TIME EXTEND
Astral Chain
How PlatinumGames forged the link between all-out action and policework
By Jon Bailes
Publisher Nintendo
Developer PlatinumGames
Format Switch
Release 2019
At its outset, Astral Chain looks set to be a typical character action game. Having selected your character from a pair of identical twins, you’re thrust into a motorcycle chase, the titles still rolling as you blast through a tunnel, gunning down flying hostiles while sliding your way around abandoned vehicles. That sequence transitions to a cutscene where your twin of choice smashes the bike into the last surviving enemy, commando rolls from the resulting explosion, then whips out a baton ready for another fight, this time on foot.
What awaits, though, is not an enemy but a medic, administering first aid to injured civilians. The medic asks for a hand helping them onto stretchers so they can be airlifted to safety. Such acts, you learn, are as central to your job as dishing out beatings. You are a police officer, with every duty that entails.
By the end of the first chapter – or ‘file’ as the game’s terminology has it – you’ve been inducted into a crack crimefighting unit named Neuron. The state’s science boffins, it transpires, have figured out how to enslave some of the inter-dimensional ‘Chimeras’ attacking the city, so that psychically attuned humans can control the creatures and use them to fight back. It seems you and your sibling are especially compatible, so you’re given a ‘Legion’: a sword-wielding Chimera clad in police armour that you can summon like a dog on a leash (the astral chain) and send into battle.
Your special status doesn’t excuse you from regular police procedure, however. Before you head into the field again, you must undergo training, and later there’s even time for an orientation session at the station, as police mascot Lappy introduces you to colleagues and facilities. Sure, in between you’ll be sucked into a realm beyond reality called the astral plane, fight a string of abominations and barely survive as the rest of the team lose control of their Legions, leaving you the only active handler remaining – but it’s important to learn where the lockers and vending machines are for when you return.