Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club. We are here to chat about the last five files of the game and the ending that is Astral Chain. Reminder, we do go into spoilers in this episode, so if you want to avoid that, start at a previous one, play along and come back to this episode once you’re caught up. So this is the beginning file eight of the minigame festival of sorts. Did you play Lapis Balloon Handout video game demo?

[00:00:28] Speaker B: Yes, I did play that. Yeah.

[00:00:30] Speaker A: It was actually somewhat entertaining.

[00:00:32] Speaker B: That was. That was entertaining. Yes.

[00:00:34] Speaker A: It felt like something that would fit right into Mario Party.

[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yep, that one was fun.

[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I would never be obsessed with going for some super high score or anything, but it was quite all right to play for less than five minutes. Maybe about five minutes here. But I would say that’s probably the one exception of my enjoyment of these minigames. So once you get to the cleanup site, I did maybe 2 of time trials, mini games, challenges, whatever they are, and then kind of lost interest. How about you?

[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, this.

Yeah, I tried a couple of these minigames and it almost like killed the game for me. I was just like, this. No, I was. I’m not continuing these. Like the box holding one, trying to move boxes, it’s like, nope.

[00:01:17] Speaker A: No. Yeah, I know. I. I bailed out of that as soon as I realized I don’t get it.

[00:01:21] Speaker B: I didn’t even. I’m on the pro controller. I’m not even moving the controller sideways, and the boxes are just like, fling a bit. I’m like, okay. I don’t even.

[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, these types of things, they can be fun if they have a purpose, but here they just took me so far out of the moment and the gameplay that I’m here playing this game for in the first place, that I realized I couldn’t be bothered with it and just went to the roof.

[00:01:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I tried the traffic minigame too. Moving the cars to get the traffic.

No, that was annoying too, because with the arm Legion, you can’t move it into a certain spot because it’s blocking. And I was like, I have no way. And I was just like, nope.

[00:01:57] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I took your tip because you played this file before I did and said that you were kind of annoyed by it. So I decided to. I tried it a little bit, but then decided to move on.

And of course, Akira tries to guilt trip you and say, shouldn’t we help the others? I think we’ll get busy and won’t have time if we move On.

[00:02:15] Speaker B: No, I just said I’d move on.

[00:02:17] Speaker A: To which I responded a very direct, coldly delivered. At least in my mind.

They’ll be fine.

[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:25] Speaker A: And then after cleaning up tons of red matter and gates up top there, Olive pops up to tell you, your dad’s Legatus signal is faintly appearing now and he’s in zone 36.

[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yes. I will just say, though, that radomatic. That also annoyed me. I did not care for that one either. Going back and forth and jumping off platforms and. Yeah, closing. Yeah.

[00:02:48] Speaker A: To be honest, I had completely forgotten that you can wrap some of those gates that, like, shoot the giant balls at you. I forgot you could just wrap them and close them immediately. And so I was trying to shoot it and all that, and then, you know, the shooting animation in this thing has you flipping all over the place. So I kept falling off and I finally remembered you could wrap it even though it has an icon. I just. I don’t know. Yeah, brain crash, I guess, from the mindless minigames.

Anyway, I eventually figured it out.

[00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it more annoyed me that this was something you couldn’t skip. Like, you had to do this with the time layer. And it was kind of like just. Just. Yeah, about halfway through the time limit, I’m like, I’m over this.

Like, I want to move on, but I got through it. And then, yeah, as you said, the Axe Legion pops up.

[00:03:42] Speaker A: But yes, I guess at least this file wasn’t a total waste of time, because we got that sort of somewhat complex environmental puzzle which was entertaining and much, much more importantly, finally got our Axe Legion. As you said, he actually knocked me out once when I got stun locked between his attack and the red matter spikes.

[00:04:01] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:04:02] Speaker A: But ultimately beat him first try and was kind of raring to go to finally try it out. Especially because aside from in this fight, we hadn’t previously seen much of its moveset.

[00:04:11] Speaker B: No.

[00:04:11] Speaker A: And obviously in games with nuanced combat, there are major differences between a sword and an axe for so many reasons. But I was very much looking forward to seeing how it differentiated from the Sword Legion outside of just slow, heavy slashes and strikes. And it was okay. The force field shield was unexpected, but your kind of own movement speed is so slow with the Ex Legion that I only used it sometimes to mix it up. Um, especially because the. The shield also breaks instantly when you get attacked.

[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. I put. After I got him, I put a lot of my. Just whatever the Legion points or whatever into into the axe to try and. And I was specifically Looking for, like, attack speed and speed speed up to like, maybe movement speed to make him a bit faster.

Because I was like, oh, my God. It’s like you’re running through mud with him. He’s so slow.

[00:05:04] Speaker A: Yeah, running through mud. That’s definitely a good way to put it. But anyway, I guess more on that later. So we start off file nine with a broadcast from Jenna about how the existence of the Ark is coming to a close. Did you do the red case at the start of the file 9, which was finding the missing friend in the Astral Plane Rift?

[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yes, I did. Yeah.

[00:05:24] Speaker A: First off, what a terrible design. It’s a human that should be easy to spot against the backdrop in there, but they’re practically invisible and had to use the Beast Legion to find it.

[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it took me. I actually got. I didn’t even think about using the Beast Legion. I just kind of. I. I was like, I had the iris on and I still didn’t see it, and I just was like running around the area and I turned the iris off and I noticed I was literally like three steps away from it on the. From the kid on the ground. I was like, oh, okay. Because, yeah, you’re right. I couldn’t see him.

[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And. And then there’s that dual gorilla boss flight fight with the fire and ice elementals.

It was a fun change of pace versus the regular. Just pure damage, guys we’ve seen so far. But it did come to mind later that we didn’t really receive any specific tools like adding faice or ice or ice to counteract these elements, either for our baton or for the legions.

And they started appearing a lot more often through the thread. This is my first use of the Axe Legion in this fight. And his orb shield kind of tanks a single shot and then breaks, which sucks. Obviously,

[00:06:30] Speaker B: the. The fire one I took down quick, the ice one was messing me up, especially later on. Also, ice enemies, like, I kept getting frozen and hit like they were. Just seemed a lot more powerful, a lot more. A lot stronger.

[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah, There’s. There’s definitely.

There’s definitely like a slow. Not slow, like a bit of a gradual ramp up at this point.

I did just sort of knock out some of the other side quest cases here at Harmony Square as well. Being pretty new to being a parent myself, I couldn’t not help a mom find her son, especially knowing the horrors of this universe we’re living in here. So into the gate, I went and brought him back.

[00:07:19] Speaker B: Yep, I did that as well. I did, actually. I did Every little thing. Because at the end of it, it said, like, you’ve helped out everyone in Harmony, Squirrel. It’s all clear. You can.

[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yes, I did all the little.

I had originally entered this file thinking, nope, I’m just gonna kind of beeline it through the story. And I ended up doing a handful of them as well.

[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:07:39] Speaker A: And then the rooftop Homunculus battle really reminded me of old platformer boss fights where you jump between three spots while it smashed its fists on one, along with those giant sweeping palms and laser beams with a small place to hide behind.

