Scarlet Nexus has some neat ideas but it feels cumbersome and poorly paced resulting in a kind of boring experience.

On the positive side of things though I initially liked the visuals with a kind of Blade Runner Neo Tokyo vibe to the environments with holograms on buildings and a nice sense of scale. The soundtrack is really pretty good too with a mixture of digital and rock tracks that are fast paced to match the combat. It all runs very smooth on PS5 at 60fps as well.

On the more negative side of things after 10 hours I felt the story just didn't really go anywhere and is broken up by these "bond" quests that just feel like an absolute time waste as I don't feel they actually develop the cast. You get a choice of two characters at the start, I chose Kasane and her whole stick is that she has a sister complex pretty much in that time. The story scenes are kind of cringey but not entertaining as I just didn't care about anyone or what was happening. The cutscenes themselves also seem to have been made with about a £10 budget. They are nearly all just one static screen with talking over it like a poorly made visual novel and there is a lot of dialogue and text. I feel like this game needed both pruning massively and yet more depth to the characters and plot all at the same time. It's pretty impressive how the writers managed that.

The combat has promise. You can use these telekinetic powers to launch items at monsters as well as do physical attacks, jump, dodge, and link with team mates to gain additional abilities like elemental buffs etc. When it works it can look pretty awesome, picking up a bus and crushing monsters with it is satisfying. The issue is it's kind of clunky to use and I just never felt comfortable with it control wise. Your character takes almost no impact damage half the time as well so I would get hit by an off screen launched projectile without even knowing it had happened. There doesn't seen to be an attack cancel for dodging either which I found most unpleasant in a fast paced action game like this. Lastly the fights just feel really repetitive. Enemies aren't that interesting and can be beaten pretty easily but all in all I found it a little awkward but it's close to being fun, just not quite there.

Speaking of awkward the menus are just an absolute mess with side quests and challenges (also bland and boring) buried in sub menus with various other things like character exposition, equip menus etc. The dungeons are also just uninteresting to explore with a few corridors and large rooms with randomly generated items, it's just repetitive.

Eventually I got to a particularly bad story section and simply realized I wasn't having fun. It dawned that I'd been actively avoiding playing it compared with most games when I had free time so made the decision to simply drop it and move on.

It's not terrible. It's just clunky, haphazard and kind of boring.

+ Smooth framerate on PS5.
+ Nice OST.
+ some nice art design.

- Slightly clunky and repetitive combat.
- Boring dungeons.
- Uninteresting story and characters.
- Badly paced.

Pretty disappointing game to be honest.

Let's start with the positives. Graphics are in line with current standards and it's full of voice acting. The combat doesn't start out great, but after unlocking new abilities through leveling and bonds, it gets kind of fun.

But all of the above is not nearly enough to get through the dull dialogue and cutscenes. The game starts out throwing way too many one-note boring characters at you that its hard to find the will to care, and by the time I do have them all sorted out, I find myself not caring about any of them and their mostly lifeless dialogue.

When I realised that I was skipping most of the cutscenes to just get the game over with I dropped it. I didn't care anymore and the dialogue was too painfully boring to slog through any further. The different zones were also all very linear and boring.

Scarlet Nexus is a game with a fun combat system that is dragged down by nearly every other aspect and thus failed to keep me interested in any way.

I'm not sure why there's this desire in action games to make the pacing just glacial and filled with fucking roadblocks. So many cutscenes, tutorials, bloat, just asinine shit that gets in the way of what is a REALLY fun combat system. This has an unskippable anime OP which is really pushing my patience, so if you like loud and busy go-nowhere plots sandwiched into a killer action game...go crazy? I guess?

I'm going to keep playing it because I do have a lot of fun playing it when I'm not having to skip through 300 million menu screens.

A história do jogo é um tanto genérica, cheia de plots e clichês de animes que já vi em outras 100 obras, mas ela conduz bem e não empaca, então não é ruim. Os personagens acabam sendo os padrões também: A Milf protetora, a amiguinha de infância, a Kuudere que mal fala 3 palavras, o rival do protagonista e etc, coisa que também não é ruim, eles fazem bem seu papel na história, cada um tendo seu devido desenvolvimento. Nesses 2 pontos o jogo não é ruim, mas nada nele é original, praticamente tudo é reaproveitado de outras obras, pessoalmente não foi um problema.

A melhor parte do jogo com certeza é a gameplay, frenética, adaptável, dinâmica e muito divertida, principalmente quando aprende a usar os combos, é muito prazeroso, embora os cenários tendam a se repetir conforme você vai avançando na história, são basicamente corredores de luta. Graficamente o jogo não parece ser de 2021, o gráfico é bom, mas não é o que tinha de melhor na época, apesar disso achei o estilo de arte do jogo muito atrativo e bonito. Infelizmente as cutcenes em forma de ''mangá'' incomodam bastante, pois o jogo é lotado de diálogos e cerca de 80% deles é nesse estilo, poderiam ter feito mais cenas animadas, ao menos as cenas de luta são lindas e bem empolgantes, principalmente quando juntas da trilha sonora, que é muito boa.

