Scarlet Nexus (2021)

Scarlet Nexus The Game That’s Just As Strange As The Game Itself

To start off this review I was familiar with the Anime before the actual game and I think I finished it halfway before dropping it, The reason why is because the story and characters weren’t intriguing to me, Felt bland.

Funny enough years later I try the game… I wasn’t able to have fun 😂 The controls are so awkward 😐 there’s nothing unique gameplay wise.

The visuals are well.. decent ? It isn’t like Naruto Storm 4 like graphics but the coveral character design is awful and very bland, your typical anime npcs and stereotypes there’s nothing to the character you feel like yeah we are going to be good friends from now on when I will play this game. 🥲

The soundtrack is oddly enough well… I guess good ? I wasn’t bobbing my head to anything at the start tho.

I will come back later to this 👆but the composer is Hironori Anazori. And this dude is pretty much nonexistent never heard of him but go figure he barely has any works. So I had to search up some random osts from scarlet nexus.

I listened to some soundtracks and they are great, Might be lucky on what I clicked but he seems to be getting the vibe well.

Thing I wanted to explain right now as to why I quit the game and that’s because I played the game for like 1 hour and some minutes and stopped🚨

Disclaimer : To make this a fair review I used my previous experience of watching the anime, read reviews and watched end game gameplay mechanics to conclude a fair conclusion. ✅

I don’t like non open minded half baked reviews neither 😂**

The controls are so bad and the usage of it is so horrible it doesn’t really feel like playing the game but more focus on the story. 🖥️

All you really do is throw objects into enemies , blocking an enemy move is pretty much nonexistent all you do is dash and you got to time it perfectly. Flashy moves doesn’t equal fun when using them.🕹️

But yeah about story I can’t really go into detail because one spoilers and secondly I haven’t finished the entire thing to give a fair answer to it.📜

Just here to ”Warn” as this game was like a underdog or must play it or whatever, but it doesn’t live up to its expectations a good game is the moment you enter the first 5 minutes… That’s how I at least see it.☺️

There’s a reason games like super smash bros, or Zelda titles perform so well in that regard, And are liked by the fans but of course to each it’s own 🥸

CollectApk 30 May 2025 18:00

I have beaten Yuito's story and was ready to give it a four-star. It had some flaws such as rather basic battle mechanics, weak final boss, several unanswered question but it was an enjoyable experience. I had a lot of fun with it...until I played half way through Kasane's campaign.

I have to claim that it might be a more personal issue. But I just hate Kasane as a character. The two protagonists' stories are mostly the same story told in different viewpoints. Some of Kasane's motives are not fully explained in Yuito's campaign and this is actually a good thing to me. Because after seeing her blindly believed in something that might not even be true and caused a lot of confusion, anger, and distrust to her teammates, I just couldn't stand her anymore.

What's more depressing to me is that after developing some love to all characters, Kasane has to start it all over again. And it was a bumpy ride. Especially seeing her straight up enraged Hanabi by asking her to betray Yuito and insisting Hanabi to think for herself more. Sorry, It's too much for me...

Combat is getting even better as I unlock more abilities and get to more involved encounters. That skill tree and some various settings allowed me to quickly address most problems I had with the gameplay, which is great.

The levels you do that combat in are definitely pretty dull, though... Some enemies are a bit annoying to take down as well. And while I am not 100% against the story and characters, they're certainly not pulling me back to the game much.

I'm going to keep poking away at it since it's fun to play and sometimes has a nice aesthetic and vibe, but I'm not optimistic that I'll get truly sucked into this for the long haul in the way I want to be with a sizable RPG.

Despues de jugar 10 horas con Kasane, tengo que dejarlo aquí. Tiene una presentación estética increible, una música de 10, ideas mecánicas ingeniosas y ... no evoluciona nada de lo que presenta en las primeras 2 horas. Tras 10 horas, el combo de ataques es el mismo (añadiendo como mucho 2 ataques más al final, en vez de 3 golpes hace 5!) y los compañeros que tienes siguen siendo los mismos. Una buena evolución del sistema de combate de Tales of pero que todavía queda un poco.

Como detalle, si quieres hacer un sistema de vínculos como persona, perfecto, pero porfavor, que la "intermission" no lleve más tiempo que una misión normal, coño.

Alright, the game wasn't perfect, but I found the game play so extremely good and fun that I am forgiving certain aspects about the game.

Let's get the not so great things about the game out of the way: The story is interesting but it is a mess, I went completely blind and wasn't sure what to expect and it really did a 180 on me which I appreciate. Still, the story is not the strong point, the emotional scenes are not properly delivered. Similarly, they cutscenes are usually screenshots as opposed to animations which I feel for an "anime" game is a missed opportunity

If you are looking for a game with exploration and semi open world, Scarlet Nexus doesn't deliver. It is pretty linear and I am not sure if any side missions have interesting outcomes, because the few I did were pretty run of the mill "go kill stuff until you get X of stuff". The bonds and scenes with other characters is hit and miss, I really enjoyed some of the character stories, while other ones i just skipped most of it if not all of it.

