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 slightly too generic, nearly a paint-by-numbers rendition of an motion sport. I needn’t have been so apprehensive, because it’s one of many extra authentic titles to come back from PlatinumGames, the developer behind the Bayonetta collection, lately.

In a future the place the world is beneath fixed assault from creatures that exist on one other aircraft of existence, you play as an officer in a particular pressure that offers with this risk. The sport’s gimmick is which you could tame these creatures to turn out to be Legions that you simply use in fight. Encounters play out with you controlling each your character and the Legion concurrently to cope with waves of mobs and bigger, tougher enemies. In addition to for fight, you will use your Legion(s) to resolve crimes and traverse environments.

Astral Chain sticks carefully to a loop of detective work, platforming puzzles and fight — slightly too carefully, if I am being crucial — with the sport cut up into circumstances that function chapters. The story begins off effectively sufficient however rapidly devolves right into a mashup of assorted anime tropes, together with twists and arcs ripped straight from some very well-known reveals and movies. Nonetheless, the minute-to-minute gameplay is sufficient to hold you engaged by means of the 20-hour or so primary marketing campaign and into the pretty vital end-game content material.

Does Astral Chain attain the heights of Nier: Automata? No, in no way, however its fight and environments can typically surpass that sport, which all-told might be my favourite of this technology. Typically accessible for beneath $50 nowadays, it is effectively price your time.