O jogo pra mim tem mais pontos positivos do que negativos, e no quesito diversão ele manda muito bem e acaba compensando seus erros, então valeu bastante a pena jogar, mesmo que no seu lançamento eu estivesse bem relutante com a obra (parte disso é culpa da adaptação em anime, que achei bem ruim quando tentei assistir).

we're in for a long one, folks
I really wanted to like this game at first. I really did.

On a surface level it's a very OK game with issues that just get worse down the line. Getting the music and feel out of the way first: it's palatable, but really nothing to write home about. Some places look pretty alright, but it starts getting very same-y after a while, especially after going through the stages multiple times (which you will do a LOT). The soundtrack ranges from the occasional banger to penis music.
The gameplay is very fun for a while, and I did like trying to figure out how to defeat enemies and experimenting with different power combinations. And then it just does nothing with it. The skill tree amounts to jack shit (Please Stop Making "increase attack by 5%" On Skill Trees I'm Fucking Begging), you can pretty much ignore the sidequests, and the game's idea of difficulty isn't actual interesting combat scenarios as much as it is just throwing more enemies in your face. 30 hours of this definitely makes "it overstays it's welcome" seem like an understatement.

The name of the game is wasted potential, and it does NOT get any more glaring than in the game's writing. It's just fucking NOTHING.

The dialogue is so horribly rigid, and falls into the common problem of "people don't speak like this"; it's written incredibly stiltedly, like they word-for-word translated the game without carrying over what charm the writing might've had. Every character speaks the same, and there's either no speech quirks or, if a character does have one, it's incredibly forced. No dialogue in the game feels natural.

Quick aside: the characters are fine. They're pretty flat but they each have something that keeps them from being completely forgettable.

On that note: the story is just nothing. There's at least FOUR different pieces of setup, and none of their payoffs are satisfying whatsoever. We have an all-powerful government conducting mass surveillance on its citizens? There's an ongoing political rivalry with another nation who is no better than they are? A massive world-consuming black hole formed in the sky? And what's the deal with the Others? And that's still not including human experimentation, the cloning, the world-controlling supercomputers, the discrimination against non-psychic humans etc.

There is no statement made about said mass surveillance OR the treatment of the population, no closure on the political rivalry, and the resolution on the black hole/Other dilemma is so convoluted that it'd make this review longer than it already is.

What I will say is: none of it made me feel anything. There's almost no real, actual resonant concrete ideas that I can take away from this game. It doesn't say anything about it's worldbuilding, which is VERY clearly based on stuff the world's still grappling with today. I cant even give this a pass for the gameplay because it just felt like a chore 3/4 of the way through.

If you really want to buy this game, wait for a sale. I really cant justify buying this game at full price. Maybe you'll take away something from this game that I can't, or even play through both routes, who knows.

You can NOT make one of the main characters the son of the ruling family who wants to reform the government with no drastic changes, and claim to have made a new genre called "brainpunk".

This game has a lot of issues even for the typical Bandai Namco jive. It has the potential to be a truly remarkable anime game but it does not succeed, and on top of that it fails HARD. it tries to provide a deep narrative that becomes overly complex and throws plot twist at you every 10 minutes, then throws the plot point out the window completely and never brings it up. I wish I was exaggerating but even right before beating the game, I could NOT tolerate it. The combat is great, but enemies are overpowered and SAS powers are inconsistent in efficiency even on Very Easy mode. It's really sad that a game so aesthetically pleasing ends up going down the shitter in quality. How are you going to render cutscenes in game, then make them transition mid-scene to a v-novel style and use that for 75% of the story? just disgraceful for a PS4/XB1 game. This is PS2 level of budget cutscenes. Just a lot is wrong with this game, definitely a skip and should NOT have been nominated at The Game Awards last year.

Scarlet Nexus comes so close to excellence so often that each time it falls short, it just makes me sad.

The combat is good, but it lacks the snappiness of similar games, which means that every attack feels just delayed enough to be bothersome. It takes over 2/3 of the game for the combat to really find its own identity, which makes the rest of the game a delight, but it's unfortunate that it takes so long.

The story, similarly, falls just short of the Nier Automata-esque intrigue they were going for. The pieces for something that complex are all in place, but the order of discovery, commitment to the mysteries, and attachment to characters that would make it impactful all feel rushed.

That's not to say the characters aren't likable. Most are, but Scarlet Nexus tries to chase the Tales/Persona/Fire Emblem dragon, for which it is utterly unprepared. The social moments are serviceable, but they feel tacked on, so I wish they'd have committed to it fully or cut it entirely.

