The 26 best Nintendo Switch 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 an excellent few hours into my playthrough. All of it felt just a little too generic, virtually a paint-by-numbers rendition of an motion recreation. I needn’t have been so fearful, because it’s one of many extra unique 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 drive that offers with this menace. The sport’s gimmick is which you could tame these creatures to change into 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 will use your Legion(s) to unravel crimes and traverse environments.

Astral Chain sticks intently to a loop of detective work, platforming puzzles and fight — just a little too intently, if I am being vital — with the sport break up into instances that function chapters. The story begins off effectively sufficient however rapidly devolves right into a mashup of varied 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 maintain you engaged via the 20-hour or so predominant 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 usually surpass that recreation, which all-told might be my favourite of this technology. Typically accessible for beneath $50 nowadays, it is effectively price your time.