YMMV / Astral Chain

• Adorkable: Marie is incredibly enthusiastic about her job, even when she's not particularly great at it.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Your character: Why risk everything to investigate Sector V in the first place, on the word of a terrorist? Did Jena hit a nerve in your character by mentioning your past? Do they harbor any doubts about where they came from? And if so, is their But Thou Must! moment a case of your character wanting to find answers about that, the player's input be damned?
  • Akira Howard
    • Is their anger and jealousy over their sibling saving them in File 03 justified? Or are they acting like an ungrateful cocky brat for believing they can take on Chimeras without a Legion? While it's true they are under a lot of grief due to just losing their father, but Akira is normally smart enough to know when they can or can't win a fight. Though you can argue that their grief and frustration is what made them act so recklessly.
    • When Akira returns recovered from their injuries with a new Legion and a dark set of armor, they appear to their sibling while they're in jail and act quite cocky and full of themselves in front of them. How much of this is just a power high from them receiving their new Legion and how much of it is any tampering that Yoseph has done during his secret cloning project?
    • Going more into the cloning plot, is the Akira we follow after their return really the original or just a clone like the rest? Is the real Akira actually alive? Are they dead and this is simply a clone body with their memories? Or are they actually still at the lab and they're piloting the Akira we know Avatar style? While this interpretations do appear to be supported by the fact that the game ends with Akira dying and a clone surviving who they implant the memories of the real Akira into via their Legion, we are never explicitly told that the one we follow and kill is the real one.
    • In addition, it is possible that the above may also be subverted given that unlike the clones, the real Akira's eyes have a noticeable glare to them, as to show they have a soul while the clones, who lack this glare, are portrayed as soulless husks to control. However given that the clone from the ending obtains this glare after receiving Akira's memories, it's quite possible the former interpretations is true.
  • Jena Anderson:
    • Just how genuine is Jena in terms of wanting to save mankind? Her goals are quite extreme and border on terrorism with how she's willing to put innocent lives in danger and has repeatedly tried to kill the player and Akira several times in the game. She however is willing to talk things out and even tries to convince the player of Yoseph's true colors, even sacrificing herself when the player goes berserk and successfully snaps them out of their rage. However this doesn't justify any of her crimes given that she has no doubt murdered several people and nearly kills Akira, and yet she's supposed to be seen as more well-intentioned than Yoseph (Though unlike him, she genuinely does want to save humanity, misguided as she may be).
    • Is she a hypocrite whose no better than Yoseph? While it's true that unlike him Jena believes in mankind and that it can survive, her plan to merge the real world with the Astral Plane could very well risk the entire species being wiped out given that only a small handful can survive being inside the Astral Plane, and that's putting it slightly given that even those with Legions will slowly succumb to corruption and that only certain characters like the player and Akira (Who have perfect synchronization with their Legion) and Jena herself (Whose basically a Chimera with the sentience and form of a human) can enter the Astral Plane without any ill effects. Meanwhile Yoseph's plans involve him basically becoming a god by merging with the power of Legions and become one with the Astral Plane so he can reshape the world into his twisted paradise and sees humans as weak and wants them to evolve into something better. Their plans appear to be trying to create salvation for mankind, however Jena wants humanity to thrive in this new world of hers and Yoseph wants to rid humanity of their weaknesses and create a twisted self-centered world where he is God. So really their intentions for humanity are very different but their execution of said plans are similiar in nature.
  • Yoseph Calvert:
    • A Well-Intentioned Extremist or Mad Scientist? The intro of the game has him basically torture and subjugate a Chimera into becoming the Sword Legion while having a smug grin on his face, and appears to disregard Max's feelings towards assigning his kids to Neuron despite the risks of fighting Chimeras and wielding Legions. He appears to mostly be a strict but fair commander, and isn't entirely without remorse or guilt, though his conversation with the UNION of them planning to "become as gods" appears to have him planning some insidious scheme. Yoseph also believes that humanity is naturally weak and that humans must evolve into something more, which appears to show that he doesn't want to necessarily save humanity, but transform it and has similiar goals and ideals to his former colleague and enemy Jena.
    • His reveal as the Big Bad of the game subverts any doubts about his intentions for humanity. He is a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist obsessed with becoming a god and having his name remembered throughout history as a Dark Messiah, even if it means using and disposing of anyone he deems as expendable. He does appear to still somewhat want to bring humanity salvation, but it's clear that he has a callous disregard for human life given that he is willing to use his own underlings as pawns and guinea pigs in his schemes. The thing that isn't completely confirmed is his involvement in the Pandemic that engulfed Zone 09, the birthplace of the Twins whose mother gave birth to them while redshifting and died. Is Jena speaking the truth when she says he's responsible? Or she is simply telling lies to try and get the player to turn against Yoseph? The former appears to be more or less true given who we are talking about, but it's never fully confirmed in-game.