So why I do forgive all this? because I rather prefer linear games, not a big fan of side missions and grinding and the game had amazing gameplay.

While the combat is not as complex or hard as bayonetta or other similar games, it allows you to experiment and try combos of your own. The powers feel very impactful and are super fun to use. And when you find a combo that allows you to eliminate an enemy super quickly it feels extremely satisfying. In simialr vein to bayonetta, it will introduce a mini boss by itself, and you struggle to kill it, then the game decides to up the ante and throw the hard mini boss with more stuff at you at a later stage keeping the pressure up and making you feel like you have been mastering the system.

By the end of the game I felt super powerful and like nothing could stop me. The animations and combat effects are pretty fantastic and really add to the feeling.

The english va are excellent and I recognize a lot of them from some of favourite series which was the cherry on top for this game.

Overall, the game has its flaws and you might not like it as much as I did if you are looking for something else from the game, but if you are looking for an action packed combat, cool powers and flashy animations, you are in for a treat.

This game is supremely dumb. The story is complete nonsense, characters act like no human has never act before, and the presentation (using still images) is terrible and impossible to follow.

But gameplay is great. It manages a good rhythm between weapon attacks, powers and support with a more or less interesting status system. Although some enemies are only defeatable using a very specific combination of powers, which detracts from the need for experimentation; when you see one of those, you know exactly how to kill them and are forced to do that.

In the end, I quit before finishing it as I encountered a boss fight that was overly long and filled with boring and annoying nuisance enemies.

Unfortunately, the whole package of Scarlet Nexus is simply not good enough. It had one or two very good aspects while the others range from average to just outright terrible. It's a game that could have been better than what it was but was brought down by terrible writing and some very weird design choices that brings the whole experience down.

Story was mostly pretty bad, with all anime cliches you can imagine and tries way too hard to be something deep. I like anime, I watch a lot of anime, but this one is a low tier Shounen or at best average one. Most of the dialogue was pretty awful and the characters were anime tropes, not badly written but nothing interesting. Story does improve a little bit by the end but overall, it's not the reason why you'll be playing this game. Yuito is also a pretty lame protagonist. Just a typical Shounen protagonist who's Mr.Perfect and all that.

Story isn't helped by the way it's told either. Telling the story via still pictures and portraits talking was a pretty weird decision that left me mostly uninterested in what is told in front of me. Please don't mention Persona, because in it you can at least see character models moving on the screen, while here it's all still pictures after still pictures. This honestly screams either lack of budget or laziness more than art direction. This game has an unnecessary anime released at the same time, so why couldn't they make full 3D cutscenes ? really ? Could have used that anime budget to make cutscenes in this game.

Combat is why you'll be playing this game though, and why it's worth any money. With ton of movement, powers, attacks and allies, there're ton of fun to have here, and a lot of ways to change your style and try new things and different combinations all the time. There're 9 powers in total that you can use and they're all fun and can be combined together for great combos. Enemies variety is also nice, and many of them require certain tactics or usage of certain powers to be defeated.

The only problem the combat suffers from is that the game is very easy even on hard. I played the entire game on hard and I only suffered in very, very few fights, and nothing more. With the amount of powers, skills and abilities you keep getting as you progress, it's hard not to become overpowered in this game. Not to mention the healing items are abundant and very easy to get/buy. However, this doesn't hurt the fun you'll get from the hack and slash gameplay. I would have liked it if I can switch to other characters but it's not a big deal.

Progression is mostly linear, you can buy weapons or upgrade them in between every chapter. You can deepen your bond with your allies via bond episodes (similar to social links/confidents in Persona to be honest) which gives their powers a boost. These are all nice, but the RPG elements in the game overall is shallow and not that deep. The combat itself is deep, with ton of options and powers, but when it comes to building your character, skill trees and relationships, it's light on this area.

Environmental design is mostly solid and very good to look at, but it's very linear. Exploration is pretty limited and the game is mostly you moving from one combat scenario to the next. A little more open areas would have been nice. With that it's basically linear action game. Side quests are just your typical terrible fetish quests that JRPGs never seem to think of anything creative beyond it.

English voice acting was pretty meh. Not terrible, but I felt most of them were phoning it. Some did well but for the majority I really felt they weren't interested in this at all and just in it for the money, either that or they're not that experienced. A lot of dialogue came out pretty lifeless as if who's saying it is a robot and not a human. Don't know anything about the Japanese voice acting.

The graphics and character models are all superb which is a shame how it's wasted in still pictures rather than 3D cutscenes. The few cutscenes in the game were very good, but they're pretty rare as I said above.

Overall, this game might be worse for some fun with its combat or if you like anime JRPGs in general, but definitely not at full price. Get it for 20-30 dollars or something and you'll be able to forgive most of its faults. Anything more than that and you'll probably be disappointed with the whole package. Yes the combat is great, but there's more to a game than just that. I don't think you're missing anything by not playing this for example. It's a game that could have been a lot better than what it's if not for some pretty weird gaming design choices and awful writing.

Story : 3/10.