And then after sort of a brief intermission in the astral plane with a top down puzzle, which was kind of a new perspective here, we end up back on the roof of hq, where Jenna is facing off in a battle of words with Josef. But she decides to go all in and takes Blue Evolve, growing a giant Sword Legion blade out of her arm.

[00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that was pretty cool. But just back to the platforming jumping again. Oh, that was another thing I said. I was like, just to myself. I was like. I was like, oh, my God. Just did stuff like this in Fall eight. And Fall eight was annoying to me. And now I’m this platform jumping.

It’s not what I want to be doing right now in this boss fight. Because there were a few times there was a platform where like, I was like, my legion is over this, but I don’t see a point for him, like, for me to jump, but he’s over, but, like, where’s the mark?

Right?

I died. Not died, but fell off.

[00:08:48] Speaker A: Fell off a lot. A lot.

[00:08:50] Speaker B: And then had to keep. Yeah, I was just like, oh, my God.

[00:08:52] Speaker A: Good thing we have our Sword Legion around to see. I didn’t have to.

[00:08:55] Speaker B: I like. I like paused it for like a couple minutes.

[00:08:57] Speaker A: Just to, like, regain your composure.

[00:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah, Because I was like, oh.

Because I. I did this, like, lud back to back after 8 and like, after I was already annoyed with how 8 was. I was like, this is not what I want.

But you are right, though. But then we get past that and we get to the Jenna Anderson fight. And that was I. Yeah, I enjoyed the fight.

[00:09:18] Speaker A: Yes, I was going to say. So the couple Jenna Anderson fights in these last, you know, in these last sort of bits of the game are definitely my favorite. Combined my favorite boss fights of the game with how agile Jenna is here and how heavy hitting her attack can be. You know, she goes really, truly all in at this point and takes another vial of Blue Evolve and transform. Transforms into basically the newest Valkyrie from God of War and then flies off. I’m a fan.

[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:09:47] Speaker A: It did remind me a bit of sort of those Valkyrie type fights, which was actually really fun.

And then, hell yes, we finally get another motorcycle tunnel sequence.

[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:09:59] Speaker A: And this one is so much better than the first one too, which I already enjoyed because we have the standard stuff from before, obviously. But then there’s a segment with the gorilla chimera running alongside you, taking swipes and launching rocks that you have to dodge.

And then there’s the floater with arm legion punches and a laser attack. So I loved this really brief but awesome section. If you couldn’t imagine that after I talked about the first time.

[00:10:23] Speaker B: No, this was. Yeah, this was definitely a lot better. I will say, I wish, like, sometimes the bike movements a little slower.

[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Away from dodging his own giant trucks in the way is a little iffy.

[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah. But, you know, overall, yeah, this was a. This was a lot of fun on the bike, on the fight.

[00:10:42] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. And so once. Once Jenna grabs Josef, we show up to save the day with another Matrix moment where Trinity launches out of the sky on a motorcycle.

And this next phase of the Jenna fight was even more intense. And, yeah, indeed, very much felt like that minor Valkyrie or souls like boss fight, which I just wish I could do that again and again, honestly. Like, they should add a. Maybe there’s already one, but they should add some kind of revisit the boss only experience into this because that was great.

[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that was, to me, probably, yeah, the best fight of the game so far. I enjoyed this Jenna Anderson boss fight the whole sequence.

[00:11:25] Speaker A: And then the last phase against monster Jenna was pretty cool too, with, yeah, those fire and ice attacks are back and all kinds of nasty punches and lasers and whatnot. I was honestly pretty worried at this point because I was down to one revive and didn’t want to restart from the beginning of the file. So I played it pretty safe at this point and really focus a lot more on dodging than I ever had up to this moment since before. I was kind of just tanking hits from enemies and then not even really healing, but healing a bit more now. I did also run out of healing items in this file and realized the vending machines don’t sell them.

[00:11:59] Speaker B: No, they don’t. They just sell like. It’s like power ups.

[00:12:02] Speaker A: But those power ups actually do heal you, I found out in the final boss. But I don’t know if there are full heals, but they do heal you somewhat. So that’s good because that saved me a Lot of times.

[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:12:16] Speaker A: And also, I realized, you know, because at this point, after this fight, you talk to Olive and Brenda on the roof, and Dr. Brenda didn’t have any healing items available to sell either, which she usually does down in her office. So. Yeah, had to use the good old lappy special item to heal.

[00:12:31] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:12:33] Speaker A: After plummeting to the ground, you transform into a vicious claw Legion yourself.

I was not expecting that.

[00:12:43] Speaker B: No, neither was I. To me. To me, this looks like you kind of look like a lichen, am I right? I don’t know.

With the claws and the.

[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, like a giant claw. Yeah, something like that.

[00:12:55] Speaker B: Like in a werewolf, but with giant claws.

[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, with giant claws.

[00:13:01] Speaker B: It was cool, though.

[00:13:02] Speaker A: It was cool, though. It was very fun. You know, I was not expecting it at all. I, of course, noticed the blue veins in your face thing and all the cutscenes throughout the game and all that, but I kind of always just assumed that was because you’re so connected to your Legion, not that you were secretly an experiment or whatever and would become one.

[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I just thought it was just like this.

The strain with you and your Legion. Yeah.

[00:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah.

And, you know, at this point, killing Jenna is kind of bittersweet because I thought she had more to share as far as, like, the backstory and who she’s working for and all that stuff, but she just accepted her fate even before she got hit and then disintegrated into thin air.

[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:13:45] Speaker A: And of course, damn Josef brings in his Raven squad, targeting you, and just like that, the. This character we’ve built is now dead and we take over as Akira. Except not.

That is what I half expected when it happened, though, because you go flying off the edge and disappear.

But no, you come to under Hal and Olive’s care. It was definitely. So if I had not already happened in file eight, it was at this point that I totally lost interest in the blue and red side quest cases.

[00:14:14] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. For. For 10. Yeah.

[00:14:17] Speaker A: In terms of lore, I suppose I can understand that there are still people to save and help, and that we’re one of the few people with the ability to enter the Astral Pain and do that. But also, we’re in hiding and need to both solve the mysteries we don’t yet understand, as well as clear our name. So I just stopped doing them as much as I could, especially because this is really the run up to the end of the story. They shouldn’t. In my opinion, they shouldn’t have even included side quests at this point.

[00:14:44] Speaker B: No, I Agree. I did a couple. Not many. Again, there were a couple that.

There was one that it was. This guy was like, oh, can you help me find my three lost friends? And I was like, nope, I’m not doing that.

I’m not running around this whole map area looking. Yeah, I was like, I’m okay.

I did.

I don’t know what I did. I think I found a lost cat just by accident running around.

[00:15:11] Speaker A: Okay.

I saw actually in the collections segment of the kind of tasks you can complete in the menu that there was lost cats. And I don’t think I picked up any of them.

[00:15:22] Speaker B: I think this might have been.

Other than the first file or second file, the only other cat I found.

[00:15:29] Speaker A: Okay, well, they probably went back to the cat sanctuary.

[00:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it was more of. I found it because I like there was like a box or a crate up by it, like around by it. And I just then got that and then ran the other way and it was there in a box. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.

Got it.

