Nintendo Astral Chain (Switch)

Es un juego muy completo, hermoso, y divertido. En mi opinión el mejor juego de Nintendo Switch

Un juego exclusivo para la Nintendo Switch por parte de Platinum Games, el mismísimo creador de la saga Bayonetta, la planteó un status de calidad en el género hack & slash. A continuación comento lo bueno y lo malo en cuanto a mi opinión:**Lo bueno**-Los diseños de los personajes, ambientación y enemigos, hablando en términos visuales, son un deleite, no se podría esperar más de Platinum Games.-El juego está completamente entero en el cartucho, tampoco hay actualizaciones que descargar, por lo que no va a consumir ningún espacio en nuestra MicroSD.-El juego cuenta con voice acting, tanto en inglés como japonés.-El juego es bastante largo, a pesar que solo son 12 capítulos, el gameplay sumado para completar en juego por primera vez lleva alrededor de 30+ horas.-Los elementos RPG para aumentar las habilidades de las legions (que son los monstruos que nos ayudan en la historia) son definitivamente geniales.-A pesar que sólo se necesitan 2 botones para realizar ataques y combos, la fluidez en el combate en cuanto a controles se refiere funciona de maravilla; como nota, esto no quiere decir que las batallas sean aburridas, al contrario, hay quick events en las batallas y movimientos especiales que realizándolos adecuadamente se pueden formar combos muy satisfactorios.-En el juego se toma el rol de una persona que pertenece a la policía, por tanto, el gameplay se amplía bastante, de tal forma que no todo es batallas, sino que se realizan tareas secundarias y primarias en donde se ayuda a otras personas sin necesidad de pelear. Éste aspecto esta genial desde mi perspectiva, a otras personas podría parecerles un lado débil en el juego por no ser 100% hack & slash.-La historia está plagada de clichés y se puede predecir fácilmente, aún así, es una característica del juego que me mantuvo enganchado.-En cuando a rejugabilidad, tiene bastante, lo cual le da un plus al “full price” que cuesta éste juego; muy apreciado por los jugadores que quieren completar el 100% del juego.**Lo malo**-Independientemente del voice acting que se esté usando (inglés o japonés) las animaciones de las bocas de los personajes en los diálogos no están sincronizadas con el audio.-Una característica del gameplay es que cuenta con mecánicas de plataformeo; y es aquí donde uno se da cuenta de uno de los más grandes problemas del juego: Para pasar de una plataforma a otra, uno tiene que enviar a la legion en la plataforma a la que se quiere llegar, luego se presiona ZR para que la legion nos jale con la cadena a tal plataforma, lo cuál es extremadamente tedioso: muchas veces caeremos al precipicio tratando de conseguir el plataformeo adecuado en el Astral Plane.-Hay un modo de vista que se activa con el botón ’+’ llamado IRIS, en este modo los gráficos cambian a manera de scanner, ayudando a encontrar pistas, misiones y objetos escondidos. El problema es que la brillantez y/o contraste de los gráficos mientras IRIS está activo, afecta a los ojos (hablando en mi experiencia personal).-Hay muchos momentos en el juego donde vemos lineas rojas delgadas atravesando la pantalla, lo cuál se puede percibir como baja calidad de juego en el área visual; en especial en los capítulos 9, 10 y 11.

Lo compré porque leí reseñas positivas sobre el mismo y, aunque no esperaba mucho, me terminó encantand.