As almost everyone has said: Scarlet Nexus has a ton of good ideas that, with some refining, could really shine in a sequel.

As such, I hope people play this game (especially now while it's on Game Pass) to see those good ideas eventually reach their full potential.

Much better than I expected. There's a heavy Tales influence which runs through the game, giving you a good 'party' to run through the game. The story's a bit plot-holey and it kind of forgets a lot of stuff when the main thread ramps up, but the interactions between the characters are often good. The combat's not totally amazing but there's plenty of satisfying actions, particularly involving smashing enemies with stuff scattered around the environment. My main issue is some really bad side quests which ended up stalling me for a while before I completely gave up.

This game is not perfect, but it scratches an itch I didn't know I had when I first played it in 2021. Replaying in 2023, has been a very enjoyable experience and I am confident if it gets a sequel, I will be replaying it a third time. Incredibly satisfying combat and a pretty good story to boot.

Pros:

- The hack and slash combat is fantastic and very fluid if you get the hang of combos, which alternate between attacks with the protagonists' weapons (sword for Yuito, throwing knives for Kasane) and telekinetically throwing objects strewn about the levels. The animations for these attacks and finishers are incredibly satisfying, with proper weight and “build up” (that tension you feel when a special move is winding up, common to action anime).

- The SAS system (borrowing psionic powers from companions) is very engaging and allows you to approach battles in several ways. Too much happening at once? Move at superspeed with SAS Hypervelocity. Enemy covered in oil? Set them alight with SAS Pyrokinesis? Is there a distant armored enemy obscured by smoke? See through the noise with SAS Clairvoyance, break their shell with SAS Duplication, and move into the kill range with SAS Teleportation.

- The story is high stakes and pretty interesting, with more than a few emotional moments (much more than I was initially expecting. An interesting bit about the story is that it is "split" between the male protagonist (Yuito) and the female protagonist (Kasane), with their storylines running together at the beginning and then diverging. While Yuito's campaign raises questions about the world and its narrative, Kasane’s campaign answers them (a bit of an oversimplification). Yet both stand on their own.

- The “bond episodes” (hanging with/learning more about your companions) add a lot of depth to the characters and make you care about them. Completing them not only provides insight into their personalities, backstories, and development, but also unlocks new abilities with their SAS connections. These characters all have their own “cliches” but provide a unique spin on them such that they never feel uninspired.

- The "brainpunk" aesthetics are VERY cool and make you feel like a badass (exemplified by mechanics such as “brain field” and “brain drive”). As an example of one of these aesthetics, SAS connections are literal connections maintained by neon wires plugged into the characters’ backs, and operating them means accepting the pain they bring when they piece the skin to interface directly with the brain. Additionally, the enemy artstyle is disconcerting and truly alien; they stutter around and writhe in inhuman manners.

- The add-on DLCs (I bought the Season Pass so I'm talking about them cumulatively) add a lot of different weapons, plug-ins (which enable buffs and different mechanics for your characters), mechanics, and bond episodes which greatly spice up the endgame (aka: going for 100% completion). It is fairly cheap (I think around $20) and I believe it's worth the money.

Cons:

- This isn’t technically a con, but I will say that this is NOT an RPG, it's a hack-and-slash.. You can choose weapons for your character and their companions, but it's only one type per character (sword, knives, hammer, torch, etc.) and for most of the base game weapons, the only difference between them all is their appearance and how much damage they do. Many of the DLC weapons have additionally effects that allow for limited build-crafting, though “build-crafting” isn’t really something you do in this game.

- While I enjoyed the story, there are a few parts that are very convoluted and you would probably need to think about them for a while to make sense of them. Plot twists are abundant and while this provides intrigue, it can also make the narrative feel unfocused or hurried. Additionally the story is meant to be played with Yuito first and Kasane second, as Kasane's story spoils Yuito's, which is somewhat awkward and can be frustrating if Kasane’s campaign interests you more at first.

- The side quest system is absolute garbage, being very one-note and finicky (“kill ____ enemy with ____ attack”), and in my opinion are only worth doing if you want cool weapons or 100% completion (and you only need to complete 30 to get all achievements). Instead of completing them throughout the course of the game like how I assume I was supposed to, I just grinded them for a few hours after completing both campaigns.

- Without getting into spoiler territory, some of the bond episodes ignore a glaring issue raised in the main story (they are designed to be played alongside the main story), and as such, the events of those bond episodes come off as downright bizarre. I have a feeling the teams writing the main narrative and the bond episodes were two separate groups that merged their work at the end, only to figure out they could not coexist in their original forms, leading to stop-gap rewrites.

- Yuito is the classic anime protagonist, and while he has some great moments and unexpected depth, he is very "normal but also exceptional" and can be a little dense. He’s not all bad, but there are times that will have you questioning what’s going on in that head of his. Objectively, Kasane is much more interesting, but somehow can be even more confusing than Yuito in her actions at times.

