Sam Lake, the writer known for penning the worlds of Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and the upcoming Control, shared an interesting bit of personal history on this month’s IGN Unfiltered. While other students in Finland were applying to colleges with research papers and resumes, Lake was required to send in a 75-page screenplay. So he submitted a draft of his video game script.
“The drama teacher had just returned to
from Los Angeles,” Lake told IGN. “He’d been here for years studying and doing script doctoring, things like that. He came back to Finland and started to teach screenwriting. In the setup for that, he was saying ‘You can choose: you write in Finnish or you write in English.’ That felt, to me, that’s perfect. You needed to send 75 pages of screenplay as a sample, so I just sent Max Payne.”
Here we are at the end of all things. The last of the finest. The curtain call for the single remaining start-up Netflix Original. House of Cards imploded by the end. Hemlock Grove never made it past Season 3. Same for Bloodline and Marco Polo. After that, you get into the second wave of Originals (Bojack, Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None, the Marvel shows, etc) and the business officially picks up on the Peak TV front.But Orange Is the New Black, with its addictive, macabre bounciness, has remained tall and true through it all. And it nails the ending here. Now that the show can put a final stamp on things and close up shop on the characters and arcs, there’s a freedom of design that hasn’t really been present since the first season. There are lags and sags, sure, as you’ll find with most 13-episode seasons where the chapters all run about 60 minutes each, but, damn it, there’s some sweetly destructive stuff here too. A bountiful blend of triumph and tragedy.
And that’s the OITNB bingo game running underneath Season 7, really: Who’s going to make it? Not simply “Who’s going to make it out of prison?” but “Who’s going to be okay?” Because those things can easily be mutually exclusive. And no, not everyone makes it. Viewers looking for the type of closure that comforts and consoles will probably have a hard time absorbing a lot of this.
Orange is the New Black: Season 7 Gallery
As Taylor Schilling’s Piper readjusts to the outside world, in a new life that’s set up for her (and other ex-cons) to struggle with and fail at, the rest of the inmates in Litchfield Max (the setting since the riot in Season 5) do their best to either face their fate or alter their course. Naturally, the predictable and generic choice for a TV series coming to an end would be to right wrongs and see justice prevail, but Orange dances to a vastly different beat.
You might think redemption is in store for a handful of these complex inmates, but you’ll only be right half of the time. Some go the distance while others trip up right before the finish line. Surprisingly, the fate-game, given the massive ensemble, adds a layer of suspense to Orange’s unique dramedy recipe.
Also, while Season 7 contains a decent amount of returning faces (not just those who vanished post-Season 5), it also stays honest to the credo that “sometimes people’s stories just end.” Sometimes folks vanish. Beneath Orange’s trademark witticisms and woke whimsy is a sinister source code that embraces chaos and directly showcases how each character accepts or rejects life’s cut-throat uncertainties.
Netflix Spotlight: August 2019
New faces flood in, some with their own tumultuous arcs and backstories, thanks to PolyCon Corrections’ ugly new ICE Detention Center, which we saw Blanca wind up in at the end of Season 6. Not that Litchfield itself doesn’t feature some seriously dire s*** in the final stretch — from Taystee’s deep dive into dark thoughts to an alarming ailment that grabs hold of Red — but it’s in the ICE block that most of the horrors unfold.
Sadly, I can’t divulge too much here, except to mention vague starting blocks like “Piper and Alex face relationship challenges now that Piper is on the outside,” “Doggett and Maria try to improve their lives,” “Tamika gets an exciting new opportunity,” and “Nikki tries to balance a new love with old responsibilities,” but it should be said that the most interesting stories to witness here are the characters who try their hardest to create systemic changes for good. From a bookend standpoint, we also get to cycle back into Piper’s life and revisit her inherent need to feel like an outlier, whether it draws people in or pushes people away.
Given how much this final season is meant to illuminate the creeping and cruel darkness saturating our country right now, Orange finds its strength, and salvation, in kindness and decency. Hell, even Alysia Reiner’s Fig discovers an inner light when confronted with the inhumanity of ICE. Orange may sometimes play things a bit on-the-nose, and not all the flashbacks this season are necessary (though the same could be said for most flashbacks after the first few years), but the full experience of this series, and this season, will simultaneously elevate you and haunt you.
