Astral Chain Review

Astral Chain follows the story of the Howard twins, adopted siblings working for the police. You get to choose which one you play and do a tiny bit of customization before being tossed right into the thick of it. The city is under attack by Chimeras, demons from another realm who want to destroy everything. These Chimera spread corruption and can even take over other humans if they are exposed to it for too long. When you join the fight, you face invisible enemies that you cannot harm. Your adopted father and his squad drop in to rescue you, and soon introduces you to your new allies known as the Legions.

Legions are living weapons that only certain people can use in battle. After fighting side by side with your Legion to defeat the Chimera, you and your sibling are promoted to Neuron, a special unit in the police. With only a total of five Legion users, the squad is small but vital to the survival of humanity. Shortly after joining, things take a turn for the worse and all Legions are lost…minus yours. This puts you front in center in the fight again the Chimera and the Corruption – no pressure.

With Platinum Games’ titles, I am usually intimidated by the overwhelming combos and advanced combat mechanics they bring to the table. However, Astral Chain was pretty tame by their standards. You start with a melee weapon, a gun, your Legion, and dodge. Yes, you still need timing for counters, but overall the starter combat is simple, especially when you consider you have to use your Legion as well. Complexity and more depth come as you progress in the main story and unlock new Legions, weapons, and abilities. I ran into some trouble with the more advanced techniques later in the game, but for the most part, the pacing of new skills in combat is excellent.

When you aren’t cracking the skulls of Chimera, you are doing actual police work. When you get to a new scene, you have to canvas the area and look for clues. This includes speaking with witnesses, eavesdropping with your Legions, doing side quests for civilians, and helping out the local police. Then, after you collect all the clues, you have to put them together and find out what happened with your notes. If you correctly put everything together, you get more money and more officer experience. You also pick up litter and rescue cats from time to time as a proper officer should.

When not on a case, you will spend most of your time at the police station. Here you have a few vendors who sell consumables for healing, buffs, and grenades. The upgrade vendors are here as well, but we’ll get that in a moment. You will spend most of your time here doing training missions and honing your combat skills. The training simulator will put you in specific situations for you to try out particular abilities. It’s great for honing new skills that you didn’t get to try on a case. You can also lookup game lore and previous cases on your computer as well.

With that, we will move to the two progression systems of the game: Weapon upgrades and Legion upgrades. Weapon upgrades increase damage and unlock new weapon skills. Legion upgrades do the same, but also have a separate menu for each unique Legion. All of them have their own skill tree with passive buffs and new skills for your Legions, adding even more to the combat. They are limited to two skills each, so don’t worry it getting too tricky down the line. I also want to mention how well I felt the economy was balanced in the game. I never had too much cash or Legion DNA at once. As a result, I never felt overpowered.

While Astral Chain isn’t an open-world game, the levels are semi-open and encourage exploration. Your Legions are great for fighting, but they can also help you access places you can’t get to on your own. Legions can float, meaning that you can send them across large gaps and then jump to them for hidden chests and enemies. On occasion, you can even find hidden side quests, and they tend to be the zaniest of the bunch. Some level will require a Legion you don’t currently have yet though, meaning you are expected to come back through later. It isn’t needed but knowing you missed something in a level still stings.

I did have some problems with the game, however. Certain enemies will make other enemies invincible, and you have to use a Legion skill to break their link. I felt like this messed with the flow of combat and was honestly kind of annoying. To make matters worse, some of the boss fights toss in the need to use the Legion abilities as well, making them needlessly frustrating at times. As you gain more Legions, it becomes less irritating, but it still happens.

A few other notes I took was just how stylish the game was. It has a very futuristic look to it, with neon lights and graffiti. There is also a level of wackiness you would expect from a Platinum game. The vending machines will greet you with a smile and even chat to you if you want. The forces’ mascot is a woman in a giant dog costume, who takes her job very seriously. There is also a toilet fairy – make of that what you will. The dialogue is also very cheesy, but in a good way.