[00:15:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, so I guess at this point, right, you’re just kind of wandering the streets and you have to have to do a couple of side quests to trigger the story to continue after you’re done roaming. And spot Olive running down an alley and get the call from Halloween that she’s headed to the sewers where they have Brenda cornered and are searching for her. You catch up to her in front of the gate and hey, I get it, you want to help your friend, but it makes no sense to do it in those heels.

And she’s hardly dressed or equipped properly for an adventure in the sewers.

[00:16:24] Speaker B: No, she’s not.

[00:16:25] Speaker A: Sewers are very unclean places. You don’t want to be in a miniskirt with bad ideas. Just bad ideas, I guess. At least it’s a sewer facility and not just pipes full of waste.

But still, ill advised. And here is another dreaded forced stealth section in a non stealth game.

I don’t know about you, but I was not happy to hear that detail.

[00:16:48] Speaker B: No, I was not.

[00:16:49] Speaker A: I, yeah, kind of went through it as fast as I could. At least it gave you a couple options to use the Arrow Legion to shoot pipes and distract and stuff. So, like, they put a tiny bit of normal stealth game mechanic into it besides just crouching and walking slow. But no, just cut that out and let me play Metal Gear Solid instead.

[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, you’re meant to have the stealth mechanic.

[00:17:12] Speaker A: After the floating fists boss battle, when Hal shows up, I expected it to actually be him. In the flesh for once, since that would have had some dramatic payoff. But no, doesn’t happen there. Doesn’t happen ever. I guess once a recluse, always a recluse.

[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, just. It’s just a hologram of him. He never shows up.

[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah, like that, you know, and he’s got his kind of cutesy Star wars droid style drone there that he pilots around. Whatever, I’ll move on from it. And then I found this kind of funny. So Akira shows up and says, it’s good to know you’re alive. Why didn’t you tell me I’m your brother? Um, maybe because I don’t speak. Dude, haven’t you noticed that I’ve been mute my whole life and only communicate in exhales, pants, grunts, and subtle, just slightly different facial expressions.

[00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:02] Speaker A: Well, I mean, what do you expect? We’re twins, right? I thought twins were supposed to have super intense connections.

He’s just not pulling it off.

And then the rest of the Ravens show up and I couldn’t exactly be reading subtitles while surviving the onslaught of ravens surrounding me. And yes, I know this is where it would have been good to use the dub in an action game.

I know. But maybe you have some more insight on this. But what I gathered was that Akira tried to defend us, saying we aren’t confirmed as being guilty of treason.

So Yosef of course, relieves him of duty and fires him and then reveals that all the Ravens are actually clones of him.

[00:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, even so, yes, I’ve been. I didn’t actually change it. I played this in subtitles. With subtitles, but also voice acting in English. Right.

[00:18:55] Speaker A: Which is how both of us played most games. Right. Just because.

[00:18:58] Speaker B: But I have been recently on some like, on Japanese games and other ones, I change it if it. Like, I usually change it to Japanese voice acting, but I just didn’t for this. But I will tell you, even during this battle, when they’re talking, even in English with English subtitles, I didn’t get most of that plot and the story because I’m just focusing on the battle.

[00:19:20] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, when you’re in the middle of trying to dodge and chain and attack and all that stuff, it does get tricky to keep track of subtitles. So. But I’m glad to know that you had a similar issue. Even though you could. Could hear it even maybe it was in one ear and out the other.

[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it’s. It’s just like. It’s like, yeah, I’m listening, but I’m like Really, Mainly I’m just, like, focusing on, like, getting attacking these guys and then when it’s like, gonna flash and I can do my sync attack with my legions and.

[00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah, so there’s always a lot going on.

[00:19:51] Speaker B: I’m listening, putting on slightly tuned out.

[00:19:54] Speaker A: Plus there’s all the. There’s the, you know, either heavy metal or heavy techno music at the same time.

Sound effects, like, just keep layering things onto the distraction.

[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:20:04] Speaker A: Well, all right. Maybe it’s worth watching.

[00:20:08] Speaker B: I’m glad you brought because, yeah, while I was doing that, while I was having that battle, I had the. Literally, the thought that you just said of. I was like, thinking to myself, like, I don’t know really what he’s like, talking about, because I’m so focused.

[00:20:18] Speaker A: Okay. Did I get. Get it more or less correct?

[00:20:21] Speaker B: I think so, yes. Agiwa was.

[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah, he was trying to defend us. And then Yosef’s like, oh, you said one thing against me, you’re out.

[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yep, exactly.

[00:20:31] Speaker A: And then he’s, you know, he reveals he doesn’t have to take all their helmets off, but he reveals that the Ravens are all clones of Akira just because he’s that special brain of asshole and knows that the head games will break him down. And of course, rather than die, he fuses with his legion and becomes a menace to everyone around. But we can’t damage it to him at all in this rage mode. So it felt kind of like in martial arts movies where someone thinks they know what they’re doing against a master, and the master doesn’t have a weapon drawn or anything and just dodges everything while like, practically yawning. Yeah, like, that’s what I felt like when I was dodging this fused Akira legion enemy. That is, until we do the same. Fuse with ours and then tear them to shreds.

[00:21:14] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. I. To be honest, I didn’t actually, for the first, like, few hits on him, I wasn’t noticing. I was like. And then it hit me like, oh, his health’s not going down. So obviously I’m not, like, it’s not something’s gonna happen.

[00:21:25] Speaker A: This is something. Waste of my time. Yeah, right. It kind of gives you that cue, but at first it’s just like, I don’t see any shields or any armor. What’s going on here?

[00:21:34] Speaker B: Am I doing, like, the barely, like, any damage, like, 001 damage?

[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, right. I guess it’s a possibility too. I mean, I’ll say. I absolutely love the. During this fight, the badass metal but also anime song that was Playing. I mean, this sort of Legion versus Legion boss fight. And I’m also a fan of metal music in general, so that’s probably why. But it was great. And the fight itself is so much fun overall. You become super op with like the teleport, dodge, slash dash and giant claws. Like, what’s not to like?

[00:22:09] Speaker B: No, it was fun.

[00:22:12] Speaker A: I think you probably agree with me. It’s always satisfying in games to have that moment where your powers just peak and even if it’s only for a little while, you just demolish enemies. It kind of like rage mode and God of War and those kinds of things.

It gives you that kind of experience of like, this is what true power tastes like.

[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yep, it does. No, it was fun.

[00:22:31] Speaker A: That’s kind of the power fantasy of playing video games in the first place, right?

Do things he can’t do in real life. Well, anyway, Akita sure goes through an identity crisis after this when he’s in one of those rooms full of his clones in tubes.

[00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that was.

[00:22:48] Speaker A: And I know we keep bringing it up, but you know, more and more matrix inspirations here served up on a platter because it’s. They just keep going back to that well and it’s working. I mean, it kind of put. Paints a heavy picture of this weird sci fi world.

[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Yeah.

I’m trying to think what I was gonna say. It was. Yeah, it was actually. It was.

Obviously we knew about the clones, but yeah, it’s very.

It was really cool to see all the clones in there. It was very like alien, like slash. Also, don’t know why. This is just weird thought in my head and it reminded me of. Is it Toy story, Toy Story 1 or 2 when buzz goes down the

[00:23:34] Speaker A: aisle and it’s just all Buzz and sees. Yeah, the shell’s full of Buzz Lightyear.

