Review – Astral Chain

Brand new this month is a game called Astral Chain, but is it any good?

Chris Berrow - So Astral Chain you haven't really seen this one. So it's very story driven. It's like a hack and slasher, but with a really good story which is very unusual. And you've got this thing called a legion which is basically like a pet. But it's like a sort of alien pet.

So the "astral chain" is the chain that controls it and you summon it. And when you're fighting the bad guys... it's you and your legions almost like swinging round this chain together, and you can use your legion to sort of encircle bad guys and lock them up and stuff together.

It's really good. I didn't think this was going to be that good a game but this has probably overtaken Zelda: Breath of the Wild as actually the game I played the most this month - the combat's amazing... the running inside is a bit awkward there's there's a lot of weird stuff in the game - I want to mention a few the odd things... so there's a toilet paper fairy in the toilet. And if you give it toilet paper it's happy.

There's a thing called "Lappy" the dog where a female character dresses up as the mascot of the police station "Lappy" the dog and it's just really odd. It is bizarre.

The thing I didn't like was that the lips don't move to the English translation of the game. So it's like a Japanese game. And you think they've done so much to make it incredible... why not just do that last final hurdle.

The detective elements as well are very much like a game called LA Noir which is one of my favorite games. And that's just a little bonus on top of all the combat.

So you're kind of solving cases... you're a police officer... it's over the shoulder camera stuff like that.

There's only one grammar mistake in this game and they say "worse comes to worse" instead of "worst comes to worst". Grammar police I know I know.

Leigh - So what would you give it out of 10?

Chris - Honestly this game is a must buy for the Switch. Despite the things that I've said that I don't like about it I'll give it a 9 out of 10 now. That's because it is greater than the sum of its parts. So individual elements are fine but when they're knitted together to create the game it's a real game experience to me honestly. I played this more than Zelda. This is actually taken over I think I'm going to want to go back and play on the most difficult mode as well so Astral Chain is out now on Nintendo Switch. And if you want to get it definitely get really good.