Platinum delivers another winner with Astral Chain. Fans of fast-paced action games shouldn’t hesitate to pick this one up.

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Pokken Tournament DX Review

To preface this review, I will be completely honest and say that I am an absolute noob at fighting games. So, like any noob, I went to Pokkén Tournament DX’s tutorial first to learn how to play. There are three tutorials, each of which will teach you both basic and advanced attacks. When I say the basics, I truly mean the basics. They teach you how to move and jump, making sure nothing is overlooked. One thing I really liked about the tutorial is the fact that they show you the moves before you have to do them. Nothing felt overwhelming, and you can get through it in about 10 minutes. That is, until two more tutorials are unlocked. These two will help you learn the techniques of a pro, but neither are required to enjoy the game.

There isn’t much of a story, with the closest thing available being the Ferrum League. In it, you will fight your way up the ranks to defeat gradually stronger opponents until you get a chance to rank up. Starting in the Green League, you will work your way up from D through A rank, facing multiple opponents and battles along the way. When you rank up enough, you are allowed to enter a tournament. Winning that grants the opportunity to fight for a new rank. Rank D is insanely easy, and you can get through the entirety of it without blocking. As you climb the ranks, however, the opponents start throwing in new moves and combos, gradually forcing the player to try new things to proceed. While you are doing this, you also have missions that will help you gain more gold and new titles. Those that complete every mission can unlock a picture as well. This place is a fantastic place to upgrade Pokémon and hone your skills.

Speaking of Pokémon, there are 21 to choose from. Plenty of fan favorites make appearances, such as Pikachu, Charizard, and Lucario. Some more obscure, low-key Pokemon like Empoleon and Chandelure also make an appearance. Even if your favorite isn’t here, the game makes it easy to find one that fits your play style. The Pokémon are broken up into four categories: speed, power, technical, and standard. After playing a few battles with each type, you will find out which play to your strengths and weaknesses. Even if your Pokémon isn’t a fighter, it might still be a support character. There are 32 support Pokémon in all, all of which can help in battle after building a support meter. They can attack, buff you up, or interrupt opponents to help you get out of a combo. Changing up which support Pokémon to bring against certain opponents is one of the keys to victory.

As mentioned before, the tutorial is as deep and complex as you want it to be. Even without doing the advanced tutorials, the game does a fantastic job of making a casual fighting player feel like they are good. Basic button combos like “three Xs” or “down and three As” can still send opponents flying. The weight and impact of the hits make you feel like you are a pro, even if you are not. This may work in the Ferrum League, but the online community is a completely different story.

As of this writing, the game has yet to launch. This means that for this review, I was mostly fighting other journalists. My battles were pretty close for the most part, with me losing in the third round. There were moments that I felt like I knew what I was doing, which is something I have never felt in a fighting game. However, I quickly found those that I could only get a single hit in between their endless juggle combos.

Of the ten matches I played, I only ran into one with a slight stutter at the start of the match. Outside of that, the network infrastructure worked as it should. You can play ranked matches, friendly matches, or group matches. The one thing I wasn’t sure about was how they balance the stats of your Pokémon from the single player modes. If you leveled your Pokémon up outside of multiplayer, it still comes in with those stats that you boosted. As mentioned before, most fights felt close, so it most likely is balanced on the back end. As an added bonus, Pokémon do get experience through online battles as well.

Other than online and the Ferrum League, you can do single battles, local battles, and daily challenges. The daily challenges ask you to play a certain Pokémon and to win a certain amount of battles for bonus stat points and cash. You can spend the cash in the town for new outfits, new hair, or new backgrounds like flames or confetti. In town, you can change the Advisor’s outfit, which is unlocked by default, and how she helps between rounds. She plays a crucial part in battles, giving you minor boosts depending on how you perform each round. There are a ton of outfits for your character to choose from as well, but you have to earn the cash to purchase them with coins acquired throughout the game.

