20 Best Video Games Of 2019

8. Astral Chain

Unlike Nioh: Automata sweeping various Game of the Year awards in 2017, you'd barely know Platinum Games had a new title out this year, as it was locked to the Switch and barely advertised.

Still, the team aren't THE name in stylish action titles for no reason, and Astral Chain straight-up detonates everything you think you know about how a Devil May Cry, Bayonetta-type game can control.

More about the titular chain being piloted around the battlefield with the right stick - a number of different demons on the end - you'll wrap up foes to freeze them in place, dole out extra damage, fling them off buildings or engulf entire groups in one go.

Attacks are on the triggers, freeing up the face buttons for specials and other aiming modes or high-damage stances.

It's supremely hard to put into words just how well Astral Chain discards the rulebook Platinum helped write, but this is an exemplary actioner with a presentation right out of Saturday morning anime.