When it comes to games, we’re pretty familiar with the trappings of fantasy, sci-fi or war narratives, but you might be a little less up to date with New Weird. Coined by author M. John Harrison to describe the work of (among others) China Miéville, it’s a form of speculative fiction that revels in inexplicability – it’s often a bit horror, a bit sci-fi, a bit fantasy, but if you put it up against any of the canon texts in those genres, it wouldn’t look like any of them. It’s telling that many authors who get told they’re part of the New Weird immediately reject it, because they think being defined at all is too limiting.Control
might well be the first mainstream New Weird game. New Weird fiction is often about a place, not people, and The Oldest House – Remedy Entertainment’s unknowable new setting – very much fits the bill. New Weird also reflects the underlying weirdness of the modern world, and Control’s fiction regularly weaves in real-life events, recontextualising them for a world in which there’s a government bureau to combat paranatural occurrences. Most of all, New Weird is really f**king odd. And yes, Control is that too.
Perhaps more than anything else, it’s that genre choice that makes Control stand out – but it might also make it feel unfamiliar. That’s why we asked narrative designer Brooke Maggs to put together a New Weird reading (and watching) list to help get you acclimated to the genre, and learn the influences that Control’s twisting to make its own New Weird narrative:
Southern Reach Trilogy – Jeff Vandermeer (Book Series)
Vandermeer quite literally wrote the book on the New Weird, so there’s no better place to start than with this trio of oddities: Annihilation (recently turned into a movie), Authority and Acceptance. The series is named for a secretive government agency (one overt connection to Control) and centres on its work in Area X, an abandoned portion of the US that’s begun creating inexplicable changes to both places and people inside. If you want some sense of how deep the homage goes here, the second book begins with a character becoming a new director of the agency in the title – also the opening to Remedy’s game. Oh and that character’s codename? ‘Control’.
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski (Book)
Perhaps the best way to understand The Oldest House and its shifting innards is to try to understand House of Leaves. This work of staggeringly eerie weirdness revolves around the effects of a (possibly fictional) house that doesn’t conform to the laws of reality and a (possibly fictional) documentary made about it in which things go horribly wrong, all told (possibly fictionally) by a tattoo artist going slowly insane. It is, in some ways, a haunted house story, except the haunting is by physics.
No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again: Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory 1915-1935 (Book)
The only non-fiction entry on the list, this collection of 33 missives sent to an LA observatory includes rants on extraterrestrials, cosmology and the general state of the universe from real people across the world. It’s a fascinating mixture of science and fantasy, often written with the intimate touch of those who weren’t expecting to find their words reproduced for a book. The collection’s inspired a whole section of collectibles in the game, the Dead Letters, which are similar pieces of correspondence sent to the government and intercepted by the Bureau.
Control: 11 New Screenshots
The Bone Clocks – David Mitchell (Book)
The Cloud Atlas author’s multi-character, multi-time period novel is distinguishable for hiding so much of its weirdness. Most of its main characters (and the reader following them) aren’t initially aware of quite how dark and strange this seemingly normal world is behind the scenes, extending into immortality, ritual sacrifice and psychic warfare. Control places you inside of that stranger side, with protagonist Jesse Faden becoming more and more aware of how deep and dark the rabbithole gets.
Stalker (Movie)
Tarkovski’s sci-fi masterpiece centres on those travelling through the Zone, a military-protected area in which reality doesn’t function as expected, and even gravity needs to be tested to proceed safely. The Zone is a clear inspiration for the The Oldest House (not to mention Southern Reach’s Area X), but the titular Stalker – able to sense the route ahead and help those less able – also feels like an antecedent for Jesse, who becomes the Bureau of Control’s means of tackling its world-warping problems.