There are a couple of weird nitpicks I have with the game. There is a lack of stages, so you are constantly fighting in the same locales throughout the game. In addition, the backgrounds of some of these levels look smudged when the Switch is docked. Another thing that seems to have suffered on the Switch are the shadow effect on fighters, and come off as blurry and jagged in parts. In handheld mode, the game works as it should, and the shadows and backgrounds do not stick out as much. It is splitting hairs, but it is something I noticed multiple times.

Pokkén Tournament DX can be enjoyed by just about anyone. Whether you are a fighting game fan or are just looking to get your toes wet, it is a great title for both newbies and pros alike.

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Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Review

Mario + Rabbids opens up in a basement, where a young tech genius is working on a new headset that combines things into one item. In the intro sequence, the kid combines a lamb and a plant into a plant with glowing light bulbs. As the kid leaves the room you notice just how much Nintendo stuff is around. Plushies, posters, and even a rug are littered across the room signifying that a Nintendo fanboy lives there. This is all well and good, until the Rabbids appear in their time traveling washing machine, something I assume is from their games but I honestly have no idea. In usual Rabbid fashion, they cause havoc and one of them gets the headset and starts combining Rabbids with various things. In the midst of this, the Rabbid with the goggles targets the washing machine and starts absorbing all the Nintendo stuff around, opening up a wormhole to the Mushroom Kingdom. I know, I know, just roll with it. When you arrive, the Rabbids split off and the one with the goggles is causing havoc all around the Kingdom. It is up to you to get the goggle wearing Rabbid back and to return things back to normal. In all, the story will run you between 20-30 hours, depending on how many challenges you do.

Aesthetically, this is really more of a Mario game than a Rabbids one. All the worlds have that Mario feel to them, just with Rabbids causing havoc. Despite what you might think about the Rabbids, they really do add to the charm of this game. You will come across them just chilling on lily pads, dancing around, or even just messing around with goombas. As far as the Rabbid humor is concerned, it is certainly geared towards a more younger audience, but I had my fair share of chuckles as well. As for the Mario fans, expect to see chain chomps, bullet bills, and even a few other surprises that I don’t want to ruin. One huge problem I had with the game is the locked camera moments, of which there are a ton. You aren’t allowed to rotate and see whats around your way more often than is expected in a Mario game, and that hurts it. It is really hard to enjoy the world when I can’t see what’s going on to my right or left.

Outside of exploring, you will fight as well. That is pretty much how the game is broken up; explore until you run into a battle with the Rabbids. For the most part, you don’t face many Mario enemies, such as goombas or koopa troopas. The combat is very similar to X-Com for anyone who has played that. If you haven’t, it is turned based with one squad moving while the other waits. You move to cover and shoot at the enemies while trying to prevent yourself from taking much damage. In Mario + Rabbids, you also are encouraged to rush at an enemy to dash through them for damage or use a team jump by jumping on one of your allies. These are a couple of things Mario + Rabbids does differently from other games like it. There are also skills you can use in battles such as shields or heals. There are a total of eight fighters you get, but you can only bring three into any fight, so you have to pick and choose. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses that can make battle easy or a nightmare for you.

Other than the main game, there are also challenges and secret chapters you can find. The challenges are a way to gain extra skill points to power up your team while also picking up some extra coins. These vary on how they are done but some are as simple as killing X amount of enemies while others force you to escort someone. There is also a co-op mode that you can do after you beat the worlds the first time. We didn’t have a second controller, so we couldn’t test this out. Going back to levels has other benefits besides challenges as well. There are chests in each level that have collectibles and new weapons for you to spend coins on. If you don’t find the weapons, you will be in trouble later on. Weapons also have various effects added to them. Ink blinds enemies, honey makes them stop in place, and ice makes it so they can’t use special abilities. There are others as well and experimenting with the various effects will help you decide which ones you should use in battle.

At its core, the game is a strategy RPG that is a little light on the RPG elements. You can buy new weapons and upgrade your characters, sure, but many of the characters share the same abilities and weapon types with different names. There is no armor to buy, no items that you use in battle, and no side quests. If there is a sequel, they would do well to add some of these features. The skill tree is a bit weak as well, some of the talents seem almost throw away but you get them just because you have the extra points. Still, we have no idea they worked on this game and coming out in the first year of the Switch, I’m sure things had to be cut. For the record, challenges do not count as side quests either.