  • Olive and Brenda. Best friends or something more? Olive explains that meeting Brenda was like "love at first sight" and though she insists that it's only as friends, they appear to have a very close relationship and when Brenda is on the run from the police, Olive is so determined to save her that she abandons her role as Mission Control and actually tries to do so alone before the player steps in to help. It's also noted that both Olive and Brenda are pitted together in the opening credits. One could easily interpret Olive as being in the Transparent Closet and to have a crush on Brenda.
  • The Hermits from Zone 09. Are they truly just a gang of hackers and super soldiers who want justice for the UNION quarantining them? Or are they just a bunch of thugs who use their newfound power to impose their will on people just trying to get by? They charge non-members 100,000 G for their Hermitonic and only 10 G for members, though this can be seen as them protecting the people from it given that it's a dangerous drug that can risk one turning into an Abberation or Chimera. Despite his noted roughness compared to their previous leader, Kyle himself also seemed to be a fair and honest leader who just wants to keep order in a ruined Zone and get back at the UNION for abandoning them to die.
• Awesome Art: Overlapping with Visual Effects of Awesome, The Switch may lag behind the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of raw processing power, but Astral Chain manages to be one of the most visually stunning games of this console generation. It's all thanks to the game's Animesque art direction, which inspired the development team to prioritize development of particle effects and a complex cell-shading/lighting system to make everything pop. The one major compromise they had to make was in frame rate: since the game runs in 30fps rather than 60fps, the combat is noticably slower than Platinum's other titles.
• Awesome Music:
  • Satoshi Igarashi's EDM inspired soundtrack has been well-received overall, especially the vocal songs by William Aoyama and Beverly: "Savior," "Dark Hero," and "The Answer."
  • The Neuron HQ theme was deliberately designed to be as catchy as possible, to the point that your character's steps will sync to the beat for maximum headbopping.
  • "Emergency", which plays during particularly tense situations. Like, for example, the the motorcycle chase sequence at the start of the game.
  • "Legion Assault", which plays during specific boss fights, has a downright badass choir to it.
  • "Noah Prime", the operatic final boss theme.
  • "Jena Anderson", which plays in Mission 9 when you fight Jena on top of Neuron HQ, and can also be heard in the reveal trailer for the game.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The main protagonist. Largely due to being a Blank Slate Heroic Mime. Some don't take issue with this and enjoys immersing themselves with the world around them as the protagonist, others though, finds the decision to make them an avatar of the player to be a poor choice in what is a very story driven game and feels their lack of distinctive personality traits and their status as a Heroic Mime ultimately brings the story down instead of enhancing it.
  • Akira Howard. Are they a sympathetic Jerkass Woobie whose feelings of inferiority are justified within the narrative? Or an immature, useless and whiny brat who should've put their feelings aside to support their sibling more?
• Broken Base:
  • The protagonist being a Heroic Mime. Some are okay with it, given they're meant to act as a stand in for the player, while others find it to be an unnecessary decision that brings down the story as a whole and wish that he/she can talk, given how awkward it is when everyone else speaks except for them. It doesn't help that the idea of them being a player stand ends up becoming ultimately moot given that they speak in the epilogue.
  • The endgame reveal that Akira's memories were transferred to a clone. A smart choice that allows Akira to still be around, while keeping their Heroic Sacrifice intact and a potential source for future stories? Or an Ass Pull that ultimately nullifies their sacrifice at the end and makes the whole thing pointless, since they turn out to be "alive" anyway.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Yoseph is the Big Bad. Considering there's a cutscene early on where he talks about humanity ascending and "becoming as Gods" in a sinister tone, and Jena talks about how he's using you constantly, it's really not that hard to see coming. It's just a matter of when they show your character their true colors.
• Catharsis Factor: The tail end of the final boss fight: After all of the horrific things Yoseph did, it's extremely satisfying to give his final form (Final Noah Prime) a massive beating with all the Legions.
• Common Knowledge:
  • People tend to refer to the protagonist as Akira Howard. This is specifically the name of their younger sibling, with the player character having no canon name.