[00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:23:38] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like, if you think about it, Akita is like the hot product here in Yosef’s eyes. So just keep producing the same thing out of the factory over and over. Yeah, no, that is a good random connection. And yeah, I mean, I guess afterwards kind of there’s this escape sequence where you have to ride the Beast Legion to escape the emerging purple spikes.

Yeah, you know, good old fashioned video game fun right there. It reminded me of a bit of Crash Bandicoot which I haven’t played much of. Like, honestly, I think the only thing is the.

The tiny bit of it at the beginning of Uncharted 4 where you actually get to play a level of Crash Bandicoot.

[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:21] Speaker A: But it reminded me of that because of the running towards the screen thing.

[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, running from the boulder and it.

[00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah, run it. But. Yeah, but running from the background towards the screen, which doesn’t happen in all that many games. It’s a unique perspective, sort of. So I got crushed multiple times, obviously, by these purple spikes, but eventually figured out that they come out of the walls too, going sideways. So, yeah, it took me like three.

Three times getting hit.

[00:24:46] Speaker B: Four or five.

Yeah, four or five tries. There was one. I know I was close to the end and I like, swerved over to a wall and I didn’t even see the purple patch come up and just boom, spikes at me on the wall. I was like, oh, my God, no.

[00:25:00] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, the writing was on the wall with spikes. And then right after that, to continue with the old school video game vibes, there’s an elevator. Gauntlet of waves of enemies.

[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:25:12] Speaker A: That’s like one of a.

You kind of forget it. But it is definitely one of the most used kind of half loading screen, half just transition point thing in video games. But, you know, you just. In this case, you just pull the Captain America. I could just do this all day and just keep going and keep going, and then finally you reach the top. I guess was at the top or the bottom. I don’t remember at this point. Fighting all the legions again was fun now that we have our full arsenal, but, man, that Arrow Legion is hard to track down.

[00:25:45] Speaker B: Oh, man, why am I not remembering? Oh, yeah.

[00:25:47] Speaker A: Like kind of just zips around. I mean, obviously he’s shooting from long range and whatnot. But also, how come our Arrow Legion didn’t give us invisibility?

[00:25:56] Speaker B: I don’t know what’s up with that. Yeah, I saw he was.

[00:25:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I would love invisibility because of so many reasons.

[00:26:03] Speaker B: That would have been nice for some

[00:26:05] Speaker A: of it, I will say. And hopefully you didn’t do this. But it sure was a confusing fight for me because after all the game, all the. Sorry, all the chimeras have been red the entire game.

These legions were now purple.

And of course, just my luck, I had swapped all my legions color palettes to be purple a couple files ago.

So it was just kind of this visual soup of a bunch of chimeras and legions flying around, and they’re all the same color. So if it weren’t for the fact that I have a chain attached to mine and there’s a, you know, a targeting option, I would have been crushed.

[00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I minor. Mine are like blue and blue and gold.

[00:26:55] Speaker A: Or something.

[00:26:55] Speaker B: So. Yeah, cool.

So it was a bit easier for me to figure it out.

[00:27:00] Speaker A: It’s a bit better. You know, Yosef is off his rocker at this point too, since he creates Noah of Noah’s Ark, very creative, by shoving something into himself and then turns into a giant monster, vaporizing Akira in the process, who pulls the classic action movie dive in the way of harm to save you trope as well.

Yeah, I mean, we’re coming up on sort of the ending. So the first phase of this boss fight, running away and platforming in the middle of the sky to dodge Noah destroying the platform you’re on gave me. And I don’t know if I don’t remember. Did you say you’ve played Bayonetta One?

[00:27:35] Speaker B: No, I never. No, I didn’t. I played maybe like a couple hours of it, however many years ago.

[00:27:41] Speaker A: But the very first Moments of Bayonetta1, this reminded me super heavily of it because that whole intro sequence was just practically the same idea with this clock tower falling out of the sky and you’re fighting your know, tutorial enemies on it, which is super iconic to the point that it. It’s even Bayonetta’s level in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. So this felt very similar and very cool. At least Noah moves his arm super slowly, though, because the depth perception gets kind of thrown off a bit as the camera shifts and it cuts back to close ups on Noah here and there. And then, you know, I died.

Did I die? I ended up falling a bunch of times.

I don’t think I actually died, but I fell a bunch of times just because I thought I had the thing over the next platform and no, I did not. I just jumped into the void.

[00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah, same. So I think, actually, I think I said I thought it was nine that I was doing this, but it was. No, it was this fight. Yeah, it was this. It was this part of this platforming. Yeah, you’re right. I thought my legion was over. I just couldn’t see the symbol and I’d move and. Yeah, I died.

I fell a lot. Yeah, it was this. And after, like, doing all the battles, like, I was just, like, I was slightly on an edge and I was like, oh, this is not helping me right now. Like, I just.

[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah, no, yeah. And then it’s, you know, they’re just out of reach.

If you’re not in the. In a right sort of edge of the platform you’re on, it’s kind of your. Your chain doesn’t actually reach all that well to the next one. And Then you also have to. Depending on where you land, you have to move pretty quickly to the edge to get to the next one. But they don’t tell you where the next even is until a little bit later. So no, it was still fun. I still enjoyed it. It was just kind of a little touch and go.

[00:29:28] Speaker B: I didn’t enjoy this part as much as boss fight because there was a point where it was just like, oh my God, I just want a boss fight. Like, I just want to fight him. Not running away on platforms, but obviously then once you get through this section.

[00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you.

[00:29:40] Speaker B: It changes.

[00:29:40] Speaker A: Well, you finally reach that final platform and then you get sucked up. Like Jabu. Jabu from Ocarina of Time or Zone Eater in our last season, Final Fantasy 6.

Mm, yeah, that’s. That’s.

I guess that gets used a lot more than I thought it did. But this second phase inside of Noah was sick.

[00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah, this was cool.

[00:30:03] Speaker A: After all the environments we’ve been in so far. This one was for me, it was jaw dropping. I kind of throw. It’s a heavily praised word, but it’s so different from everything else we’ve seen. It’s like mostly red or lit up buildings.

I say that in a very opposite way than I would say for any other game where I have that reaction, because that’s usually something I reserve for wide, sweeping, natural world beauty that mimics reality. This was just super cool though, because of the shift and the purple on white and the weird ethereal environment along with that heavy techno music just got me pumped up and I sure needed it for that final stage.

[00:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, no, this was a. I mean, this core fight wasn’t too hard. There was a.

[00:30:49] Speaker A: There were a couple moments.

[00:30:50] Speaker B: Yeah, there were a couple moments where I feel like you couldn’t even get away from some of the attacks. Cause it takes up like the whole floor for a.

[00:30:56] Speaker A: Just dodging back a lot there was there. So this is.

I don’t know that it wasn’t used all that much, but in one of the very first boss fights, and I mentioned it in an episode where you’re stuck inside of a ring that’s slowly closing in on you and you have to use your Legion to break it. And then that first time, I didn’t even realize that was the case or. No, I did, but the Legion battery ran out and disappeared and I got killed.