For those of you who are thinking about picking this up for your kids, just be wary that the game does have some challenge to it. There is an easy mode that gives you more HP, but for some of the battles, it isn’t the amount of HP you have that makes a difference. I did run into a couple of issues while playing as well. I had the game freeze in the later part of the game, and by later I mean the last boss. I also had it crash while I was trying to go back to the hub area. Up until the last world, I ran into no issues and the game runs great in handheld mode. I did have a couple of frame drops in docked mode, but not enough to make a massive difference.

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is a good first step towards what will hopefully become a series for Ubisoft and Nintendo. Fans of Mario games, strategy RPGs, or even Switch games in general should grab this without hesitation.

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Cave Story+ Review

Cave Story+ starts off with a transmission with from a man named Kazuma asking for somebody named Sue. He is in a shelter, but he is not sure where he is. Cut to the player, another guy stuck in a cave. You are told nothing, and are just expected to go out and to find yourself a weapon. Once you do, you enter a village with characters talking about a girl named Sue. Someone they refer to as “the Doctor” has been coming and taking residents of the village for some unknown reason, and now there are only six of them left (seven counting Sue). While you are talking with the people in the village, the Doctor sends some henchmen to grab Sue. The thing is they don’t know what Sue looks like and grab the wrong person and you are caught right in the middle. A creature named Balrog is left behind, and you enter your first boss battle. After you win the fight, you have to try and find Sue and see if you can find out what’s going on. The game will run most people 5-6 hours and a bit longer for the completionist.

Cave Story is a 2D action platformer that reminds me of Mega Man. There are various weapons and you can upgrade those weapons by gaining experience from the enemies you kill. Where they change it up is in the fact you lose levels as you get hit. So the idea is to use your various weapons to keep the distance and take out the enemies before they can hit you. You can also jump over them to avoid taking damage, but sometimes this results in your getting put in a worse position. Cave Story also has plenty of instadeath moments that you can easily fall for. Sometimes these do feel cheap, but you can normally avoid them the second time around. Thankfully the game is fairly generous with saves so you don’t end up losing a ton of time in-between deaths unless you don’t save often.

Exploring is often rewarded with various items or health boosts to make the game easier for you. There are hidden doors and secret paths to take in the game as well. Finding some of these can be very tricky and there is even a “true ending” to be earned for those who work hard enough at it. The best way to get this is via a walkthrough, because you have to do things that most people wouldn’t even think about doing. While I do like the secret areas and hidden loot, the game does have you doing quite a bit of backtracking. Early on, you are often tasked with going to one side of a map and then after you clear the boss, fighting your way back to the other side. Just a minor thing to nitpick, but it did get under my skin a couple times.

The Switch version of Cave Story+ also has local co-op so, allowing for two players on screen at once. There are also additional levels and difficulty levels, so newcomers won’t be mauled by the onslaught of enemies. Outside of those additions, there are also extra modes that you can unlock after you beat the game. These include Curly’s Story, Boss Rush, Time Attack, and The Machine Gun Challenge. Curly’s Story is the story mode but with a different character named Curly. Curly actually has dialogue, unlike the original protagonist, and interacts with other characters. The Machine Gun Challenge gives you a weak gun and 20 HP and has you navigating through various levels focusing on dodging and jumping over combat. There is also a Jukebox option on the main menu so you can listen to any of the songs you want once you unlock them.

I played an hour or so in handheld mode, and there were no hiccups or frame drops. The game plays just as smooth as when docked. There were also no majors bugs or crashes in the entire playthrough. Graphically, it looks like a retro game. It doesn’t really have pixel graphics, but it does have that art style of an old school NES or SNES game. The soundtrack is also very retro employing a lot of those beeps and boops found in older games. It worked very well for the game, and I was pretty impressed with it all around.

