Reviews are in for Astral Chain - 88 MC after 51 reviews!!

Really good so far. I didn't know really what to expect and it's been pretty challenging and fun. I'm getting a lot of D ranks so far. But I can tell that I'm improving and it is clearly made for us to revisit earlier Files. The biggest and only concern right now is that it may be a short game, because I'm enjoying it so much!

It's a lot better than I was expecting. I love the art direction, and the gameplay, especially the battle mechanics, is rock solid. It's also decently challenging without being too frustrating.

I don't think that's going to be a problem for me. I'm 12-hours in and on the 4th "file", so unless the story suddenly wraps up (and it won't; I've only captured 3 out of the 5 legions), I'm going to get a decent amount of play time out of it.

From what I'm understanding, Astral Chain can be a solid 15-20 hour game at a regular pace, but it sounds like you are taking your sweet time so you'll probably get a lot more with your run-time. I don't blame you for taking your time, though. Platinum Games essentially made an adventure game here. For the first time in a while I'm playing a game that compels me to take in what it has to offer. I really love how the fighting mechanics get more and more nuanced, and then between action sequences there's lots of exploring different areas and finding details. I'm pretty certain I passed certain areas I didn't explore and the gameplay alone will benefit replays.

I always take my time. I'm the sort of the player that when the game tells me to go right, I go left just to see what's over there!

I was wrong about the file number. I just finished File 5 at around the 15-hour mark.