Anime Police Academy
The latest from developer Platinum Games (best known for the Bayonetta series) is the Nintendo Switch exclusive Astral Chain. It shares a lot of similarities to its stylish-action relatives, but Astral Chain separates itself with a unique, thrilling combat system--you control a player-character and a Legion simultaneously. This makes for some incredible fights, and it'll take some time to wrap your head around all its intricacies. There are systems layered on top of the tandem chaos, like Ability Codes and a skill tree to upgrade for new attacks, and we'll point out some key things to pay attention to.
While we'll help you with some basics to keep in mind during battle, there's a lot more to the game than combat. Within segmented story chapters, you'll explore semi-open hub areas side missions, investigations, and other optional content. Primary objectives are fairly straight-forward, but to get the most out of Astral Chain, you'll need to do some poking and prodding to reveal hidden quests.
- Not All Quests Appear On The Map
- IRIS Is Your Best Friend
- Accessing Ladders
- Understanding The Chip..er...Ability Code System
- Premium Material Codes Are A Premium
- The Quirks Of Dodging
- Don't Get High On Your Own Supply
- Red Matter Boosts Legion Energy Past Max
- Rank Doesn't Account For Damage, But Style
- Listen For Meowing, Save Cats If Pawssible
- Put Up Your Blue Shield
- The Power Of Two Legions
- Beast Legion's Auto Dodge And More
- Experiment With Legion Abilities
Astral Chain is out now, and chances are if you're looking through this compilation of tips, you're already set on playing the game. But if you're interested in reading some detailed thoughts on the game, be sure to read my Astral Chain review, or check out my breakdown of how long Astral Chain takes to beat. For more advanced pointers, read through (or watch) our compilation of in-depth Astral Chain combat tips.
Not All Quests Appear On The Map
Each chapter (or File) in Astral Chain contains a number of red cases and blue cases. Blue cases are made of simple activities like solving a puzzle or finding certain objects/NPCs in the world. On the other hand, red cases are comprised of combat scenarios that are subsequently graded for performance counted towards your overall chapter grade.
While red cases include the primary objectives, not all of the red cases are readily available; clearing out all the ones marked on your map doesn't mean you've done everything possible. You'll have to do some diligent exploration, which can be tedious, but thankfully you have the IRIS scanning ability that'll help highlight where to find these hidden objectives. For example, you can reveal a huge Chimera footprint in the environment that'll lead to an astral plane entrance where you fight to complete a red case.
At the end of each chapter, you get a report that will show that you which cases you missed. It gives a general indication of when in the chapter that case lies, which helps narrow down where to look if you replay it.
IRIS Is Your Best Friend
Not only does IRIS highlight important clues within the environment and help you trace hidden Chimera presence in the world, it also reveals enemy health, including bosses. It's easy to forget in the midst of the hectic battles, so be sure to pull up IRIS to track enemy health gauges since the game doesn't automatically do it for you.
If you come across an invincible enemy that's glowing purple, flip on IRIS to help reveal the location of the target they're tethered to. While not as critical, IRIS will also highlight junk piles that the Beast Legion can dig up, certain pieces to puzzles, and chest locations to make things easier to find.
Accessing Ladders
You might easily intuit this tip, but anytime you see a ladder that hasn't been unfurled, look for a big red button next to it. Pull out your Arrow Legion, go into its aiming mode, and hit the button with an arrow to get the ladder to collapse. I wish I'd realized this sooner...
Understanding The Chip..er...Ability Code System
The Ability Code system is a new version of the Chip system that was in Nier: Automata. These consist of items that grant perks and buffs to attach to each of your Legions and make them even stronger. This can range from increasing their chain length, boosting critical hit damage, or preventing stuns and burns.
You pick up Ability Codes throughout your adventure and they'll take up a certain amount of slots, which usually correlates to how effective they are. However, you'll definitely want to use ones that have additional perks attached to the single code. Stacking the right codes on any one Legion could Additional slots for each Legion have to be earned through their own skill trees, but it's worth working towards since Ability Codes can drastically change their usefulness.