- The game has both Japanese and English voices; I have only played with English voices and so I can say that it certainly has those "weird dub" deliveries at times. In general, the English dub is good though.

Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars

The combat in this game is very fun and I really enjoyed all the characters and their interactions. The bond moments definitely could've afforded being a bit more spread out so you're not doing 9 of them all at once between endgame chapters, but overall this was a game I couldn't put down.

Side note but to those tempted to play on PS5, the use of the DualSense's features is superb. The feedback and triggers and everything is worked to the bone for basically all of the gameplay, with combat utilising everything in various ways to a point where you can actually feel the flow of the fight and the impact of different attacks, it's dope.

Admittedly, I was somewhat planning to do a more thorough review of this once I'd beat both routes, but I decided to essentially speedrun the 2nd one, and while focussing on farming the gifts at the end and being driven up the wall by over an hour of trying to find 1(one) thing in 3 whole areas thrice over, only to then get one by sheer chance, excitedly use it for the gift I needed and then learn that I actually needed five more for other gifts as Kasane... ugh. Grind trophies suck :(

In conclusion the game is great, I should've just come back to do Yuito's route after a long break but the gameplay loop is so fun and addictive I couldn't stop myself. Definitely recommend to anyone interested, I'll be back to loving it once I've calmed down from my collectible bullshit :p

We're initially grounded in the body of Yuito/Kasane, almost claustrophobically. There's a slight hesitation between pressing the jump button and the character performing it, and awkward movement through alleys and stairways suddenly bring to attention just how little control we ever had over them. We are always gelled to environments that both look good and move us through set paths, deflecting interest. It's in combat that our movement becomes fluid, and this fluidity is, curiously, achieved through the character body being divided into pieces, disappearing from the screen in flashes, and directing present action through inanimate objects. Scarlet Nexus' narrative then matches this play, as it revolves around the merits and ethics of intersubjectivity. It's when we move from Yuito/Kasane and are distributed across others that we feel free, and the rhythms of Scarlet Nexus are felt and capable of being instrumentalised. Our eyes blur across the entire field, moving and shaking, and in the moment that we become one with the chaos everything falls into place.

The spatial logic of the hack and slash dictates that environments operate only as empty stages, and that working through the possibilities of the body-in-action is exploration. Items are given glowing outlines that highlight their functionality as game objects, and during action the beautifully imagined backdrops close in, revealing the illusionism of the grey box models. There's a reason for this — Yuito/Kasane direct their interest solely to the goal at hand, and the game graphically maps itself to this hack and slash intentionality. Unfortunately the telekinetic vision that could make the environments vividly alive with possibility gradually reveals how uniform these stages really are. It doesn't help that they are so fragmented, or that our progression through them is so linear. They lack the circularity of something like Nier, where the repetition becomes akin to madness, and instead dissolve as we depart.

As the game advances the levels get more visually minimalistic and so 'true' to their nature as virtual wireframes — like in the Arkham games' detective vision, there is a kick to being granted access to the world one layer down from graphical representation. And this should compound thematically in a game about recursive timelines and datasets. Early on there's the suggestion that the top 'semantic' layer (cities, people, etc) is a simulation projected onto a ruined Real, but Scarlet Nexus ultimately asserts itself as a political (rather than existential) dystopia. The fish and skies are holograms, but the people and buildings aren't. Memories can be transferred from a central database into clones, but we're to believe in the veracity of Yuito/Kasane. It tones down cybernetic/End of History ambiguities to make the case for concrete history and identities, but so why then does it all feel so dead and empty?

As the game through long static expositional sequences divulges its ultimately straightforward narrative (major players capable of manipulating space-time to their own personal/emotional ends), it's Satori the Archivist who continues to warrant interest. Saving and loading states is performed through this mysterious figure who is always there, at home, in dreams, in protected locations, and whose voice becomes less and less human. Early on the Archivist explains his position as a recorder of events for his employer (the same one as that of the protagonist), and this makes sense as the prevalence of surveillance and news networks is underscored as a fact of life in New Himuka. Before long it's clear that he's not actually working for anyone, and admits that he is 'air, and shadow' — an inhuman force that binds and gives shape to all things. This undermines the character-centric form the narrative takes, and insists on the eeriness of Scarlet Nexus' questions of time and virtuality from the sideline. That is, it is not us as Yuito/Kasane moving through concrete space that drives the game; our experience is only the flow of records kept by the Archivist who personifies the immanent code of the game system. It's the air, the shadows, it's God.

I originally characterized Scarlet Nexus as Nier Automata inspired but less ambitious, but as I played more and more, I realized this game has its own charm. The combat is very solid, though it doesn't change much throughout the game and the dodge mechanic is a little finnicky until you get the correct plug-in to deal with this (so I wish it was just more consistent in general). Story's not bad though they don't always do the best job explaining all the phenomena, so you might have to do your own research. And the visuals and soundtrack weren't bad at all either. Regardless, it might not be the best JRPG I've ever played, but the gameplay is engaging enough and I did slowly warm up to some of the characters as time passed. Wouldn't mind playing a sequel to this someday, and I'll probably try the other character's route on Gamepass in the near future.