Twin Peaks (TV Series)
David Lynch’s landmark series doesn’t resemble Control very much – besides its government agent protagonist – but it’s absolutely a tonal reference. The series’ ability to segue seamlessly from soap opera to nightmare is reflected in how Control can turn on a dime from straightforward shooter into esoteric adventure. It’s also a visual reference – expressive lighting and a love of the colour red are a major part of both Twin Peaks and the game.
Legion (TV Series)
Noah Hawley’s adaptation of this comic book tale about Professor X’s son constantly plays with perspective, never quite letting you feel sure that what you’re watching isn’t inside someone’s head. You’ll quickly begin to feel the same about Control, where rooms can shift themselves around, portraits change in their frames, and nothing feels quite right. I haven’t seen an extended dance sequence yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out. On a more surface level, Legion is also the story of someone with extremely entertaining telekinetic powers – Control’s Jesse definitely fits that bill.
The X-Files (TV Series)
Perhaps the most straightforward comparison of all, Chris Carter’s magnificent series features government agents hunting for conspiracies, monsters and paranormal events that silently plague an otherwise unremarkable world. The Federal Bureau of Control – when it’s not being attacked from within – is much the same, as you’ll discover from its own case files strewn around The Oldest House. Just like the X-Files, some of those cases shine a new, weird light on real-world events you may have read about – you’ll want to stop to do a lot of reading.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s UK Deputy Editor, and he still thinks about how House of Leaves made him read parts of it in the mirror, like a chump. Follow him on Twitter.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Doom, and the seminal FPS series will have a big presence at QuakeCon, which kicks off later today, July 26. Bethesda has already confirmed we’ll get another look at the upcoming Doom Eternal during its QuakeCon keynote, but it appears another surprise from the event has leaked early.
As spotted by Nintendo Life, the original Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 3 have been listed for Switch on the Nintendo UK website. The pages each listed the games as releasing for Switch today, with Doom 1 and 2 priced at £4, while Doom 3 costs £8. The titles aren’t live on the Switch eShop, however, and no pages for them have yet appeared on Nintendo of America’s website, so it’s unclear if these listings were simply a mistake or went live earlier than intended.
The QuakeCon keynote begins today at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET, and it’ll be followed by an Influence of Doom panel at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Bethesda will also host panels for Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online this weekend. If you’re interested in following along, you can watch the QuakeCon livestreams here.
Doom Eternal is coming to Switch as well as PS4, Xbox One, and PC this November. We got an extended look at the game during Bethesda’s E3 2019 press conference, where the publisher showcased a brutal gameplay trailer and revealed the title’s collector’s edition, which comes with a full-size Doom Slayer helmet. You can read more in our Doom Eternal pre-order guide.
QuakeCon 2019 Schedule
Friday, July 26th
QuakeCon Keynote featuring Doom Eternal – 11 AM CT (12 PM ET / 9 AM PT)
Influence of Doom Panel – 12 PM CT (1 PM ET / 10 AM PT)
Saturday, July 27th
Fallout 76 Panel – 10 AM CT (11 AM ET / 8 AM PT)
Knee Deep in Doom panel – 11 AM CT (12 PM ET / 9 AM PT)
Elder Scrolls Online Panel – 2 PM CT (3 PM ET / 11 AM PT)
Aside from a manga adaptation, Kill la Kill The Game: IF is the first expansion to the story of 2013’s Kill la Kill, the hit anime series that put Studio Trigger on the map. Kill la Kill IF captures the unique fighting styles of the main cast of characters from the anime in arena battles, while also delivering some enjoyable missions to tackle in the single-player campaign. It doesn’t manage to deliver a balanced competitive landscape, but there is a delightful collection of rewards to work towards in Kill la Kill IF–supplying a satisfying incentive for replaying the single-player content.
Kill la Kill follows Ryuko Matoi, who transfers to Japan’s prestigious Honnouji Academy in hopes of finding answers to her father’s murder. Her only clue is half of the giant scissor used to kill him. Honnouji Academy is run by fascist student council president Satsuki Kiryuin and her closest allies: the Elite Four. Students at the school wear Goku Uniforms, each providing enhanced strength and superhuman abilities. Realizing Satsuki recognizes the scissor blade she carries, Ryuko attacks and demands answers, only to be ultimately trounced by the president’s underlings. After escaping, Ryuko stumbles upon a sentient sailor uniform who gifts her with god-like magical girl powers when it feeds on her blood. Now much more powerful, Ryuko swears to defeat the entire student body of Honnouji Academy and gain the answers she seeks.