Premium Material Codes Are A Premium
Later in the game, you'll start to accumulate Premium Material Codes. This is an important upgrade material that's fairly hard to come by so you'll want to spend these wisely. Upgrading your X-baton and Legatus to their highest levels will require Premium Material Codes, but we suggest saving them to get deeper into Legion skill trees since the material is required to unlock their best abilities.
The Quirks Of Dodging
One of the keys to surviving battles against swarms of Chimera is timing your dodges and dodging in the right direction. Perfectly timed doges will get you out of harm's way, but that may be hard to pull off at every moment. Against huge enemies like the Homunculus bosses, you can dodge underneath them to avoid their powerful attacks and remain within striking distance.
You may also think that dodging would break an X-baton combo if you're in the middle of it, but you're allowed to dodge once and pick up right where your combo left off. This is important for working towards sync attacks, which require you to combo without interruption.
Don't Get High On Your Own Supply
It might be a confusing system at first, and you'll want to know this sooner rather than later. Astral Chain separates healing items into two separate categories, field supply and your own personal supply. Items under field supply are temporary and found within each level; they only remain in your inventory throughout a single chapter. These are designated with a small flower symbol within the item icon.
You have to buy or earn your own personal supply. Money isn't really an issue towards the end of the game, but early on when your budget is tight, it's important to use up your field supply before dipping into your own.
Red Matter Boosts Legion Energy Past Max
Those floating red crystals scattered across the environment are red matter, and part of your duty is to clean up the mess. It requires your Legion to hover over the red matter, but as a bonus, it feeds your Legion's energy gauge past its maximum. Remembering this is especially useful when you go into the astral plane since you'll constantly be in combat encounters amidst your exploration.
Rank Doesn't Account For Damage, But Style
If you play on either Platinum Standard or Platinum Ultimate difficulty, your combat performance will be graded. Unlike other stylish-action games however, Astral Chain's grading system doesn't account for damage taken. You can still earn top marks (S+) as long as you get fancy with your attacks and Legion usage. Points are racked up based on pulling off different tactics, chaining combos, hitting sync attacks, among other things. Just don't worry if you get hit.
Listen For Meowing, Save Cats If Pawssible
In each chapter, there's a stray cat to save and adopt to keep at your dad's safehouse. There isn't a truly compelling material reason to find the cats, but I mean, you wouldn't just leave a cat out in the wild during a Chimera invasion? When you come back to the safehouse and have cat food in your inventory, you can feed them and get an item in return as a small bonus.
IRIS will help find the stray cats since they'll be highlighted, and if you start hearing meowing sounds, then a cat is surely nearby! :3
Put Up Your Blue Shield
You don't unlock the Axe Legion until late in the game, but once you do, be sure to upgrade it and unlock Blue Shield in the skill tree. It's incredibly useful since it grants you protection from damage and knockback for three hits. It's one of those abilities you'll want to use as soon as it's done recharging from cooldown.
The Power Of Two Legions
Hit Rush is an ability that all your Legions can learn early on. While each Legion will have its own variation on the Hit Rush attack, the ability unchains the Legion for the duration of the combo giving you the opportunity to summon another Legion at the same time. Using this tactic effectively will burn down tougher enemies a bit faster.
Beast Legion's Auto Dodge And More
The Beast Legion has a host of useful abilities. Its Howl skill is an AOE stun that opens attack opportunities and mounting it lets you move across the battlefield faster than any other method. These abilities give you breathing room when necessary, and another great perk is that you will automatically dodge any enemy attack while in mounted mode. Keep in mind that auto-dodges consume Legion energy, but it's incredibly useful for navigating tougher fights in more open areas.
Experiment With Legion Abilities
Astral Chain gives you so many possibilities in combat, and as a result, there's no single right way to go about fighting Chimera. We'd encourage experimentation and testing out different cooldown skills in the police headquarters training room, and get a feel for how you want to create synergy between all your different Legions. If you want a few more tips on how to do more advanced stuff, be sure to read our in-depth Astral Chain combat guide.
from GameSpot - All Content https://ift.tt/30Llbdo
Comments
Post a Comment