Engraçado pensar que eu tava gostando muito desse jogo nas primeiras horas, principalmente pelo visual muito bonito e gameplay divertida e interessante, mas quanto mais tempo eu jogava, mais defeitos apareciam, com praticamente todo sistema do jogo sendo simplório demais e desinteressante, desde o combate repetitivo até os equipamentos que não fazem tanta diferença ou até o SAS que só ficou mais interessante bem mais pra frente, com mais poderes e níveis de amizade mais altos.

Até tava gostando da história lá pro capítulo 4 onde ela toma um rumo interessante, mas realmente odiei o que ela se torna depois da metade (só tive saco de jogar a história do Yuito, foda-se).

No fim, a única coisa que se manteve excelente até o final foi a estética, é realmente um jogo muito bonito e estiloso

When I first saw footage of this game, it immediately caught my eye but I was pretty suspicious if it really felt as good to play as it looked, since I tried previous ARPGs from Bandai without finding much satisfaction.

Well I was wrong, this game absolutely rocks on the gameplay side of things and props to Bandai Namco for having a permanent demo available on Steam, something not many developers outside of indies seem to do. And what's the deal with demos that are only temporarily available?


Good gameplay, good ARPG:

Scarlet Nexus offers a unique sort of beat 'em all where you play a ESP user whose main attribute is throwing things, but you'll be able to do a lot more. The game slowly expands your abilities with the power of your teammates and by the end of the game, you have access to more basic battle abilities, nine types of ESP, a lot of interactable items and multiple types of special attacks that all come up very regularly.

I wish the game unlocked all powers earlier though, it takes quite a while until you get a complete set of four partners and then even longer until you get all nine of them. And then you restart from scratch for the second character (well, you keep a lot of your knowledge honestly).

The combat offers a lot of tools at the player’s disposal and I think every power you unlocked filled its own niche. You have purely attack focused powers, then you have one which strengthens your counter/dodging and at the same time it’ll allow you to keep track of some special foes, then you have invisibility and sneak attacks, duplication… The powers are awesome and as you progress, they also get more special effects added to them. For example there was one power I only used to spot invisible enemies, I didn’t care for the effect of increasing the timing of dodges. It became my all-time favourite when there was the added effect of staggering enemies after a dodge; invisibility is pretty limited at first but later you can attack while staying invisible and it becomes much more interesting. And then every power you don’t use, you can instead trade the power’s usage gauge for a special move instead.

The game benefits from having a more than decent level design. While it's pretty linear, I found the levels to be interesting enough. First of all, they look beautiful and detailed, there really are a lot of details all around. The throwable items all over the place fit in the world, there are even specific interactive objects depending on the area you're in such as bulldozers in a construction site, trains in the subway... and they're all really cool to discover and use. A few branches here and there have optional fights and rewards so overall I had a lot of fun exploring.

It could have been more organic though: the levels are very independent from one another and most of the interactions are inside the hideout area. The town areas are essentially useless outside of your first exploration and only serve the purpose of getting quests. Some other games which attempt this end up having a more organic world as a result and it would be welcome here with the attempts at doing RPG stuff.

The maps also have way too many save points and you can see why. Since the game is linear, you’re not gonna go back to save after beating a boss so you need a save point before and right after the fight. This is where rethinking the save system could have helped, especially since it’s literally a human NPC who acts as such and he’s all over the place. Or they could map the map into a Dark Souls circle, unlocking a shortcut that sends you right back to the first checkpoint.

They could definitely reuse the old areas more too, especially with a scaling system for the monsters. Speaking of monsters, the game has a huge and interesting roster. There are multiple groups of enemies with cool designs and in each group, there are variants of the same monster. It provides a lot of change as they’re not just recolor but they can have a different weak area for example and different attacks too. Even the special endgame missions have unique monsters that were never seen before so that was cool. The bosses are no disappointment either, the game nails this part.

It’s worth mentioning that the game has 5 levels of difficulty. I played on very hard and I felt like it provided a fun challenge, the monsters were just tanky enough to have me exploit all the cool mechanics of the game to their fullest. Normal felt too easy and I would kill monsters before having the time to do cool combos.


Before I get into the bad parts, I want to say that this game was just very good at what it does well and that I really enjoyed it. I like this game, however it's pretty bad at some things which I'll detail next.