This happened to me a bit here as well. Mostly because I would have my Legion out. And then of course, he decides to use this attack when my battery’s almost Gone. Well, I even, like, after the first time, I paused, switched out my ability on one of the legions for a fast recharge.

[00:31:40] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:31:41] Speaker A: Just so I could, you know, get out of that attack. Because it happens a bunch of times.

[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah.

So I noticed. So how I did this actually took me because you do this, this ring, like a few times in this battle after the first one, I noticed. So on the Pro controller, if you obviously, if you just hit, like, hitting. L brings out your legion.

[00:32:02] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:32:03] Speaker B: Bringing them out, is it.

[00:32:04] Speaker A: L brings them into the, like, special move.

[00:32:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yeah. ZL to just bring him out. Right. So if you do.

If you are standing in the ring and you’re looking at one of the things outside, if you just hit zl, he’ll fly out to it. And then you hit ZL Again. Bring him right back in. Flip around to the next one.

[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:32:25] Speaker B: That’s the way he’s able to get stuck.

[00:32:27] Speaker A: That’s how I was doing it too. Except I just kind of always have my legion out as long as there’s battery.

[00:32:33] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:32:34] Speaker A: I guess I didn’t do.

[00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:35] Speaker A: I don’t know. It felt like two people attacking against the enemy. So for the most part, never brought it back unless the battery is about to die or it died on its own.

But anyway, I really just visually and thematically love this phase of the boss and. But wow, that final phase, man, it’s. It’s also. It’s a final phase with many, many phases to it as well.

[00:32:59] Speaker B: Yeah. The Noah prime fight.

[00:33:01] Speaker A: Noah Prime.

No, Prime. Like, he kind of looks like Diablo, actually from the Diablo series. Different and weird, but a little bit like that.

Like, enjoyed the character design and even the moveset and all of that stuff layered together, but I wished it was different. Separated phases like the previous faces, where it was like a full, different section rather than just phase, phase, phase, phase. I almost regretted pumping up above casual difficulty after he killed me the first time.

[00:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:33:35] Speaker A: But I. I did get. I felt so close to the end, and it actually was really close to the end. So I just decided to re read it better because.

Yeah. So this. This phase, this final piece of the boss was the first time I died completely without any revives left.

[00:33:53] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:33:55] Speaker A: And I was again super worried I would have to replay the full file again. But fortunately, it just dumped me back at the start of the Noah prime phase, which was still a doozy to get through. But I finally took them down. But, you know, damn you. Extreme difficulty spikes.

[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah, this was. This was definitely an extreme difficulty spike. And I had used my turning into the Legion fusion early and I didn’t like.

I didn’t know it was going to go into another, like, multiple sections basically of the fight.

And so I like used it pretty early on without realizing and then. And got him down somewhat. But it takes forever to recharge back up. And so I don’t think I had it again for the rest of the fight.

[00:34:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I saved it. I actually. The first time that I died, I think when I got to that final phase where you’re kind of walled off in a big room, I like.

I used it right away, right there. And then that’s when I ended up dying. Really didn’t have it anymore. And then the next time I saved it towards pretty much the end, I think, which is a nice kind of way to. Of course, though, he decided to use the jump in the air and float for a while thing while I had my.

My fuse version going out there. Because, you know, that’s like 10, 15 seconds of not being able to do any damage because I can’t fly.

[00:35:14] Speaker B: No.

[00:35:15] Speaker A: Didn’t enjoy that.

And I was actually super close to dying again. I had a couple health items, but, you know, you get stun locked for a little too long and you end up not even having a way to heal. So I just barely squeaked by at the end.

[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah, there was a. Yeah. As I said, I mean, I played on casual this whole time, but this was the first fight where, I mean, I think I was up to, you get seven revives or whatever. And I lost three, I think, in this. And this is the first time ever that I had like fully died that, like, that many times.

[00:35:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So this.

In what’s it called, like Platinum Standard, you get four revives.

And I actually had an item that I didn’t realize was what it did, but it’s an extra aed, which I guess is the revive. So I had. I was. I used it just expecting to get healed and I got an extra revive, so I had five.

And I’m glad I didn’t fully die because that would have sucked to redo it once again.

[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:36:13] Speaker A: So, yeah, you kind of.

[00:36:14] Speaker B: It was definitely a way harder fight

[00:36:17] Speaker A: than it was a big difficulty Spike. And the fact that you don’t have a chance to kind of rest aside from pausing or restock your items or any of that made it trickier.

But hey, I guess that’s what you expect out of a final boss instead of a pushover.

[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. True.

[00:36:35] Speaker A: So I can’t knock it. It’s just the Spike. The Spike.

Anyway, you, of course, now have to kill your own twin here, as they hold Noah back.

But you can’t do it. So your Aero Legion decides to express its free will and takes the shot for you.

[00:36:53] Speaker B: Wait, that’s what you did?

[00:36:55] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:36:56] Speaker B: Wait, don’t you get a choice?

[00:36:57] Speaker A: Telling me there’s. You know what? You are correct. I did choose.

I chose. I can’t do it.

[00:37:04] Speaker B: I chose. I’ll do it.

[00:37:06] Speaker A: Wow. What a good brother you are, sister. What a good sister you are.

Yeah. Okay, so what happened then?

[00:37:14] Speaker B: You, like, charge up and run at him and then just stab him right through.

Well, go right through. Okay, so I think it seem breaks, like, right as you do it, but.

[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah, right as you step. Yeah. Okay, so the. The interesting. You know, I would have expected, for some reason, I would have expected the choice to not mean anything, and it would just do whatever you do.

But now I’m glad that we chose differently because we got to hear about the other side. So, yeah, so basically I just say, I can’t do it. You end up dropping your baton on the ground. He says, oh, you’re always so nice, but it’s gotta happen. And then my arrow Legion popped out and started slowly pulling back, drawing back to shoot an arrow, and the.

And I was just, like, tugging on the chain, trying to get control over it. And.

No. Yeah, it took the shot. It took the shot.

And scene broke right before it hit Akira. He, like, slowly closed his eyes.

[00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think actually for me, it’s not me running, it’s you run up to him. But I can’t remember. It’s either my sword or the axe. Legion is out with you. And then they swipe. Okay, yeah, they swipe, like, right at you.

[00:38:21] Speaker A: You still made a choice to kill your twin brother.

[00:38:23] Speaker B: Oh, well, yeah.

[00:38:25] Speaker A: Shame on you.

[00:38:27] Speaker B: That choice probably had to do with a bit of annoyance in the end of this game.

[00:38:32] Speaker A: So, annoyance with the game or annoyance with Akira game or both? All right, that’s fine.

[00:38:38] Speaker B: No, not as much Akira, that’s fine.

[00:38:40] Speaker A: But okay, so that’s how the two endings go, I guess. And then the credits just roll right there after the scene break.

[00:38:46] Speaker B: What?

[00:38:47] Speaker A: Where’s the resolution of the story? Besides killing off Noah Prime?

Where’s the reuniting with your friends, maybe even rebuilding society?

What happens to the astral plane?

What about the Ark? Talk about a cliffhanger. Yeah, and okay, actually there is some resolution in File 12, but I honestly didn’t play too much of it. And just watch the recap. After the month.

[00:39:10] Speaker B: So I mean I went into file 12.

