Astral Chain Combat Tips: 5 Tricks You Should Know
By Andrew Lin
Astral Chain Combat is classic Platinum: Flashy moves, over the top enemies, and fast paced action. Astral Chain combines the best of previous Platinum action titles for a new, robust experience.
Sometimes, it might be a bit overwhelming, with a lot of options for combat and a lot of different kinds of enemies to fight. At higher difficulties, you might run into some problem if you're not careful about how you engage the enemy. Here are five tips and tricks to manage your combat in Astral Chain.
Astral Chain Combat Tips
1. Manage your Attack Range
While Astral Chain's combat is still based on the classic beat-em up/slasher layout, positioning is far more important than raw button mashing. Since you have to also manage your Legion, properly positioning it and yourself will put you at an advantage over the enemy.
The Legion can be sent out faster than you can run and will do most of the DPS anyway, so you should send it in first while you run in after it with your Baton.
It would be good to quickly get used to your Legion's movement range as well, as sometimes you'll need to quickly stretch your chain out to counter a charge attack and prevent getting hit. You can also use the chain to snare enemies to cancel their attacks as well, and using that effectively will rely on good positioning.
When your Legion is out, you can tap ZL to send it away when it is close to you, and then you can call it back by pressing ZL when it's away. By sending and calling your Legion this way, you save time instead of manually positioning it to defend yourself.
2. Finish Off Your Enemies
When you are about to defeat an enemy, the game will prompt you to press A to "Finish Off". You should get used to the timing and prompt to always Finish Off enemies when you can, as this will recover your health. If you get good at the finisher prompt, your health will always be topped off for the next encounter. This is especially useful during boss encounters when you have to fight waves of enemies before the main boss.
3. Upgrade your X-Baton
You can visit Tabitha in the Tech Room (near Training) to upgrade your X-Baton. Hitting the enemy with your Baton will refill your Legion's Limiter, allowing it to stay active longer. The X-Baton upgrades will help you deal more damage while you do this. It's also what you use G and Material for, so you might as well upgrade when you can.
4. Use Sync Attacks
After a combo or when you perfect dodge an enemy's attack, a blue flash will appear. If you hit ZL when this happens, you and your Legion will perform a powerful Sync Attack. Combos are always six hits, and on the sixth hit the flash will appear for a Sync Attack. All X-Baton forms can do Sync Attacks. If you master dodging and the Sync Attack, you'll be able to shrug off most damage while still counterattacking.
5. Use your IRIS in Combat
This one is simple, but useful. During Boss battles, you can use your IRIS to see the enemy's health bar. It should help you decide when to use healing items.
These tricks should help you survive combat as you traverse the Astral Plane. Good luck Legionis!