An action game crippled by its pacing:

First of all, the overall pacing can be somewhat burdensome. While SN is an excellent action game, it will regularly interrupt you with pretty long cutscenes and especially with a sort of "interruption" sequence (called phase standby in-game) where you will get the opportunity to interact with your teammates, gather quests, etc. This part is the main reason why the pacing sucks because where a level takes about one hour to go through, this entire segment can also take anywhere from 30min to an entire hour and unfortunately it's a pretty average section. You can thankfully skip most of it but you'll lose on some of the progression so it kinda sucks.

The so-called phase standby segments are really where the game is lacking. The way you interact with teammates is by raising an invisible relationship meter until you trigger enough points for events and level increases, which will unlock new abilities. Unfortunately I think it was a pretty bad choice to tie the relationships to abilities because it somewhat forces you to go through it to get the most out of the game, even if you don't like this section. While the events themselves are relatively okay and I do like the characters, I think the pacing of just having them included in a separate section of the game and spending a good hour between levels doing this was not the most fun.

Perhaps this separation is the main problem. The levels are not tied together when they could have been and the hideout section is too separated from the rest of the game. The switch from action to a Persona emulation is pretty jarring. I have played other games such as Dusk Diver which attempted this and I think they were more successful because of the overworld you move in and how you'll come across quests while going to the main location and then naturally coming back and talking to characters on your ways instead.



Painful menuing experience:

The gift system is also pretty gruesome. I think it was a really cool idea to incorporate the gifts into the game, everything you offer to your mates will eventually show up in the hideout and it gets very lively by the end of the game. Unfortunately the system itself is not very organic. Firstly, there are too many gifts and a lot of them have negligible effects, you would need maybe 30 copies of them to get a level up. Secondly, you obtain gifts by spending another five minutes in a menu where you craft them with confusing loot obtained from monsters or from exploring the environment. I think it would have been more fulfilling if they were just obtained in the environment or if there were less materials to keep track of for everything, it's just too complicated when you aim to complete the list.

Another menuing experience that detracts from the main game is the side quests. This is perhaps the single worst aspect of the game but before I criticise it, I really need to emphasise that this is completely ignorable and mostly useless in-game. Nonetheless it's a missed opportunity. As mentioned before, you don't really evolve in a world outside your hideout and therefore obtaining quests which require you to go back to a few peaceful areas where there's no reason to be is not organic. Every once in a while you waste time doing these rounds, just teleporting and checking if a quest appeared on the map. I really think they missed the opportunity to put these areas to use because outside of your initial visit during the story, they really are useless. It's a shame because they're beautiful and really detailed, they could have made the game's universe feel more alive.

The quests you obtain this way are essentially optional challenges to complete (and guess what, there is also something called "challenges" which is another submenu to take care of). Almost all of them just require you to kill mobs in a specific manner. Have X power activated while killing Y or use Z move to kill A. The problem is that a lot of the quests are so specific that you have to go out of your way to do it, you also obtain these quests after going through the area where you meet most of these monsters (until maybe a new encounter much later) and you have no reason to go back to areas (which don't scale, I wish they would).

A certain portion of the endgame has additional quests to unlock ultimate weapons and oh boy they really are not fun. At that point you not only do not remember where to find the monsters you need (with no form of indication whatsoever) but they ask you to kill them in extremely specific manners that require you to carefully deplete their health and spam a special move a few times, making sure they die from it and not another attack.


Decent story with comic-like vignettes:

While the game has numerous good ideas, most of them were hardly exploited at all. The game will drop a lot of things and move on to the next element instead, for example the story begins with mentions of discrimination between scouted soldiers and volunteers yet it is completely irrelevant to the story. They’ll occasionally mention some discrimination and all the lore adds up, it’s great honestly but the presentation doesn’t work. I feel like this game needed Falcom NPCs to carry that lore or some good side quests focused on those. Ultimately the story feels very unfocused with a lot of things going on. The characters are the nicest part, I felt like they all had their charm and I appreciated the interactions between them.

One pointless addition in my opinion is the mail system. It was genuinely unnecessary, it’s yet another menu to keep track of and an interruption. On top of having characters talk to each other, you’ll receive a mail which says pretty much the same thing but you won’t know before you read and you have to open a menu that interrupts the on-going conversation. Oh and if you don’t read them you might miss out on your opportunity to answer them! Which does… does it do anything actually? Maybe not, maybe it slightly raises relationship points, either way it was slightly annoying and didn’t add much to the story.

I’ve seen many criticisms for the visual presentation of the story but I personally liked it. Not having cutscenes means that the pacing is much faster than your usual game and I appreciate being able to read it like a visual novel instead of being stuck having to watch cutscenes. It looks pretty cool and the vignette storytelling is pretty well paced, with some animations that express what’s happening. It was really a welcome change in my opinion, I hope to see more of this. One thing I didn’t like is that on top of the main vignette, they’ll almost always add a bigger portrait of the talking characters and they can look lifeless at times, plus they are just redundant when the main picture is more expressive. I also have to note that both cutscenes and those vignettes will show your character costumes and weapons so that was really cool!!!