Astral Chain was a game I wasn't quite sure whether to buy - I have a mixed history with Platinum Games. I loved Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, but couldn't get on with Vanquish or The Wonderful 101. When they do things well, they are amazing, but sometimes their more experimental concepts don't really make much sense to me or give me much satisfaction. However, I heard a ton of praise and high scores online so decided I'd take the plunge. The game had visuals that looked great, Bayonetta-like enemies and had a Legion system that sounded uncannily like Chaos Legion, a Capcom game I loved on the PS2.However, I've found myself frustrated by design ideas throughout the whole game, and soon got tired of the game's combat and storyline once I realised it just isn't what it could have been.The game's missions (called Files) are long affairs that typically take a couple of hours each.The first section of most Files involves visiting the game's futuristic Police HQ for story, briefing, training, shopping for items and customisation. Then you next wander around a small semi-free roam environment talking to civilians, doing little side quests and finding out clues toward the main case of that chapter, and move onto the final segment of the mission which is a more linear affair battling through enemies with your Legions.The problem I find is that every has good ideas, but execution that wasn't that great. The game's story is slow and predictable, and the cutscenes are lazily dubbed with distracting lack of lip-sync. The visuals work well in combat, but it all feels a bit lifeless when characters are standing around talking in the office.The side quests feel tacked on and not particularly interesting - I love games like Yakuza with their charming and silly side characters, but helping the citizens felt lazily thrown together and offered boring rewards - almost always just some credits to spend in the shop.While the city's areas look nice, I found myself hitting invisible barriers at the edges of areas that feel like they are more open. I would have enjoyed exploring the game a lot more of they had stitched the city together as a big open world like Batman, or otherwise lost these segments in favour of focusing purely on the linear combat stages. Doing sometimes upto an hour without much combat between the linear stages just had me feeling like I had to get back into the flow of the game's fighting when it rolled around again.In terms of combat, you start off with a simple baton and gun initially, before earning your first Legion to fight by your side. The main character's attacks feel weak and there isn't a huge amount of variety in combos, so its mostly a matter of mashing attack and dodging while you command your Legion.The Legions have more options available. They automatically attack when active, connected to you by a chain. You can manually move your Legion around to bind enemies with the chain, or interrupt a charging enemy to send them reeling back, and later learn cooldown moves to have them activate stronger combos or do follow-up attacks to your own.It all sounded good to me, but in practice I find combat both boring and messy. The main character doesnt have many options, so it's more about using your Legion while mashing away and dodging where you can.However, I found the controls for the Legion incredibly messy, and even after 20 hours felt really uncomfortable. Between manipulating the Legions' positions, using their own attacks, special link attacks and using the chain, it doesn't all flow together in a way that felt natural as the way they are each controlled feels clunky and messy rather than smooth (especially compared to say, Metal Gear Rising). And when you do use all the moves, it doesn't really seem any more effective or efficient to do so, so I didn't find myself needing to utilise every ability in meaningful ways.The Legions themselves seemed cool, until I realised that in combat it never really felt much different which one I used. Aside from occasionally switching to the ranged Legion for flying enemies, I'd execute the same few available combos and link attacks, half the time not even caring which Legion was active. The game's visuals in combat are often flashy and messy to the point I couldn't really focus on what my Legion was doing.With the main character's own attacks being limited, its not like playing say, Bayonetta, with an AI partner. It's like having a basic character with a few combos while relying on an AI to fight on the side and occasionally activate damaging moves with a button press. I really could have enjoyed the combat a lot more if the main character had more combat potential, even if it was more strategic things like juggling enemies into combos than dealing big damage.At around the third file, the game opened up most of it's options and I felt like it waa getting interesting. But by the sixth file I found combat just felt the same every time. Every enemy was dealt with in pretty much the same way (with a few exceptions like these little creatures that bury themselves and shield other creatures), and I just found myself wishing each mission would hurry up.I don't like to sound negative, but after reading so many positive reviews I am just confused what other people were getting out of it. The visuals are cool and the designs are nice, but it's just so *boring*. I honestly found myself trying to force myself to finish the game because I'd paid full price and hoped it would pick up, but 20 hours in I gave up. Watching the game in trailers, it looked fantastic - but with a controller in my hand it just felt tedious and repetitive.Unfortunately, this is one of those Platinum Games that just didn't work for me. It feels kind of half baked - and compared to say, Devil May Cry 5, I got so much less bang for my buck.

I ordered this for my son. He seems to enjoy it.