[00:39:14] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:39:15] Speaker B: I went into it and I did it like you’re. Yeah, you’re.

[00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean it gives you that little. Like that this happened a month ago and in the last month, blah, blah, blah, has happened and you are in the police station. That’s as far as I go.

[00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Olive is now sort of the commander. Listen to talk to her. Also, Akira was back and that kind of confused me and I was like, oh, I must have like missed something very quickly. It did.

[00:39:38] Speaker A: So I think it’s just a clone when I saw it. Yeah. They’re not sure if it was a clone or if it was the right one.

[00:39:45] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:39:46] Speaker A: And he’s like kind of just mentally broken, so. And has amnesia and doesn’t remember what happened and all that stuff. So yeah, he’s effed.

[00:39:54] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:39:55] Speaker A: But I guess at this point that still doesn’t explain to me. I’m not. I’m still not sure I ever heard exactly why Josef was doing what he was doing.

Aside from just, you know, mad scientist reasons. If I missed it during in combat conversation, then that’s annoying. But on me. We also never really found out much more about the entities that told Joseph to build the Ark in the first place.

[00:40:19] Speaker B: So I’m also.

Yeah, this is. I mean I can do this in the review section, but I mean, yeah, there are a few.

[00:40:28] Speaker A: There’s some plot holes, loose threads that didn’t ever get pulled.

So I guess, you know, my question there becomes. I know this is a question that I see online. Is Astral Chain 2 when.

[00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.

I mean that was at least.

[00:40:43] Speaker A: Or like where’s the like companion comic book to finish the story off for anime or anime.

[00:40:50] Speaker B: I know that would be cool.

[00:40:51] Speaker A: Like they could just finish the story with like a movie length anime.

[00:40:55] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:40:57] Speaker A: Like, hey, that’s better than having no answer to what happened.

Or a prequel, I guess. I don’t know. Give me something. I would watch it.

[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so do you.

So.

[00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I guess I have. Before we get into sort of our overall thoughts, I have a couple random points and I guess questions. So in between missions when you were back at hq, did you go to the Legatus machine and do the maintenance on your legion?

[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I did that after every scrubbing.

[00:41:28] Speaker A: Scrubbing off the red matter crystals that form on them. I did most of the time. But I kind of forgot by now what the purpose was of that.

So I was just doing it out of habit and just to kind of keep my pets clean.

[00:41:44] Speaker B: I Think it was because, well, earlier in the story was like if you stay in there too long, like you kind of turn evil. Like they did like the legions, remember right at the beginning of the legions.

[00:41:55] Speaker A: And then. Yeah, you’re right.

So okay, that’s like so. So story wise it’s to prevent that. I can’t say I noticed a difference in gameplay. And also, you know, even though they show the things you’re scrubbing off in that menu, I didn’t notice it physically on them when we’re out in the world. So I guess it was just something random and extra to do when you’re changing your color schemes.

[00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.

[00:42:18] Speaker A: Okay, next. So although I feel I was pretty thorough with my exploration in the last few chapters, I only ever found one more or I guess two more Porta Potties. One of them in the sewers and one of them at the.

What’s it called? Ari.

[00:42:32] Speaker B: Oh yeah.

[00:42:34] Speaker A: So I only ended up bringing about six types of that weird toilet paper to the toilet ghost at the police station.

Also, I don’t know if you found it, but the sewers one was sandpaper with a hundred grit.

[00:42:46] Speaker B: Yes, I did find that one.

[00:42:47] Speaker A: That does not sound like a pleasant experience.

[00:42:50] Speaker B: No, that’s not fun toilet paper.

[00:42:52] Speaker A: I suppose a ghost wouldn’t mind all that much, but it’s not a good choice. They do not sell that at the grocery store.

I am very curious though and I mentioned it when I first found them many files back. If anything special happens, if you bring every available toilet paper option to them or if you just get the small reward for each one and that’s it. If anyone did find them all, let us know. On Discord. Yes, I do want to know.

[00:43:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m intrigued.

[00:43:18] Speaker A: It’s just such a random thing. Mechanic and collectible and interaction to include in the game that I want to know what happens. Also during this last section of gameplay you mentioned to me and asked about using grenades and I kind of shrugged it off in the moment. But then you had me wondering, what do you mean grenades?

Because they don’t give them to you as part of your regular skill set or in the tutorials or in the training. And then I realized the guy in the basement upgrade room sells them. Yeah, but yeah, I definitely never bought any since I’d rather spend all my money on upgrades to Legionnis and the baton. Did you try them out?

[00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I bought like three grenades and

[00:43:58] Speaker A: I are like sticky grenades.

[00:44:00] Speaker B: No, you just like. You gotta be close to the enemy and just.

[00:44:03] Speaker A: You just like hit Them with it.

[00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it just chucks it at them because.

[00:44:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Like a grenade in most games ends up, you know, you kind of lob its towards the enemy, but every enemy in this is so fast that it doesn’t seem like it’s all that useful.

[00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it was like, kind of like I didn’t use it in the final. I think I was out by the final battle. I think it was in the homunculus or around there. I might have used it or where on an enemy that I could tie up. Like I tie it up and then I’d throw a grenade.

[00:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Huh. That is the logical way to do it.

[00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So, okay, again, I literally. I used the three I had kind of quick. And then.

[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:44:39] Speaker B: Never.

[00:44:40] Speaker A: Never again.

[00:44:41] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:44:42] Speaker A: So now that we’ve wrapped up the game, I wanted to revisit the titles of the files because they, you know, they make a point of putting that kind of episode or file title up there with like a dictionary definition of what it is, what the word means, especially because they all contained a ton of foreshadowing. And I started to realize it with file six being called Complicit, which is, you know, right after Hal hacked and revealed the contents of those data files from Jenna, it’s like, okay. File one is called Startup. Simple enough, no analysis needed there. File two is awake, which I guess is kind of the awakening.

Knowing more about the conflict with the Chimeras.

[00:45:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:45:22] Speaker A: File three is called Link, so that’s obviously the connection building. Your connection to your Legion four was Siege, which is. I guess there’s that. It’s been, you know, it wasn’t all that long ago, but it’s kind of long. In my memory. Siege was the hostage situation at the mall and then a bit of that secret society, which we didn’t really learn all that much more about.

[00:45:43] Speaker B: No, not at all.

[00:45:44] Speaker A: Which maybe if you do every last side quest, you’ll luck into a bit of a resolution there. But I like, I was curious, and especially that I did enjoy more than some of the other side quests, the ones with Carlos, who’s the guy that was kind of tracking that down. But no, where’s the end of that story, too? File five is a cord, which is kind of deepening the bonds with your fellow officers.

Blah, blah, blah. File six is complicit, which you already already mentioned.

Seven is wild, which is all about that first major homunculus. Chase, chase and fight.

You can’t control Godzilla, that’s for sure. I know what Jenna was thinking.

Peace was the. You know, starting this episode. File 8. So it was the moment of tranquility that didn’t last long.

Nine is salvation. So Jenna promising salvation while trying to merge the world with the astral plane.

[00:46:39] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:46:40] Speaker A: Which I, you know, I really wish we got some more background on why she was doing it in the first place, other than being disillusioned with Josef’s plan. File 10 Madness, of course, being us losing control and becoming a fused legion.