  • PlatinumGames sold or traded their stake in the Astral Chain IP to Nintendo in exchange for The Wonderful 101. This belief came from the fact that The Wonderful 101 saw a multi-platform release around the same time that fans and gaming press noticed that the copyright for Astral Chain quietly changed from shared ownership to Nintendo having sole ownership, with Platinum execs being vague about what led to this. However, Nintendo getting full control of Astral Chain and allowing the studio to self-publish TW101 on other systems were separate business deals, with PlatinumGames later revealing that Nintendo merely licensed TW101 out to them.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Discouraged by the game's scoring system, which has several bonuses for using multiple Legions and weapon forms in one skirmish. What helps is its leniency compared to other Platinum titles, as the game doesn't penalize the player too harshly for a sloppy performance if they maximize all their combat options well enough.
• Complete Monster: The seemingly well-intentioned Yoseph Calvert is bent on forcing humanity to evolve in order to record his name as their savior. Torturing the Chimeras to become Legions, Calvert manipulates the Player Character and their twin Akira into doing his bidding, all while plotting to utilize their Legion to his own end. Springing his trap, Calvert tries to kill their allies and reveals he has cloned Akira, using the duplicates as disposable soldiers while mutating his own scientists into Aberrations. For the final battle, Calvert creates the mighty Noah, intending on absorbing all life on Earth and dragging humanity to the Astral Plane where they will be forced to advance, even if most life is destroyed.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Marie Wentz and Kyle, despite having relatively minor roles in the grand scheme of the game, have proven to be well-liked by fans for their personalities and appearances.
  • "Rude"-type Vendor-3 machines are by far the most popular vending machine personality in the game, due to the concept of a Tsundere vending machine.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: No, the twins are not both called "Akira", Akira refers to the younger sibling specifically, the protagonist meanwhile lacks a canonical name. Trying to suggest that this is the case is a surefire way to get you corrected by irritated fans.
• Fandom Rivalry: With fans of Chaos Legion as fans of Astral Chains generally view the former as a mediocre hack-and-slash game, while fans of Chaos Legion accuse the latter of copying from the game due to the identical Legion-based combat mechanics.
• Fan Nickname:
  • In the context of other games like Super Smash Bros., some fans refer to the main character as Akira (similar to other player-named characters like Robin, Corrin, and Byleth), even though in the game itself that name applies strictly to the player's sibling (i.e. the twin you choose not to play as). That being said, there are also a good amount of people who actually are referring to Akira, due to them having a much more fleshed out personality and an actual name.
  • While she lacks a true name, some fans who prefer to go with the female protagonist/male Akira route tend to refer to the female protagonist as "Akane", which is one of the several default names you can give her. This is largely due to it being the closest name to match Akira.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The reveal trailer was well-received by fans of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, especially X and 2, thanks to the many aesthetic and musical similarities they've noticed between their series and Astral Chain. It helps that most who viewed the trailer during the Nintendo Direct assumed that it was a new Xenoblade game, or at least a new Monolith Soft title. Also see Spiritual Successor below.
  • By proxy with the above, those interested with this game were also interested in Daemon X Machina, another (initially) Nintendo Switch-exclusive game with a sci-fi anime bent also considered a stop-gap for the next Xenoblade Chronicles X release.
  • Also to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and NieR: Automata, due to both being games with heavy sci-fi elements made by PlatinumGames and Takahisa Taura being involved in both Nier Automata and this game as lead designer and director, respectively. The Legion can also be an ally dog that resembles Blade Wolf, and the Sword Legion itself even has a Gameplay Expy of Revengeance's Blade Mode.
  • Even most veteran players of Freedom Wars start to get the vibe from it, almost viewing Astral Chain (along with Daemon X Machina) as the Spiritual Successor for Freedom Wars in some way.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Riding the Beast Legion makes you impervious to nearly all attacks at the cost of not being able to deal much damage. This gives you the perfect opportunity to retreat and heal, or stall for important skill cooldowns when the need arises.
  • The Axe Legion's sync attacks, particularly the combo off a stunned enemy, combined with the Gladius and Critical Damage bonuses are ludicrously powerful. They can make many of File 12's later missions much more manageable and can shave off several minutes from fights.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Wing chimeras are quite obnoxious as they like to float out of range of your melee weapons, forcing you to switch to your weaker gun and your Arrow Legion just to take them out.
  • Arrow chimeras are supremely annoying and like to pelt you with shots from afar, interrupting your combos and chipping away at your health if you don't go out of your way to dispose of them.
