Astral Chain

It has a Saturday-morning-cartoon plot, script, and voice acting, but its action gameplay is thrilling in a moment-to-moment way that Alan Wake 2 never was. Superb high-tempo electronic guitar music, good graphics (although I can’t help thinking it would be better at 60fps on something more powerful than a Switch) and a unique chain mechanic for you to control your beast buddies. It made me smile every time I turned it on and started bashing enemies.

I played this on Easy difficulty–people who are actually good at this kind of game might want challenge, but I just wanted fun and spectacle. The final boss, however, seemed impossibly hard, and it turns out there is a world of complexity in the upgrade trees and modifiers that I had completely missed in my hammer-the-buttons playthrough. Usually I loathe having to spend time in menus rather than playing the game, but figuring out of a configuration of abilities to defeat the boss made me appreciate just how cleverly assembled this game is.

If the other games by director Takahisa Taura and supervisor Hideki Kamiya are half as good I have many happy hours ahead of me. ★★★★★