[00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah, legion.

[00:46:55] Speaker A: Fusion 11 is reckoning, which is that comeuppance on its way to Yosef. And 12 is rebirth, which is rebuilding the city and their relationships and what have you. Which one’s reasonable enough. But I’m.

When a game first started, I was thinking, okay, these are just like, yeah, like episode title cards. And then they just became more and more explanatory as they went along. So I thought that was a cool little detail because otherwise you could just call them something totally random.

Anyway, now for the bookend. Alex, now that we’ve played it, how does Astral Chain compare to your expectations from our pre playthrough episode at the start of the season?

And I will say we will still chat about a review. So I’m thinking about just sort of the connections to what you thought before we started.

[00:47:44] Speaker B: Thoughts to. Before.

[00:47:49] Speaker A: It.

[00:47:51] Speaker B: Before I. Yeah, I think I forgot what I said in the preview or whatever, but I was excited to.

To play it and go along with it. I heard very good things with it.

The after is.

I don’t know, I guess like not. Not really review, but just. It didn’t live up to the hype for me.

[00:48:08] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, I. I hear you. I. Yeah, I’d say I really enjoyed it a majority of the time. I did find that it was a lot more fun for me when I was playing a file per play session.

But you know, in this, this. For this episode, I played through a couple files back to back and it started to feel just a little bit too repetitive.

You know, the vibe and the rockin soundtrack and the cel shaded anime art style was well done as well as the anime melodrama. And both the action combat with the unique dual stick controls as well as the environmental puzzles were fun most of the time, which are all things that I kind of knew a bit about and was expecting before we started. I have to agree with some of the commentary that we had chatted about initially that I didn’t love the voiceless protagonist.

[00:48:57] Speaker B: Yeah, no.

[00:48:58] Speaker A: Since it would have taken just a bit more work to get a fully immersive experience where our character Speaks and, you know, kind of deepen the story a lot more, in my opinion. It felt like a major missed opportunity and would have helped me enjoy it a touch more.

[00:49:14] Speaker B: I agree.

[00:49:15] Speaker A: Okay. So, yeah, curious about your overall rating and review.

[00:49:21] Speaker B: Overall rating and review. So, yeah, as I said it, this is probably. I don’t know, people may not like me after this as much who love this game, but I. Yeah, it did not live up to the hype and expectations for me. I’m not gonna lie. I’m still confused slightly by the story.

It didn’t. The story did not connect with me. Like, usually when I play story games, like, I really get connected and like, I understand it and I’m really enjoying.

[00:49:49] Speaker A: I can’t wait to see what happens next kind of thing.

[00:49:51] Speaker B: And I. It just.

It never connected with me, this game, the story.

[00:49:57] Speaker A: Not at all.

[00:49:57] Speaker B: Just not really.

[00:49:59] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:49:59] Speaker B: No, they were very, like, minimal pieces, but overall, not really. I mean, the whole. Would know. I still don’t understand. Like. Like, is the ark where we live?

[00:50:10] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we’re on like a floating.

[00:50:13] Speaker B: Oh, we’re on a floating.

[00:50:14] Speaker A: Floating Ark city kind of thing to save humanity. Yeah, that was revealed. I think it was in one of the files that you had to remember in the. In the PC computer menu. But that was easily missable, right?

[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but as I said, like, the whole. When Josef is talking to those shadowy figures, like, who are they? And then, yeah, there’s just a lot of potholes and it just. It never. I just never felt fully connected to it.

The gameplay there was.

[00:50:42] Speaker A: Sorry. Still on story, do you think?

Obviously this is all speculation because we’ll never know, but if you. Do you think if they had plugged those story plot holes and, you know, we got an explanation for who Jenna was working for, who Yosef was talking to, what the point of Yosef’s hold to Raid was. You think if those details were included, you would have enjoyed the story more?

[00:51:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Yeah, it would have been a little bit more. I don’t know, like.

[00:51:07] Speaker A: Like, I don’t think it would have

[00:51:09] Speaker B: been like, one of the top story games I’ve played. But, yes, I think it would have helped.

[00:51:13] Speaker A: That’s. That’s. Yeah, that’s the thing. Like, I think for me, on the story level, I was. I was. I’ll say I’m, you know, more interested in it, I suppose, than you, but I think I really wanted to know because Jenna was basically hinting at all these things she was going to reveal to you and then never really did other Than the fact that, you know, you can fuse with your own legion. And then, yeah, like, just give me more details about the world.

Like, I still want to know what the astral plane even is, because they kind of talked about it like it was data. So are we all in a computer simulation? Like, that would have been a cool twist. You know, I would have seen it coming from a mile away, but it still would have been interesting. More interesting than knowing nothing, essentially, you know, And I think, like at the beginning of file 12, in that little recap, you get an idea, like Brenda is supposedly going to explore the world off of the Ark back that was destroyed. Now that sort of the connections are cut a little bit more. Like, that’s cool. But I needed a bit more out of the story to like, really lift it up.

But yes. Okay, on onto the gameplay. Go for it.

[00:52:17] Speaker B: Gameplay wise, I mean, it was fun. I think I started to get. It was more fun towards the end. Some of those fights. Some of the fights or last fight was as just difficulty. Spike wise was hard, but as it should be because it’s the final boss. But there were just little bits of it where you’re trying to do something. There was, I think in that final fight with Noah prime, like shoots a laser. I kept trying to dodge, but it’s like I was getting sucked into the laser and I just couldn’t dodge away from it. And it did a lot of damage.

[00:52:43] Speaker A: Yeah, the. The fire with it. It’s like it had a straight shot, which I was usually just running diagonally at him, so I was able to avoid it, but then it started sweeping.

It always happened to get just far enough to the edge before it turned off that it would hit me.

[00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:52:59] Speaker A: So I used the Beast Legion a lot in the final fight just to run. To like ride it and run away.

[00:53:05] Speaker B: Yeah, right. That makes sense. Yeah. But I mean, overall, combat wise, as I said, it was just a bit repetitive. I mean, I found myself using a lot, obviously the same moves because, I mean, each. Each legion has a skill tree, but the skills are pretty much the same of what you throw on them. There’s a few differences, like sinking wise.

[00:53:29] Speaker A: Yeah, right.

That was a major point I have too, is like, I know I mentioned and was very excited about early earlier on in the season about seeing that each legion has its own skill tree.

But I ended up pretty disappointed that the majority of their skills were all the same.

You know, the stat boosts, there’s the standard Legion skills like auto bind and the sync attack conditions, and maybe two Unique attacks for each.

So I’ll bet you can guess which ones I equipped. Yeah, but it’s like that you don’t build out a skill tree. Like look at any other game with a skill tree. You don’t set up a skill tree and have them all be the same. Like if you have multiple skill trees, they shouldn’t all have the same thing.

[00:54:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.

[00:54:12] Speaker A: Yes. So yeah.

[00:54:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So overall, I mean overall as I said, it didn’t live up to expectations for me. I would think. I was thinking because like as I said I’d watch some review review videos. Not but like spoiler free review videos of like their first impressions and what people. And people were very excited and loved it and enjoyed it and so I think maybe I hyped it up a little too much. But yeah, afterwards it just. It was a bit disappointing for me. So I think honestly I’d probably give it.