Kill la Kill IF is a “what if” scenario, asking, “What if Satsuki was the protagonist of Kill la Kill?” The hypothetical is explored in the game’s campaign extraordinarily well, putting forth the theory that Satsuki may have been the brilliant mastermind behind the anime’s entire narrative from the very beginning, tragically refusing the spotlight she wants because she believes her plans for a better world will work out for the better if Ryuko is the main hero. It’s a fascinating addition to Kill la Kill’s lore, and it provides plenty of incentive to see the game’s two-part campaign all the way through.
Combat in Kill la Kill IF is pretty easy to pick up, with your staple combination of close-range, long-range, aerial, guard-break, and special attacks. There’s also a rock-paper-scissors-style clash system that allows you to buff yourself if you’re lucky enough to win. Though every character controls the same, each has a completely different specialty and unique playstyle. Masochistic Ira Gamagoori becomes more powerful by whipping and damaging himself, for instance, while petite Nonon Jakuzure excels at shooting her opponent from a distance and manipulative Nui Harime relies on decoys to overwhelm her opponents from multiple angles. Though the roster does offer a diversity of playstyles, there are only eight options to choose from at launch. That’s a pretty small pool for a fighting game–disappointing given how massive Kill la Kill’s cast is. This is slightly offset by the alternate costumes that change how certain characters attack, but the adjustments aren’t enough to make the variants feel like brand-new fighters.
Exciting though the colorful combat may be, it also feels lopsided with no reliable means of defending yourself. Every fighter can block and dodge, but both moves are pretty slow so it’s fairly easy to just overwhelm opponents with aggressive close-range characters. Once caught in a combo, there’s only one way to recover, and that’s using a counter burst–a move that uses up half of your special attack meter. You have to deal out or endure quite a few hits to fill up the meter, so you can’t regularly rely on having a counter burst at the ready. And if you are caught in a combo and you don’t have that 50% of meter to burn, you just have to wait until your opponent stops attacking you. As a result, juggling can be a pretty big issue against difficult AI opponents or advanced players that know how to pull off the game’s longer, more devastating combos–which can lead to unfair and unfun matches.
Despite the issues with combat, battles in the game are wholeheartedly Kill la Kill, and they’re typically glorious fun as a result. Characters yell out the name of their special attacks–some with barely contained rage and others with malicious glee–in epic battle cries, each one animated in a cel-shaded rendition of Kill la Kill’s over-the-top style. The most powerful blows land with an impact, slowing down the action just long enough for you to understand the recipient is about to be very hurt. The addition of the luck-based clash system feels right at home too, giving you a last-ditch effort to maybe make a comeback–randomly screaming during a battle and luckily finding a deeper well of strength is extremely Kill la Kill. Sure, the lack of a reliable counter system means winning in these battles is less about skill and more about who can press the attack buttons more quickly, but that doesn’t change that most matches are still explosively epic, full of silly puns, and just enjoyable to play. This is especially true for most of the battles in Kill la Kill IF’s campaign.
There are a variety of obstacles to overcome in the campaign as the game offers more than what’s usually expected from arena fighters. Though there are still traditional one-on-one fights, Kill la Kill IF’s story mode is a mixture of various mission types. The most interesting ones take advantage of the constantly shifting alliances in the narrative. One battle has Satsuki, Ryuko, and Nui all fight in a three-way free-for-all, for instance, and another sees Satsuki go up against the brain-washed Elite Four in a one-on-four fight. Wave-based battles against a horde of enemies are thrown into the mix, too. The variety keeps the campaign from getting stale.