• Goddamned Boss: The fight against Arm-Nemesis in File 04 isn't a particularly difficult fight, but the area you fight it in does have several puddles of goo that disrupt your attacks and slow you down until you get out of them. It's only after this fight that you get to use the Arm Legion, whose L-button ability lets you hover over these puddles.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The game being confused as a Xenoblade X sequel in its first trailer is amusing when NieR: Automata, a game that Platinum previously worked on, had a backstory, which ties into Nier, similar to Xenoblade X's story, namely humans having to create replacement bodies which contain their souls, in order to maintain the human race.
  • Long before this game was made, there was Chaos Legion, another Hack and Slash involving Legion-based combat.
  • On a lighter note from the COVID-19 commentary above, we have a major supporting character who has effectively been working from home the whole time.
  • The Friendly Fandoms with Xenoblade gets even funnier when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 introduced the Ouroboros, which not only visually look like Legions, but also require fusion (in Xenoblade's case with another person) similar to the Legion Fusion obtained near the end of the game. Additionally, most of the Xenoblade 3 cast has eye implants that are called irises, which provide many of the same functions as the Astral Chain IRIS, like enemy identification and the in-game map. The cherry on top, though? The One-Winged Angel form of the Big Bad of Astral Chain is named Noah - which also ended up being the name of the male lead of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
  • Astral Chain was originally pitched as a game set in a fantasy world before Nintendo suggested the futuristic setting. The director of Astral Chain, Takahisa Taura, would end up leading assistant developmental duties for PlatinumGames on Final Fantasy XVI, which featured a completely fantasy-based setting.
• I Knew It!: A good amount of people predicted that Yoseph is the true Big Bad.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A good portion of players find the game's combat system (once it's completely opened up) to be enjoyable enough on its own in spite of the game's weaknesses in other areas such an unmemorable plot and an insistence on focusing on trivial investigative work in the first half of most chapters.
• Misblamed: Shortly after release, the game was review bombed on Metacritic by people who criticized it for being a Nintendo Switch exclusive title, unlike PlatinumGames' NieR: Automata. Thing is, Astral Chain is a Nintendo owned IP. Platinum was asked by Nintendo to create a new IP specifically for them and for Nintendo consoles, and Nintendo is the game's publisher. Hideki Kamiya, the game's supervisor, likened demand for the game on PS4 to demanding franchises like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid to be available on the PS4 as well.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! that accompanies the Repeat Cut when you defeat the last enemy of a Red Case.
• One-Scene Wonder: Kyle is literally only present in one file and a scene in the epilogue, and only encountered because of Jena's clues pointing toward his group, but his distinctive design and more sympathetic motives have made him one of the most popular characters from the game.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: The gameplay and combat is a bit slower than what you would might expect from a Platinum game and it takes awhile to really get going, but it is still Platinum doing what they do best and once you get the swing of things and it starts to truly open up around the mid-game, it can be incredibly satisfying, engaging and fun. The game's story on the other hand, is regarded as being So Okay, It's Average at best, as while it has some strong moments, it is mostly flimsy, bland, predictable and forgettable.
• Presumed Flop: People will swear up & down that the game was a big failure, in the event that they even bring the game up when talking about PlatinumGames' output. However, the game sold over a million copies during its launch year, exceeding Nintendo and Platinum's expectations and making it one of the studio's best-selling titles at the time, behind only NieR: Automata and the original Bayonetta.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Some players halt progression in order to practice garbage can trick shots.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The game is a bit slow at first, with the first two files largely acting as tutorials and Exposition Dumps on the world you're in. It is only by File 03, where you gain true access to the sync attack (after unlocking it in the previous file) and you unlock the Arrow Legion, does the combat really begin to open up and become more fun going forward, and File 04 is when the story begins to get going, thanks to the introduction of Jena.
• So Okay, It's Average: The story is viewed as being this by even fans. While it is no means bad and it does have some great moments at times, the overall story is rather bland, cliche-laden and forgettable - with the big action setpieces being the real star of the show, and the side characters like Kyle, Marie, Hal, and Olive all being more interesting characters than the player character.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • What with the gameplay being based around playing as a Puppet Fighter, there's a reason why a number of jokes about the game being a sci-fi take on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure comparisons have been made.
  • In terms of setting and story, it can be seen as one to Neon Genesis Evangelion. First, most of Earth's population has been wiped out in a cataclysmic event related to an alien threat (Chimeras/Angels). Second, the protagonists, who were born under very specific circumstances, are valued for their ability to synchronize with entities that are considered humanity's only hope to combat said alien threat (Legions/EVAs). Third, the entities in question are also enslaved members of those aliens with mechanical restraints attached to them. There's also a shadowy conspiracy going on behind the scenes. Making the inspiration more evident is that one of the unlockable color schemes for Legions is based on EVA Unit 01.