It’s like a 6.5 to 7 for me.

[00:54:43] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I’m. I’m actually based on your explanations there, I was expecting more closer to a five. Five, six maybe.

[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s 6.5 is prob.

[00:54:52] Speaker A: It’s still like, you know, you still. So that, that tells me that you still recognize it as a good game.

But it just didn’t live up to expectations and kind of over went over. It’s.

[00:55:04] Speaker B: It’s a little bit. Yeah. I mean there’s like the Jenna Anderson fight by far. Like that fight was a lot of fun. There was a few other fights that were fun. But then you have the things like those mini games, the. Some of the platforming in it, like moving around some of the other movements just like.

[00:55:19] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:55:19] Speaker B: Sort of just brought it down for me of like things the stealth modes where it’s like these don’t need to be in there.

[00:55:25] Speaker A: And also like I think a lot of it the novelty wore off.

Like the, the dual stick control and the you know, controlling a something on a leash was. Was fun for a long time and then it kind of fizzled out.

[00:55:39] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:55:40] Speaker A: When the variety kind of got lost. So. Okay, so I hear that I’d probably give it a seven to a seven and a half.

[00:55:48] Speaker B: Overall.

[00:55:48] Speaker A: I had a good time and I’m very glad that I finally crossed this one off the backlog. Cause I have been eyeing it since it released. I thought the setting especially was great and the art style was great and the story had me intrigued through most of it. But yes. Didn’t deliver. The Astral plane section specifically started to feel way too samey by the end.

[00:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:56:06] Speaker A: Both visually and mechanically.

[00:56:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So when those puzzles at the end, like moving things around with your. It just. Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:13] Speaker A: Like it’s honestly the.

That’s another kind of trope video game environmental puzzle thing that’s just gotta go at this point is moving blocks or boxes or whatever around just to do something gets so repetitive.

I mean. And okay, like the astral plane. Lore wise, it makes all the sense in the world that they all kind of feel the same. But gameplay wise, I would have preferred more variety out of what are effectively what are supposed to be the dungeons in a Zelda game, for example.

And obviously Zelda excels at being super visually distinct and mechanically distinct. Except of course, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which everyone complained about. The. What are they called?

Shrines.

Oh yeah. Because they all look the same, but they were still fun most of the time.

So I guess something that is more of a skill issue or actually less of a skill issue since I know I’m capable of it. But I probably treated this too much like a hack and slash game of an old style hack and slash game than a cag. So I didn’t prioritize dodging enough. I think I probably screwed myself over by starting on casual and then switching to standard because I was in that kind of groove of just tanking hits and healing or not even having to heal most of the time. But I. If I did prioritize dodging and the methodical combat that I know and love from Souls likes, that’s something that I think would. I’ll. I’ll have to make sure to remember to.

To use that strategy next time I play a game in this character action game genre.

But yeah, because of that I was starting to get really fed up with how much you can get stun locked, especially by attacks in the latter half. So I’m not going to dock the game points for that. I’ll dock myself points for it. But it was annoying.

Like you get stun locked into five different hits, but. And then you get the kind of Looney Tunes stars circling around your head thing for way too long too. So anyway, I think also, yeah, at the end of the day it overstayed its welcome required to deliver the story efficiently. I appreciated the world building of the side quests in the front half, especially considering you play as a police officer and so contributing to and helping your society made so much sense. But it felt like just too much padding once the major story moments started to pick up the pace. And I guess, yeah, with a Couple adjustments to gameplay. I probably would have continued into New Game plus, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this one. I also have plenty of other character action games on my list to get to in addition to everything else. I think what would have kept me or lured me into playing more was if they pulled something like Nier Automata and layered in multiple playthroughs to see the true ending. And of course that gives them more opportunity to actually put an ending. I would have continued most likely, no matter how repetitive things got. But here we are and. I know, I guess. I guess my kind of points here sound mostly negative, but I. I think the designs, and especially the designs of the legions and a lot of the boss fights, like not necessarily the gameplay, but the artistic designs were stellar throughout.

[00:59:26] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:59:27] Speaker A: Especially some of the homunculi and the various iterations of Jenna and. And. And Noah prime was very cool.

[00:59:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. The visuals of some of the bosses. I mean, I fought a bunch of other little mini boss things. Like I fought one that looked like a minotaur.

Fought one.

I don’t know, that was like a giant sort of snake Centipede thing.

[00:59:55] Speaker A: Snake. Snake Centipede. Like the hybrid, I think it was. Or like.

[00:59:59] Speaker B: No, there was another one.

[01:00:00] Speaker A: Scylla.

[01:00:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Scylla. There was another one though too. There was another one that I.

It was in.

It was either in 10 or 11 that was like it was under the ground and you use your. You use the Beast Legion to get it out, but.

[01:00:16] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I don’t think I fought that.

[01:00:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just like stuff. So. Yes, they looked all really cool.

[01:00:21] Speaker A: The art design was fantastic.

[01:00:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the art design was great and I love majority of the music.

[01:00:25] Speaker A: Yes.

[01:00:27] Speaker B: But yeah, just. Again, just story wise and some of the gameplay just didn’t as much attach to me as I thought it would.

Right, right.

[01:00:35] Speaker A: Well, we’ll probably put some distance before another C H E in our seasons here, but there are many good ones out there that hopefully have a little more thorough story. As far as parting thoughts go. You want to know the weird connection that came to my mind while we were playing this last section?

[01:00:52] Speaker B: What?

[01:00:53] Speaker A: So while they’re not at all similar in tone, art style, or anything at all really, besides both being Nintendo exclusives, I felt a bit of a ruse of Pikmin while playing this.

[01:01:06] Speaker B: You mean of like throwing your legion and bringing it back, like Pikmin wise?

[01:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Like, it’s that. It’s that specific. Like the ZL ZL thing where you can launch them and bring them back and you know, the Captain Olimar can throw a Pikmin and then whistle it back and like that was kind of cool.

And it, I didn’t, it didn’t even come to me until this week. But yeah, that kind of the way that you’re commanding a squad and have semi direct control over your minions. But both Astral Chain and Pikmin give you kind of a deeper connection of sorts to your summons or minions than a summoning class in an RPG like the Necromancer in Diablo, for example.

Random I know. So everyone, what did you think of the game? Let us know on Discord.

[01:01:48] Speaker B: Yes, and I’m sorry to all the people who may have loved it more than me. But yeah, I’m sorry, it just did not connect with me and that’s why I think my greens is 6.5 out of 10. But again, not every game that we play is going to be fantastic and

[01:02:04] Speaker A: everyone has their opinions and I’m sure many people that played along will. Will have loved it. Yeah, I’m sure I very much enjoyed it. I’m glad I went I did it and move on.

[01:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I am glad I played it. Yes. Because again, as you said, it’s been an unbecomingly so I am glad that I have played it but now I can say I’ve played it and I’m good and I don’t need to do new game plus or. Yeah, totally.

[01:02:26] Speaker A: All right, well tune in next time to find out which game season 10 of the gaming Backlog Book Club will be about.

[01:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And thank you everyone for following us on this journey through Astral Chain.

And have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of Mave games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.