History VideoGame / AstralChain

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Yoseph is dead and his insane plan is thwarted, but Akira has to sacrifice themself to allow you to deal the final blow to Noah. [[PlayableEpilogue A month after Noah's destruction, fewer and fewer gates are opening across the Ark]], allowing people to consider leaving and repopulating Earth. Alicia and Jin put Neuron back together with Olive as their new commander to handle what chimera attacks are happening. Akira is also revealed to have survived through one of their remaining clones, having been transplanted memories by Brenda using traces found in the original's Legion, but it doesn't change the fact that the original Akira is dead.]]

** While many of the main characters are genuinely good people, that doesn't change the fact that their main weapon against chimeras is gained by torturing and enslaving other chimeras--and judging by the opening cutscene, the process isn't painless. Comments from a minor NPC imply that the process of gaining Legions is common knowledge around Neuron, to say nothing of Yoseph and Brenda who actually take part in the process.
** Aberrations are some of the first enemies you encounter and are generally just common {{Mooks}}. However, File 2 reveals that they were previously humans who redshifted because of the mere presence of chimeras. This understandably puts them in a more tragic light, but they're still mindless, homicidal enemies that have to be put down.
** The antagonists themselves. Jena is a terrorist fighting against Neuron and created the Homunculi that are undoubtedly some of the most dangerous enemies in the world. However, [[spoiler: it's later revealed that she's a WellIntentionedExtremist who is doing what she thinks is to the benefit of humanity. Meanwhile, Yoseph a slightly, ''slightly'' DarkerShadeOfBlack who is only saving humanity to fuel his AGodAmI complex. Regardless of their motivations, they both want to merge humanity with the Astral Plane, believing that it will be saved when in actuality the process will kill practically everyone.]]

** [[spoiler: Towards the end of the game, Yoseph and Jena end up saying "Only I can save humanity!" simultaneously, demonstrating how they're NotSoDifferent.]]

** Aberrations are some of the first enemies you encounter and are generally just common {{Mooks}}. However, File 2 reveals that they were previously humans who redshifted because of the mere presence of chimeras. This understandably puts them in a more tragic light, but they're still mindless, homocidal enemies that have to be put down.

* RealityEnsues:
** The game is more than glad to remind you that police officers don't go around doing stuff you'd do in any other video game. [[DieChairDie Smash some nearby boxes]] while you're tracking down a Chimera? Your sibling ''will'' call you out, and you'll suffer a score penalty as well.
** PlayedForLaughs with the ice cream shop in Harmony Square. Instead of the ice cream being an inventory item, you hold it in your hand upon purchase and you have to balance it with your controller's motion sensor (if it has one) and the right analog stick, and either eat it or deliver it to a child as part of a Red Case before the stack of scoops falls apart.

* ForbiddenZone: Zone 09 is off-limits to the rest of the Ark's population, and especially for UNION. [[spoiler:It's a district that's indefinitely quarantined off from the rest of the Ark due to a redshift incident GoneHorriblyWrong a few decades back. The place can basically be described as the Ark's version of the Kowloon Walled City, with the Hermits gang being the closest Zone 09 has to any sort of government. Going there on an unauthorized mission with Hal gets you arrested, only to be released in the following File due to your assistance being needed for an extremely dangerous Homunculus, while Hal just straight up gets fired.]]

* ForbiddenZone: Zone 09 is off-limits to the rest of the Ark's population, and especially for UNION. [[spoiler:It's a district that's indefinitely quarantined off from the rest of the Ark due to a redshift incident GoneHorriblyWrong a few decades back. The place can basically be described as the Ark's version of the Kowloon Walled City, with the Hermits gang being the closest Zone 09 has to any sort of government.]]

** The X-Baton takes some of its cues from the [[MorphWeapon BLADE]] from VideoGame/Vanquish, another PlatinumGames title.

* MultiethnicName: From important characters to one-off [=NPCs=] you can scan with the IRIS, this trope comes in full force, usually pairing a Western first name with a Japanese last name and vice-versa. Justified in that mankind is on the brink of extinction and confined to a single man-made island. The citizens in Sector 5 have mainly Chinese names, with almost no ethnic variations, which [[spoiler:makes sense since they've been sealed off from the rest of the Ark]].

** And of course your character's sibling is named after the cornerstone of the Japanese cyberpunk genre, ''Manga/{{Akira}}''.

* AwesomeButImpractical: [[spoiler: [[LimitBreak Legion]] [[FusionDance Fusion]] is this in spades. From a gameplay perspective, it turns you into a nigh-invincible juggernaut who’ll completely obliterate regular enemies and do significant damage to bosses. However, you can only activate it when you max out the Synchronicity Gauge and it takes a ''long'' time fill it back up, especially if you use up the entire gauge in one go. And it’s really easy to do so by mistake, since the Fusion itself only last a couple of seconds. That’s not even getting into the fact that using it deprives you of the majority of your moveset. Lore-wise, the Protagonist can’t use it for too long, lest they run the risk of it becoming permanent and theM devolving into TheBerserker, like they did during their first use.]]

** Hal Clark's name is a direct nod to another {{Adorkable}} hacker-turned mission guru, [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Hal "Otacon" Emmerich]].

** It’s also a successor of sorts to another Platinum game, ''VideoGame/TransformersDevastation''. Both are cel-shaded action games that use a highscore-based grading system rather than one requiring the best time, no damage, and best combo that previous Platinum games used. Both also have a finisher at the end of a combo that can only be activated by pressing a button when a light flashes. The Legion Skills are also baaed off the cooldown-based abilities in ‘’Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan''.

* DoWellButNotPerfect: Unlike ''Bayonetta'', the game does not not require you to beat the time requirement or even avoid taking damage in order to achieve the highest rank, but they do give higher bonuses to the score. As long as your score is at least 10,000 or above, you can easily achieve an S+ rank by performing various other special techniques. In fact, the reward for achieving S+ rank on all files is purely cosmetic while a B rank will reward you with a Premium Material Code, which is much more useful since it can upgrade your character.

** The antagonists themselves. Jena is a terrorist fighting against Neuron and created the Homunculi that are undoubtedly some of the most dangerous enemies in the world. However, [[spoiler: it's later revealed that she's a WellIntentionedExtremist who is doing what she thinks is to the benefit of humanity. Meanwhile, Yoseph a slightly, ''slightly'' DarkerShadeOfBlack who is only saving humanity to fuel his GodComplex. Regardless of their motivations, they both want to merge humanity with the Astral Plane, believing that it will be saved when in actuality the process will kill practically everyone.]]

* OptionalStealth: Downplayed. File 06 has a mandatory stealth section, and while you ''can'' just brute-force your way through if you don't care for your rank, you are strongly encouraged to slip through undetected because the big stealth bonuses are the only way to get S+.