Cave Story+ is a game most people will have played in one form or another. If you haven’t and you are looking for a decent Mega Man fix, then Cave Story+ is for you.

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Death Squared Review

But that’s enough of the sympathy card for us critics. Believe it or not, I tried to find a way to make this review as interesting as possible. Which is why I asked myself as I was playing Death Squared, “does this game add any new gravitas that we hadn’t seen before?” I wanted to approach Death Squared without any prejudices on the puzzle genre as a whole. That being said, I also wondered “does this game live up to the hype that developer SMG Studio built around the short trailer (which you can view below) showcasing gamers of all kind having an absolute blast with this game?” In short, yes, Death Squared lives up to some of this, but not all.

Death Squared is essentially the answer to the Souls series in terms of difficulty for puzzle games. Strictly speaking, it’s a no-nonsense diversion that certainly adds its fair share of fun, as well as some much-needed difficulty to the puzzle videogame library. Some of the puzzles included in Death Squared will make you want to split your controller in half, whereas others will  genuinely challenge to move your pieces from a 5^th dimension perspective. All in the name of finding the piece that will solve the riddle. After all, as human beings, we are competitive in nature and we appreciate a good challenge. Well, for the most part. I can’t speak on everybody’s behalf, but to me, that was the best part of Death Squared: trying to figure out the answer to the puzzles. Some of them can be very inventive, and some can be preposterously frustrating. However, is the difficulty in this game warranted or not?

To find the answer, I needed to investigate further. According to the consensus, Death Squared is a game that is best played in co-op. And that’s the rather unfortunate part for me. I had to play a good portion of this game by myself, and I believe that’s where I missed part of its charm, as a result. This is all related to the controls too. Some of the puzzles are designed precisely with the left/right brain paradigm in mind; meaning that you have your block characters that you move independently from each other. Now, you must make sure that you don’t mess up your grip on each block, as the controls will shift from one hand to the other. In other words, you control the blue block with the right hand, and the red one with the left. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be. But it’s not always like this. Oftentimes, the controls will shift to the opposite hand via the placement of the blocks on the level’s surface. This will lead to many untimely ends for your blocks that cause Death Squared to live up to its title. I’m sure that these deaths are supposed to be fun, but I found them discouraging after ten tiring minutes. I had a feeling that the answer to my pressing issue lied in the co-op aspect of the game.

I played a few puzzles with my sister, and my results did improve. There were 80 of these puzzles to solve in the game’s “story” mode. Additionally, the game has a party mode with 40 levels to hack away at. Therein lies another problem with this puzzler though: if you lack any sort of cooperation, the game will wear out its welcome faster than an 80s Tetris arcade machine. The puzzles in Death Squared are meant to be played cooperatively. If you lack a partner by any means, good luck to you. These riddles will keep you guessing forever, and just when you think you’ve nailed the answer, it only takes a small rub on the Nintendo Switch joy-cons for your sand castle to crumble. That brings me to another problem: I found the controls for Death Squared to be quite sensitive. I wouldn’t say hyper sensitive, but they sure were close enough to this. A light tap on the joy-cons towards the wrong direction and I was Death Squared. Add that on top of the left/right brain dilemma and you can see how I was disheartened after trying to solve some of these puzzles by myself. Now, I will reiterate; having played the Nintendo Switch version, I am oblivious as to how sensitive the controls are on the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions.

I will stop my soapbox right here as I actually enjoyed Death Squared. I feel like I got my time’s worth out of the seven hours I invested in it. Moreover, some of the puzzles are super fun to crack and they’re a treat in themselves. Developer SMG Studio has created a puzzle game that can only be compared to From Software’s Souls Series in terms of difficulty. And Death Squared actually keeps track of many deaths you have on the upper right-hand corner. Moreover, there is a sense of reward you get from completing some of the more difficult puzzles. So you have to keep cracking away. Just make sure you don’t crack your brains out while figuring some of them out. Remorselessly difficult, yet enjoyably challenging, Death Squared is worth your time. It’s a game that is best played at parties with a bunch of drunk people. That will most certainly help.