  • It can also be seen as one to the Xenoblade Chronicles series, especially Xenoblade Chronicles X. The Ark has been visually compared to New Los Angeles, while Neuron has drawn comparisons to BLADE for both being elite forces the main protagonists belong to. Meanwhile, fans of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 have noticed similarities between Legion and Blades, as both are bonded in some way to their human partner.
  • In terms of aesthetic, the game has a striking resemblence to Virtua Cop 3, with the Player Characters as heroic cops in a sprawling big city in the future.
  • It's also seen as an original evolution of what Chaos Legion started, without the baggage of being a licensed product.
• That One Boss: The final two forms of the Final Boss, Noah Prime and Final Noah Prime, are far more difficult than any boss prior. Whereas using specific Legions can help against other bosses, here you must use the correct Legion to counter many of its attacks otherwise you can expect to burn through all your healing items and AED charges as its attacks are very punishing and can take off hundreds of HP at a time, or just deliver an outright One-Hit Kill. Furthermore, it has a mountain of hit points and while transforming can help take off a good fraction of the lifebar, it takes so long to charge up the Resonance meter that you can only really use it once in the fight.
• That One Level:
  • File 06 is very long and has the game's first mandatory Stealth-Based Mission (there's a few stealth sections earlier but they're sidequests). While you can just brute force your way through the stealth segments, doing so will leave you with lousy ranks, as you get a lot of points for doing the sections undetected.
  • File 08, especially for those aiming for S+ rankings or 100% Completion. Much of the action takes a backseat to mini-games, most of which aren't very fun, can be very frustrating, and requires the player to redo that part of the File if they aren't happy with their performance. The box carrying mini-game is especially frustrating due to the addition of motion controls. There's also the fact that several crates can only be found during a Stealth-Based Mission, so the player has to juggle between staying close to their target, remaining unseen, and opening all the crates before the mission is over.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Jin and Alicia, despite being the Howard twins' mentors and basically surrogate family, dwindle in plot importance after getting the spotlight in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively, to the point of dropping off the map entirely when Yoseph disbands the regular Neuron officers in favor of the Raven Corps. The final File would have been an ideal opportunity for them to get new Legions and rejoin you if only for a little while, helping you get Akira through their Heroic BSoD from earlier in the level.
  • The ominous council that Yoseph speaks to early on in the game after the Legions turn rogue seem like they'd play a major role in the plot, possibly overseeing Yoseph, the Big Bad of the game. However, after that cutscene, they're never seen or referenced again.
• The Woobie: Akira Howard, the player character's twin sibling, is this in spades.
  • First, they lose their Legion, then their father whose forced to stay back in the Astral Plane to fight the out of control Chimeras. Akira begins to become increasingly frustrated by their helplessness and even grows jealous of their siblings' new role and prodigy abilities, only to be captured and nearly killed by their former Legion. Akira is then fatally wounded by Jena when they choose to take a blow meant for the player character, leaving them out of commission for two files.
  • Akira returns however with a dark outfit, red chains and a set of black Legions and finally does become more or less their sibling's equal again (though they lack their older sibling's experience and calm demeanor), however they defeat Jena, only for their sibling to merge with their Legion and go berserk, leading to Akira nearly being killed by their own flesh and blood. When the player character does regain control, Yoseph reveals his true colors and attempts to murder Akira's sibling in cold blood and then is made into his lap dog as the captain of the newly created Raven Corps, where Yoseph further fills their head with lies. Then when Akira disobeys orders and tries to reach out to their sibling, Yoseph betrays them and tries to murder them with the Raven Corps who are revealed to be clones of Akira that he has mass produced. But instead of dying Akira merges with their Legion and attacks the player character who is forced to use Legion Fusion to stop them. When they arrived at the Aegis Research Institute to defeat Yoseph, Akira is forced to fight hundreds of clones of themselves, causing them to question whether or not they are the real Akira or not, and finally snaps and attacks their sibling.
  • If that's not enough, then Yoseph uses the clones and Akira and fuses with them to obtain godhood, and when Yoseph is finally defeated has to make the player character kill both them and Yoseph/Noah to end this once and for all. While they do survive in the form of a clone with their memories transferred into them, it's clear Akira suffers the most out of all the characters in the game.

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