also, it took me til now to realize there's sprint and slide commands haha. If the game ever told me, I forgot. XD 

I thought the low point of the game is chapter 6 because it's so damn long relative to the others. Astral Chain closes out on a high note, so the final two chapters shouldn't disappoint you. Yes, only two.

File 12 is post-game where you can freely move in the office to talk to everyone again, but first and foremost it's all about accepting a huge amount of combat challenges from Olive. So there's no more balanced content anymore as the focus shifts entirely to the combat gameplay. If you've enjoyed that, there's plenty more to do in the game, but take note that the difficulty level is predetermined, so eventually it gets brutal. Should be roughly 20 challenges on medium difficulty, roughly 20 on medium-hard and then about 30 which are tough stuff.
mZuzek said:
Kakadu18 said:

The hard ones are insane. Played through the whole game again to upgrade my legions to maximum and get better to finish those and it was worth it.

Honestly, after my first playthrough on casual even the first batch already felt insane, I gave up on them pretty quickly. Thankfully there's no story content locked behind any of it, not even flavor text or anything, so it's not like you're missing out if you don't feel like going for it. After my second playthrough the gameplay really started to flow and I got through all of the post-game, they can be some pretty satisfying challenges to complete.

Also, personally I think File 6 is the high point of the game. That chapter just adds so much to the worldbuilding and makes this game so much more than it otherwise is. Sector V shows a completely different side of the game's world, which otherwise feels pretty generic, and Kyle steals the show. The chapter's pretty long and drawn out, yeah, but I feel it remains interesting throughout and is paced amazingly well in how it builds up to its insane ending.

I'm not sure I'd say it's my favorite chapter, because the last one is breathtaking, but I do feel like it's the one that adds the most to the game. As in, if you were to remove any chapter from Astral Chain, File 6 is the one where it'd impact the game most negatively.

Ah, so File 11 is the finale of the story, got it. I just finished 10 so I'll get stuck into 11 tonight.

I actually quite enjoyed File 6 as mzuzek says the worldbuilding, but also for that chase through the raging storm at the end with the awesome music, using your legion to tap into the security cameras and feed them into your Iris so you can track your suspect through the chaos.

My favourite so far was probably 9 though, for how epic it was. Trying out the newly acquired Axe legion, the fights with Jena, the motorbike sequence,

Spoiler!
the first fusion, Jena's death scene,

all great.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 22 July 2021

Bet with Liquidlaser: I say PS5 and Xbox Series will sell more than 56 million combined by the end of 2023.

mZuzek on 22 July 2021
curl-6 said:

the motorbike sequence

Yeah I thought it was cool too until I decided I wanted to get S+ rank in everything.

Never try to get S+ rank in everything.




I make music, check it out here on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Youtube!
my top 50 games

curl-6 on 22 July 2021
mZuzek said:
curl-6 said:

the motorbike sequence

Yeah I thought it was cool too until I decided I wanted to get S+ rank in everything.

Never try to get S+ rank in everything.

I'm playing on casual so I don't even get rankings, which is probably for the best haha. I don't play games to be stressed out or pushed to my limits, I play games to relax.



Bet with Liquidlaser: I say PS5 and Xbox Series will sell more than 56 million combined by the end of 2023.

curl-6 on 24 July 2021

Astral Chain's final boss sucks, one of the most frustrating I think I've ever fought in my life.

Between him having way, way too much HP and taking forever to die, to his attacks always being in a constant lightspeed flurry where you can perfect dodge three times in a row and still be hit, I felt like I had to cheese the game by just riding around the dog most of the time just to beat him. Way too much of a difficulty spike and extremely annoying.

It felt as though the difficulty has suddenly been jacked up to "hard", and as someone who was playing on casual for a reason, this was like being told your pizza is vegetarian only to find a piece of salami in the last bite.

Extremely not fun and the only serious blemish on an otherwise excellent game.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 24 July 2021

Bet with Liquidlaser: I say PS5 and Xbox Series will sell more than 56 million combined by the end of 2023.

Around the Network
Kakadu18 on 24 July 2021
curl-6 said:

Astral Chain's final boss is the worst boss I've ever played in my entire life. Disgusting.

Weird, I found it epic and fun. Challenging but fun.



curl-6 on 24 July 2021
Kakadu18 said:
curl-6 said:

Astral Chain's final boss is the worst boss I've ever played in my entire life. Disgusting.

Weird, I found it epic and fun. Challenging but fun.

To me it crossed the line and just became way too frustratingly and unreasonable. I had no trouble with any of the game's other encounters but this fight was just an endless grating assault of unfair feeling attacks. It really spoiled the game's finale for me, that after thoroughly enjoying myself for the first 15+ hours I had to spend the last 20 minutes stressed and unhappy.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 24 July 2021

Bet with Liquidlaser: I say PS5 and Xbox Series will sell more than 56 million combined by the end of 2023.

Kakadu18 on 24 July 2021
curl-6 said:
Kakadu18 said:

Weird, I found it epic and fun. Challenging but fun.

To me it crossed the line and just became way too frustratingly and unreasonable. I had no trouble with any of the game's other encounters but this fight was just an endless grating assault of unfair feeling attacks. It really drags down my assessment of the game when it ends on such a painful note.

I mean it was long, but the phases were very different, so it didn't feel overlong to me and it didn't feel unfair to me. For me the game ended on a highnote, also an emotional one because of my final decision after the fight. Not spoiling for others.



curl-6 on 24 July 2021
Kakadu18 said:
curl-6 said:

To me it crossed the line and just became way too frustratingly and unreasonable. I had no trouble with any of the game's other encounters but this fight was just an endless grating assault of unfair feeling attacks. It really drags down my assessment of the game when it ends on such a painful note.

I mean it was long, but the phases were very different, so it didn't feel overlong to me and it didn't feel unfair to me. For me the game ended on a highnote, also an emotional one because of my final decision after the fight. Not spoiling for others.

The closing cutscene and choice was well done, as were the first two phases of the final boss.

The third though, it just felt like the game wasn't playing by its own rules; when you call a difficulty setting "casual" and the whole game up to that point is manageable for a player like myself, suddenly throwing a super hard boss into the mix just doesn't feel fair or respectful of the player.

It's not a dealbreaker, just something I wish the game had done a better job of considering everything else about it is so good.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 24 July 2021

Bet with Liquidlaser: I say PS5 and Xbox Series will sell more than 56 million combined by the end of 2023.

GoOnKid on 24 July 2021
curl-6 said:
Kakadu18 said:

I mean it was long, but the phases were very different, so it didn't feel overlong to me and it didn't feel unfair to me. For me the game ended on a highnote, also an emotional one because of my final decision after the fight. Not spoiling for others.

The closing cutscene and choice was well done, as were the first two phases of the final boss.

The third though, it just felt like the game wasn't playing by its own rules; when you call a difficulty setting "casual" and the whole game up to that point is manageable for a player like myself, suddenly throwing a super hard boss into the mix just doesn't feel fair or respectful of the player.

It's not a dealbreaker, just something I wish the game had done a better job of considering everything else about it is so good.

I agree, the final boss is so difficult compared to the rest of the game, it really feels out of place. Congrats for still beating the game!

On a side note, the same issue is present in Daemon X Machina. The final boss is super hard! When I got along the whole game pretty fine but then the final boss kicked my butt over and over, I asked myself if I played it wrong the entire time. At least he had an amazing boss theme, so that's something. Funnily both games released pretty close to each other.