As an addendum, SMG Studio has announced continued support for this game and are planning to release more puzzles to keep players busy for free. Now, how many developers and publishers have the courtesy of making that offer these days?

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Zelda Breath Of The Wild The Master Trials DLC Review

The Master Trials DLC adds a few key changes to that game and a new hard mode. First off, you get The Trial of the Sword, which gives you a bunch of challenges to help you strengthen your Master Sword. This is only accessible if you already have the Master Sword, obviously. The base game also has added new items, armor, and masks for you to find throughout the world. It could be argued that a few of these items should be free, especially the Korok Mask that alerts you to nearby Koroks. The biggest change to the game is the new Master Mode, which is a harder difficulty for the base game. One of the best things about Master Mode is that is in a different save file, so you don’t have to lose your original data to play it. Now the big question is: Is all of this worth the $20 asking price? You cannot just buy this DLC; you need to season pass to access it.

Let’s start off with the Trial of the Sword. If you experienced the Eventide Island challenge, you will be somewhat experienced with what the trial has to offer. When you access the trial, you are teleported to another realm without any weapons, clothes, or food. You do still have your runes, but the Amiibo one will not work. The objective is very simple: kill all the enemies without dying to progress. You have to use stealth to find a weapon and start your killing. This starts off simple enough, with only a few enemies. As you progress, the enemies get more challenging and your resources get more scarce. Healing supplies are pretty rare, so defense is a high priority for these trials. They are broken up into three parts, so you aren’t ultimately doing a 45 room rush.

You have the Beginning Trials, the Middle Trials, and the Final Trials. Obviously, you need to beat the previous Trial to access the next stage. At first, it is pretty simple and you will most likely clear the Beginning Trial without much trouble. It is pretty much a straight forward fight with standard enemies and a couple bosses. The middle and final trials, however, add more difficult enemies, minor puzzle mechanics, and weather effects that will kill you if you don’t have the right resources. After beating each boss on a stage, you will be rewarded with chests of gear and a cooking pot to make some much-needed meals. The one bummer is the fact that room does not change. If you die to something you didn’t expect, and you make it back to that room, the same enemy or obstacle will be there. Still, this is a much-welcome addition to the game and adds a new layer of challenge for players seeking more.

My personal favorite part of this DLC is the new items and outfits. If you are a fan of the Zelda series, there are tons of throwbacks to old school Zelda games here. Majora’s Mask, Midna’s Helmet, Phantom Armor, and even Tingle’s outfit make an appearance here. Outside of that, they also added a Travel Medallion that lets you pick a spot to travel back to any time you want, and the previously mentioned Korok Mask. All of these items are hidden, and you have to solve the puzzle given to you in the rumor journals to find them. Of everything added to the game in the DLC, most of this could have been added for free. You can certainly get through the game without any of this, but these are some of the best looking items in the game. You also get the Hero’s Path Mode, which shows you your path on the map over 200 hours of gameplay. This can be helpful if you are missing a few shrines.

Master Mode is where the most dedicated fans of the game will end up going. This means starting off from scratch and literally asking for more punishment this time around. Enemies are stronger and regenerate HP, there are more of them, and the placement of higher end enemies has changed up. While I can’t say 100% one way or the other, it felt like my weapons early game was breaking much more quickly. This could have just been because even Bokoblin took multiple weapons to defeat. Enemies now also have floating platforms for archer posts, which are pretty fun to fight on. If you thought the game was just a little too easy, Master Mode will give you the challenge you are looking for. It was not uncommon to die in one or two hits until later in the game. Everything you earn is burned up much quicker, making Master Mode quite stressful at times. There are some really strong enemies roaming around the Great Plateau, so keep your eyes open noobies.

If you are a fan of Zelda or even Breath of the Wild, this DLC is a great addition to an already great game. If you were looking for some sort of story content, you will not find it here. $20 might seem a bit steep, but the content provided here will give you many hours of fun.

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