Both character have their own branching on the story but it doesn’t add much. There weren’t enough changes between the stories, too much of it is the same and since it’s hard to tell what’s different, especially when the differences in a same event are very minor, you don’t know what part you can skip so I ended up sitting through it all. NG+ has a nice option of resetting levels which… is pretty much necessary if you want to enjoy it, because there’s unfortunately no scaling. So you either overpower the game or you restart and relearn every ability progressively. I would have liked to steamroll through the game but not because I deal higher damage, instead because I had all my skills unlocked and could do sick combos from the beginning. Instead I had to go back to basic attacks.


Lastly I will say that the soundtrack is a blast. It’s a mix of electronic and jazz, I really liked it and some of the tracks are stuck in my head.

Overall, Scarlet Nexus is a great experience. It has an interesting setting and a unique concept. It's a great beat 'em all/ARPG but not a good JRPG, which it also tries to be. I hope this game will get a rightful sequel where the developers can improve the few things holding it back from being a well-rounded good game and not a flawed one.

Though it got a decent amount of attention in 2021, part of me still feels like Scarlet Nexus was underestimated. Bandai Namco makes a lot of stuff that immediately appeals to me, and Scarlet Nexus is perhaps one of the best examples. A flashy as heck "Brainpunk" world with intense action RPG combat that takes a few notes from character action games (or whatever you wanna call them), likeable characters, intricate (albeit imperfect) storytelling, and a soundtrack that vibes like few others have recently makes for a game that I knew I'd love. A lot of people seem to write their stuff off as "too anime" or whatever nonsense, but ignore those claims: Scarlet Nexus is an excellent game that deserves to stand tall with the best 2021 has to offer.

The game starts off with a relatively straightforward premise not unlike something like Neon Genesis Evangelion (teens with special abilities are enlisted to fight against an otherworldly threat) that quickly escalates into something broader. Within the first few chapters, important characters are killed, the main antagonist makes (some of) his intentions strangely obvious, tons of exposition and worldbuilding is done, time travel becomes a factor, and plenty of conflicts are stirred up. It's a really exciting, fast-paced intro in a genre that isn't necessarily known for them, though such breakneck pacing can make it hard to keep up. This extends throughout the game and the main story never really slows down. Later exposition dumps can be overwhelming and the game doesn't always space them out so well, but the emotion is there and the ideas presented are strong enough that you'll likely walk away with a good impression overall. Special mention goes out to one particular use of time travel in the game that I don't know I've seen before - I won't spoil it, but damn if it isn't a wildly elaborate way to get what you want!

The story is also reliant upon the perspective of its two protagonists, Yuito Sumeragi and Kasane Randall. You can select one of them as your main character and that'll determine the viewpoint of certain cutscenes, the team that'll accompany you for most of the game, and a bit of unique content here and there. It's a really cool idea and I was excited to see how different the two playthroughs would feel, but it only really succeeds in the gameplay department. Having to practice with two wildly different fighting styles gives you an appreciation for what they can do - Kasane can keep foes stunlocked and at bay with her range from the start, whereas Yuito is more of a late bloomer, starting off a bit hard to use but becoming a veritable human blender by the end. Having to fight with different teammates is an educational experience that teaches you how to best use their powers. Kasane's team generally has powers that make it easy to press the advantage and ensnare enemies in her attacks, whereas Yuito's team is best suited to helping him actually approach foes to make use of his already dominant offense. However, the story changes between routes are disappointingly minor. All of the major content is shared between characters, so you'll be repeating most of the game just to see the occasional different morsel, and these differences dry up entirely once you approach the endgame. Considering that these unique bits really don't add a ton to the story, it's hard to justify a second playthrough (at least right away) specifically for the story content. At the very least, it's worth it for the segments where the two teams fight - the sheer emotion of both sides coming through, the intensity of the mechanics hitting a high, and the amazing track that plays culminate in moments that are masterstroke boss fights.

Combat in Scarlet Nexus is some of the most thrilling I've seen in a while. Using a combination of melee attacks and psychokinetic abilities, you can do flashy combos, powerful charge attacks, and manipulate the environment to your advantage. Your weapon does the most damage in most cases once it's upgraded, but throwing stuff at enemies is the best way to stun them and reduce their break gauge, allowing for an instant kill or high damage using a brain crush. The amount of objects to throw is always significant and certain ones result in unique quick time events of sorts that reward you with more powerful attacks. Slamming a giant truck into things never gets old! Scarlet Nexus has some character action elements, but it is very much an action RPG first and foremost. Equipment and stats are a significant factor as is using the right attacks or elements to hit enemy weaknesses. You're also very much reliant on your team that can provide you with special powers temporarily. Some of these give your weapon an element like fire or electricity, some influence your movement through slowing time or teleportation, and others like duplication supplement your offense in interesting ways. It can be a lot to take in and the game introduces new mechanics every so often for a good chunk of the game, but mastering combat is very rewarding. Combat is also supplemented by a wonderful soundtrack in each area that changes depending on whether or not you're in combat. When you're in the zone and the music is pulsating with intense electronic energy, it really makes the experience come together as something that feels truly, genuinely cool.