Though these types of missions offer a welcome change of pace for an arena fighter, they’re also held back by Kill la Kill IF’s traditional mechanics and features. Most arena fighters don’t need a mechanic to specifically focus on one combatant or a feature to alert you when an off-screen target is about to attack, as fights are pretty much exclusively one-on-one. In Kill la Kill IF’s campaign, where you occasionally fight multiple enemies at once and the only way to remain focused on a character is to stay near them, the absence of any such mechanic or feature is far more noticeable. It’s tricky to stay focused on the fighter you want when you and your opponents are being smacked around the arena, and it’s frustrating when you’re in the midst of a combo and you don’t know whether you need to suddenly dodge or block because you’re about to be attacked from outside your field of view.
Outside the campaign, Kill la Kill IF offers Practice and Versus modes, as well as a horde challenge and figure posing gallery. Given the risque nature of Kill la Kill, it’s a nice surprise that the figures’ available poses aren’t all that leery, though the offering of shots you can produce is a little sparse. The gallery feels tacked on as a poor replacement for a photo mode, which is a shame given how gorgeous many of the characters look while in motion. Offline Versus works without issue; however, as this review in progress is going live the day of Kill la Kill IF’s official international release, we haven’t had adequate time to put the online version through its paces. We’ll update this review once we do.
Both the Japanese and English dub anime voice actors reprise their roles in Kill la Kill IF, so you can enjoy whichever cast you prefer (it’s something a lot more anime games should do, frankly). Unfortunately, the English dub doesn’t perfectly match up in certain animations, so there are quite a few moments where characters are technically done speaking but their mouths keep moving. It’s no deal-breaker, as both sets of voice actors do a great job once again bringing their respective characters to life. The voices aren’t the only sound from the anime to make it into the game either. Songs from Kill la Kill are regularly intermixed into the originally composed soundtrack, including fan-favorites “Before My Body Is Dry” and “Sirius,” augmenting every battle and emotional moment with the same epic sensations as the anime.
The voice actors and soundtrack provide the biggest motivation to keep playing Kill la Kill IF. As you complete the story and win matches, you’ll unlock in-game currency that you can use to buy songs and special recorded messages. The messages that seem to be from the characters’ perspectives are an absolute delight, like Satsuki providing words of encouragement to those living in “this cruel world,” but most are from the voice actors themselves–Todd Haberkorn (Shirou Iori) teasingly relaying congratulations for beating the game, for instance, or Carrie Keranen (Satsuki Kiryuin) revealing just how much it meant to get a chance to do voice work for Kill la Kill again after nearly five years. It’s all phenomenal content–ranging from hilarious to heartfelt–which provides plenty of incentive to keep playing and earn more in-game currency.
Kill la Kill IF is clearly designed for fans of Kill la Kill who are looking for more ways to enjoy the characters, music, and battles of the anime series. Each fighter behaves as they do in the anime, and the excellent voice actor rewards provide a nice incentive to keep playing even after you’ve mastered every character. However, as a fighting game, Kill la Kill IF doesn’t deliver the expected harmony of offense and defense. And though campaign battles that are beyond the one-on-one formula are an awesome addition, the traditional arena fighting game mechanics aren’t designed to adequately handle multiple opponents. The campaign’s startling revelation is a fascinating turn of events for Kill la Kill’s story, though, creating a new and intriguing interpretation of one of 2013’s best anime series.
David Harbour’s character, Alexei, is known in the comics as The Red Guardian, a Russian WW2 hero who was actually married to Natasha for a period of time. It’s unclear what Alexei’s story will be in the MCU, but Harbour walked out on stage wearing a Captain America t-shirt under his suit coat. When the panel moderator asked if Cap was his favorite, Harbor teased that his character has some “complicated feelings” on the matter, leading us to believe that we may get some connection between Alexei and WW2, if not Steve Rogers himself, in the movie.
After all, with Hydra and the Red Room skulking around Europe through the end of the war, it would make sense for other cryo-freeze experiments to have been taking place, right? Maybe Steve isn’t Marvel’s only “man out of time.” Otherwise, Red Guardian is traditionally positioned as Russia’s original answer to the Super Soldier project–so that could be another potential explanation if they choose to drop the WW2 connection. Either way, things are likely to get pretty complicated and very, very interesting.
