The 26 finest Nintendo Swap video games in 2025

Multiplayer: Y | 12 months launched: 2019

I used to be on the fence about Astral Chain from the day the primary trailer got here out till a very good few hours into my playthrough. All of it felt somewhat too generic, nearly a paint-by-numbers rendition of an motion recreation. I needn’t have been so frightened, because it’s one of many extra authentic titles to come back from PlatinumGames, the developer behind the Bayonetta sequence, lately.

In a future the place the world is underneath fixed assault from creatures that exist on one other aircraft of existence, you play as an officer in a particular drive that offers with this menace. The sport’s gimmick is that you may tame these creatures to grow to be Legions that you simply use in fight. Encounters play out with you controlling each your character and the Legion concurrently to take care of waves of mobs and bigger, tougher enemies. In addition to for fight, you may use your Legion(s) to unravel crimes and traverse environments.

Astral Chain sticks intently to a loop of detective work, platforming puzzles and fight — somewhat too intently, if I am being vital — with the sport break up into instances that function chapters. The story begins off nicely sufficient however shortly devolves right into a mashup of varied anime tropes, together with twists and arcs ripped straight from some very well-known exhibits and movies. Nonetheless, the minute-to-minute gameplay is sufficient to hold you engaged by the 20-hour or so important marketing campaign and into the pretty important end-game content material.

Does Astral Chain attain the heights of Nier: Automata? No, under no circumstances, however its fight and environments can usually surpass that recreation, which all-told might be my favourite of this technology. Typically accessible for underneath $50 today, it is nicely price your time.