Outside of combat, intermission segments give you a chance to chill out and vibe with your team by giving them gifts (which decorate the hub permanently, it's really neat!) or hearing what they have to say in bond episodes. By improving your friendship through gifts and combat, your teammates will open up to you, telling you their life stories and seeking your help in improving them. This is where a majority of the game's character development lies, so it's an optional thing that kinda feels mandatory. These episodes are well worth it though and feature compelling arcs unique to each protagonist due to their differing relationships with each character. For example, the mysterious, oftentimes obnoxiously indirect Kagero tries to be something of a father figure to Kasane for personal reasons, whereas his relationship with Yuito is far more fragile as a result of his dangerous line of work forever changing Yuito's life. Shiden is an absolute asshole to both characters due to his inferiority complex, but as her teammate, Kasane takes more time to understand where he comes from whereas Yuito finds it harder to break the ice because of his privileged background as part of the Sumeragi family. Every bond episode is notable and compelling and you're likely to think very differently of each character by the time you're done. These scenes can get incredibly long though, so having to do four or more in between every chapter can get tedious fast. These segments actually take up a significant amount of the play time if you want them to and that can often be detrimental to the game's pacing. The stories here are interesting and give a lot of extra life to an already exuberant cast, but it'd be nice if they were spread out a bit more or were perhaps more consistently interactive. It's a similar problem to Tales of Arise - the actual quality of the writing is very solid, it's just the lack of space between so much of it makes it feel worse than it actually is.

Scarlet Nexus is easily one of the best games of 2021. Everything about it comes together in a package that's both incredibly cool and substantial, featuring stories and characters with relatable themes like finding your place in the world and learning to trust others that you likely won't forget. Combat is satisfyingly deep and only grows moreso with time, making you feel like a pro as you eradicate foes with the power of teamwork and public transit. If the pacing was better, namely with less exposition dumped all in one scene, more spread out bond episodes, and some of the later levels cut down slightly, it'd probably be a perfect game for me! If you enjoy action RPGs and want something that feels familiar in its coziness yet fresh in its action packed execution, don't sleep on this one.

Incredible combat surrounded by a mostly standard anime-esqe world that gets by thanks to likable characters and an engaging, tense first half. It's a testament to how snappy, fluid, and responsive these controls are that I never felt bored fighting the enemies in the game, and the sheer amount of freedom you are given to dispatch these things makes each encounter memorable and distinct. Some really quality bosses in this as well, particularly the final.

Shame the story is a bit of a letdown once you get down to it. The second half is bogged down by heavy exposition due to the dual narratives needing to crossover and explain both ends of the story, and what the final threat ends up being doesn't feel properly built up to. Still, I can't say the emotional beats didn't entirely work as I still felt moved and I like the bittersweet, soulful tone of the final segment. Good game, if flawed.

Despite the boxart looking hyper serious the actual game inside is very chuunicore. So be ready for that kind of plot because I like that kind of whacky bullshit but I know it's not everybody's cup of tea. The story is the main focus going on really long and taking up a lot of time. It's on the long side, but it's an alright story to get attached to the cast with. It also has social links, which unlike social links aren't interactive at all so you're mostly just in pure VN mode when those come up (and you will get a lot of those especially late game). Thankfully a few of these social links do use actual gameplay segments to break them up.

The gameplay is a decent action hack and slash where you choose from two stories. I chose Kasane, who is more range focused. You balance between your attacks and your psychokinesis attacks. Some are regular objects you chuck at foes, others have special input commands that can do things from smack them harder to spin around and beyond. You also have SAS, a system that lets you use the powers of your party members for even more mix and match variety. These are great, and you even get a super mode on top of that to help keep things from getting stale. It doesn't always keep things from getting stale though especially with the barrage of big enemies the game throws at you where you'll just be mashing out the same moves and combinations over and over hoping your super mode puts an end to the barrage.

It's a little on the too long side, but it's still a solid experience.

Finished Both Yuito and Kasane's route as well as the Brain Eater DLC, and Scarlet Nexus has become one of my favorite games.

I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.

Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.

Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.

Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.

Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.

I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.

Edit 1: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.

I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)

needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.

I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)

Edit 2: As for the Karen's DLC, it was awesome, it's sad that is behind a huge amount of grind, but the contents of the episodes are worth investing into and it also includes one of the hardest fights in the game (as a vr mission that unlocks episode 3) This dlc really enhanced certain characters and made me dead inside, it was so damn emotional...

Overall, It's a solid 9/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane,9/10 for Karen's Story in the DLC)