Platinum Games upcoming Nintendo Switch title, Astral Chain, makes you a metaphysical anime K-9 cop. It’s as cool as it sounds, mixing some light investigation mechanics with a little bit of platforming and a two-character combat system that gives a new twist to Platinum’s approach to stylish, hard action.
At San Diego Comic-Con 2019, Nintendo offered GameSpot our first chance to get hands-on with Astral Chain. We played a small portion of the game that took place a few hours in, which seemed more akin to a side quest than a main story mission. The slice gave a brief look at a lot of what Astral Chain has to offer, including its combat system and investigation mechanics, and how they’ll both work together with the game’s central conceit–controlling two characters at once.
You play a member of a special police force unit called Neuron in Astral Chain, and your duties include dealing with the fact that the astral plane is spilling over into the real world. With it comes monsters, but you have a special trick for dealing with those, too: a Legion, your own astral plane entity that can fight monsters for you automatically or follow your commands. Your Legion is basically like a sword-wielding dog you lead around on a leash. The Legion attacks hostile creatures on its own, but you can also tell it where to go and what to attack.
Your Legion is basically like a sword-wielding dog you lead around on a leash.
The slice of Astral Chain we played started with a case about a missing woman who had seemingly come under attack from an astral plane monster, known as a chimera. Heading to the crime scene means walking through Astral Chain’s city, where you’ll find citizens to speak with and shops where you can buy useful items. Talking with people can give you information about the game’s story and the cases you’ll work on as you progress through the game, and like a real cop, you’ll keep notes about important information you learn along the way. Conversations that took place before our slice of the game had brought up mention of something called “the Red Ghost,” which turned out to be the chimera we’re hunting.
Arriving at the crime scene gave a quick sense of what Astral Chain’s investigations are like. This case required checking certain spots on the ground where evidence had been marked. We were able to see a reconstruction of the victim lying on the ground after the attack and picked up some other information about the event, and eventually, we found a place where the chimera’s astral plane energy had warped reality slightly. That was the clue we were looking for.
Using Your Supernatural Police Dog
As you walk around in Astral Chain, your Legion isn’t necessarily always by your side, but you can just about always summon it with a quick press of the ZL button. You can use it to analyze astral plane evidence, and when we brought our Legion to check out what had happened at the crime scene, it was able to detect an astral trail the chimera had left behind. Now we were using the Legion like a bloodhound, navigating through the streets as it illuminated the trail. Before long, Astral Chain presented another use for the Legion–it can allow you to cross large gaps and leap to distant locations.
When you summon the Legion, it’ll float around on the end of its spectral leash and follow you, but you can take control of its movements by holding ZL and using the right thumbstick. Positioning the Legion on the far side of a gap lets you use it to pull you across the abyss, making it useful for platforming. You can also direct it to specific spots to activate switches and solve simple puzzles.
Eventually, the Legion led us to a portal to the astral plane where the chimera had taken the woman. The astral plane is a spooky, strangely geometric and minimalist landscape, basically filled with arenas for battling enemies and locations to use your Legion to solve puzzles. It was here that we got our first taste of combat, which, despite sometimes requiring you to control two characters in the heat of battle, is actually intuitive and easy to pick up.
One Player Co-op Combat
You only have one attack button in Astral Chain, which you’ll pound away on as you fight enemies to create combos. Variety in combat is created by how your weapon can transform seamlessly; you wield a high-tech police baton that can change shape to fit the situation. It starts as a small, fast melee weapon, but can be switched to a powerful, slow, heavy sword called a gladius, or morphed into a pistol. You can switch your weapon on the fly to change your attacks as you pummel enemies, and stringing several attacks together builds a combo.
Fighting is less about performing a bunch of complex moves and more about exact timing to link your attacks with those of your Legion. String six hits together and you’ll see a blue circle appear on your character as time briefly slows, prompting you to hit ZL to summon your Legion. Do that in time, and the creature will spring into action, adding another big hit to your attack. You can then follow up with another strike of your own, which triggers another Legion prompt, and so on. After you’ve done enough damage, you can also activate finishing moves with your Legion, which sends your partner to rip out a chimera’s “ability core,” and restores your health and increases how long your Legion can fight at your side.
