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Interface
Interactivestral Chain’s opening hours throw
so much at the screen that it almost
feels a bit overwhelming at first. It’s
a third-person brawler. No wait, it’s
also a kind of detective game. It’s a
monster-hunting-and-catching 53*, like Pokémon
but with the stylings of The Guyver. There are also
pu]]les, elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and general
anime strangeness, including a police oɝcer who
provides advice while
dressed as a big canine
mascot named /appy.
Like Nier: Automata
before it, Astral Chain
has the feel of a game
where its creators at
PlatinumGames have allowed their imaginations
to run riot. But while director Takahisa Taura’s
game feels like a bewildering melange at first, it
soon snaps into focus thanks to the coherence of
its world – where the notion of cops fighting crime
with the help of a supernatural being on a leash
actually feels plausible – and some rock-solid
design principles. Astral Chain’s action essentially
boils down to a kind of co-operative mode, except
with the player controlling both central characters;
as a skilled member of a special police task force
named Neuron, you can freely move and attack,
and by pressing and holding the left trigger,you can move your monster – or /egion – around
the battlefield to fight enemies.
If your /egion’s close to an enemy, it’ll start
fighting it, but by manipulating the astral chain
that connects it, you can perform special attacks
and even use the chain itself to wrap up and
ensnare enemies. This latter techniTue soon
becomes a useful tactic, since it prevents foes
from fighting back as you and your monster
partner finish it off
with a killer blow, or
switch your focus to
another enemy.
This chain attack also
has an interesting origin:
in a June interview with
3olygon, director Takahisa Taura revealed, in
an almost casual aside, that the mechanic was
directly inspired by a little-known Namco game
from the early eighties. ȊNow that we’ve got a
chain between these two characters, we decided
to use that within the gameplay,ȋ Taura explained.
ȊWhether that’s using that chain to wrap up
enemy characters, or pulling it tight to trip them,
at the time of development we kept putting out
ideas like that to better-use the chain. I don’t
know if you know about this, but this is an old
arcade game that we were influenced by called
Libble Rabble.ȋA
“On occasions, a chiptune
rendition of Mendelssohn’s
Wedding March would play”Interface
Libble Rabble Libble Rabble’s arcade
ːʰer ƃttempts to eʯpȢƃin
its ƃrrƃʰ oǹ ruȢesӝ Ԇ9ƃshishiԇ
is the gƃmeԇs nƃme ǹor
the stretchʰ eȢƃsticӝ
Libble Rabble
strƃȢ :hƃinԇs Ȣinȟ to the pƃst
With their “synergetic action game” Astral Chain, PlatinumGames
harked back to an obscure relic from Namco’s archives Śith its ÃotoroȢƃ ћѝѕѕѕ
processorӗ the Libble
Rabble ƃrcƃǁe mƃchine
couȢǁ ǁispȢƃʰ ǹƃr more
enemies on the screen
thƃn Pƃc-Ãƃnӝ