Your other major ability is a quick dodge that can get you out of harm’s way, and slipping past incoming attacks at the absolute last second gives you another opening to send your Legion in for an attack. Combat quickly becomes a fast-paced concert of attacks on open opponents and dodges that give you chances for counter-attacks, with your Legion leaping in and out to extend your combos. When you’re not actively telling your Legion what to do, though, it engages whoever’s closest on its own, without requiring you to babysit it.
The result is the ability to control both characters, or just one, depending on the situation. You still need to be aware of both characters, though–your Legion disappears if a timer that starts when you summon it runs out, and more time gets subtracted as it takes damage.
The Legion has a few other tricks, too. The creature is leashed to your wrist with its spectral chain, but if you control the Legion directly, you can wrap that chain around enemies (including bosses), which briefly locks them in place and stuns them. And like your weapon, you can switch it between a few different versions, like a sword-wielding take, or a slower, more hulking one. The sword Legion can be called on for special moves, too. We fought a big shield-wielding enemy, which required lots of combos with the Legion to beat, but later, it was joined by a floating pink baddie that could create a tether between it and its allies, rendering both invulnerable. Calling on the Legion allows you to take direct control of it for a sword strike that can cut things in the environment, including that energy tether. Slicing through it broke the invulnerability bond, allowing us to send the Legion to fight one enemy while we took on the other.
After fighting some smaller enemies, we took on the chimera we’d been hunting, a multi-headed dog creature called, of course, Cerberus. The boss fight felt pretty typical to action games, with the monster winding up for big ground-smashing attacks that sent shockwaves outward, or leaping into the air to come hurtling back down toward us. The skill in the fight was in recognizing and dodging incoming attacks to create openings for the Legion to strike at the Cerberus. Avoiding attacks was a big focus since the boss could do massive damage to both you and your Legion; you need to protect yourself and pay attention to where your partner is to keep both of you alive and dishing out combo damage.
More Astral Police Work
The fight was tough, but in all not too overwhelming. Astral Chain’s combat feels relatively simple when you first pick it up, which helps keep it accessible, but the number of things you can do with your Legion as you get used to the speed and timing of a fight adds a lot of complexity. The result is a combat system that allows you to do a lot of cool things as you get better at it, but which adds difficulty in the amount of attention and coordination it demands. Astral Chain wants you to be constantly thinking in two directions, and the skill involved in its fights comes both from quick reactions and timing, and from keeping track of both characters so you can use them effectively without getting either one killed.
The Astral Chain demo wrapped up with defeating the boss and returning the woman safely back to the human world–only to discover that in the meantime, chimeras had started appearing all over the place and the astral plane was bleeding through into the real world. Civilians were scattered around the area where chimeras were showing up, so we were tasked with clearing out the enemies–along with a giant, sword-wielding boss creature–in order to save them.
Astral Chain wants you to be constantly thinking in two directions.
Though the demo only lasted 20 minutes or so, our look at Astral Chain was enough to get a sense of how fast and satisfying its combat can be. It looks as though your Legion will be an integral part of the entire experience, which offers a lot of depth to a combat system that’s otherwise simple enough that just about anybody can pick it up.
The demo was a little thinner on what the other half of the game will be like, as you venture through the city talking to other humans and solving metaphysical crimes. The investigation in our slice of the game was pretty shallow and simplistic, but the inclusion of the notebook suggests that doing police work will be a bigger part of the game and might be more complex than just interacting with certain spots on the ground.
What’s clear is that there are a lot of cool ideas at work in Astral Chain. Platinum Games’ newest take on combat changes up the usual approach to action games just enough to feel fresh without being overwhelming, and its metaphysical setting and two-character mechanics suggest everything beyond fighting will be pretty interesting, too. We won’t have to wait long to see how Platinum’s new ideas work together as a whole; Astral Chain is due to hit Nintendo Switch on August 30.