Gameplay : 7/10.

Graphics : 8/10.

Voice acting : 5/10.

Overall : 5/10.

If it were possible I would give this game a rating between "recommended" and "meh".

The graphics look great even on a low end pc. I absolutely loved the SAS, but the enemies were too easy so the SAS felt it was OP all the time. The story is catching and it was the main aspect of the game which kept me coming back to finish the game (at least Kasane's story line).

The big downer of the game was how its combat was implemented in the game. The enemies felt lifeless, boring and not at all intimidating. Game-play has lots of cool moves and nice variations of combos to perform along with the SAS. Psychokinesis attacks though, whenever I executed a PK attack (RT) it felt like its breaking the combat's rhythm, and it kinda sucked the fun out of it.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed my time playing the game very much. I tried playing Yuito's story-line but I couldn't go on because of the combat game-play and boring and repetitive enemies.

Finished Kasane's route last night. I'm going to add this to the end of my review as well, but wanted to post it separately so it would come up on the feed in case anyone had any input on the stuff I'm about to say.

Kasane's Route-Specific Stuff:

-The story was messy, way messier than Yuito's. I knew to expect "big reveal" stuff sooner, but the overall presentation of the story was nooootttt great, missing great chunks of storytelling that was present in Yuito's route, and just overall not a full story. The story is this game already has problems, but it was just terribly executed with her route, and makes it obvious that Yuito is the true protagonist. Definitely do not recommend playing her route first for this reason alone, but also because...

-Playing as Kasane was, for me, mostly miserable. She uses SIX KNIVES CONTROLLED BY HER PSYCHOKINESIS and she STILL MISSES CONSTANTLY. She's more suited for aerial combat for whatever reason (apparently) but fighting flying enemies was a pain in the ass because she missed constantly. Howwwww? I would be right on them doing nothinggg. Her movements are way more fluid and graceful than Yuito, but I hate that her strong attack is a backstep. She's weaker and has less defense, so even though I had already played through the game once at this point and knew how to fight everything, knew which powers were effective, knew how to use combo visions, etc., she was still getting WRECKED by monsters FORTY LEVELS LOWER in the early game (since this was NG+ and I started at level 60), and was barely doing damage to them. It was insanely frustrating. I'm sure there's more of a learning curve with her, and yeah I got more used to using her as I progressed, but it was never as fun or effective as fighting with Yuito. Maybe I just suck, and I admittedly don't play games with this sort of combat often, but honestly, I know I'm not that bad.

If I had chosen to play as Kasane first and had tried to struggle through this game without being overleveled...? I probably would have never finished this game.

Now for all of the questions that I still have because the story did not do a good job of answering them, or just created stupid plot points. I'm just going to put them all in spoiler tags:

1. Why the fuck is Karen--not quite the main antagonist, but eventually kind of is--doing all of this to save Alice, who was FUBUKI'S FIANCE, while Fubuki is like ENTIRELY UNBOTHERED BY IT ALL? This bothered me endlessly through both playthroughs. FUBUKI lost his fiancé, not stupid-ass Karen with his stupid-ass name, and yet Karen is the one off time-traveling a billion times and then erasing himself completely to "save" Alice. This makes no sense and I almost feel like it was a translation error. Sure, he can love his best friend's fiance, I guess, but Fubuki is always otherwise shown as a decent, kind man, and he somehow never acknowledges like any of this situation.

2. Karen "sacrificing himself" by erasing his existence is what brings Alice back, and everyone else in the world forgets him except the main party and Fubuki because they were there and attached via SAS for the time-travelling. This is just so stupid. It makes no sense. Why would that even need to be what has to happen? Why were all of his attempts to save her even failures? How hard was it to go back to the mission she got turned into an Other on, NOT do that mission, and be fucking done with it? Fuck. Bamco is becoming obsessed with someone sacrificing themselves for no reason and that's becoming one of the weakest parts about Tales games. I'm getting sick of those endings.

3. The endings. They're basically the same, which is fine. Kasane wants to go to the moon to help the people there now that the Extinction Belt is gone, and see how they've been faring for the past 2000 years. This is true in both endings. In Yuito's ending, he's going to retire soon because he's "going to lose his powers eventually." This goes against everything Yuito. It makes no sense. Also, Yuito 50 years in the future still had powers, so why the hell is he even stressing? In Kasane's route, he does NOT mention retiring; he just says he thinks he'll stick around the OSF for a while since he plans to straighten out the world while she works on the moon.

4. Yakumo Sumeragi. Okay, so Karen went back in time, killed Yakumo and took his place. Yakumo is Yuito's ancestor. After the final fight, Yuito thinks, "Does that make Karen my ancestor?" Unlikely, BUT, it does make one wonder, where the fuck was Yakumo's family? He obviously had one to begin the whole Sumeragi line on Earth. There was mention of his "personality changing" which we know is when Karen replaced him, but did his family never see his face again at that point? Was he already old, wife dead, kids grown? Like, how did any of that work out?

5. Karen meeting Yakumo-Karen. That scene still just...what? Shiden said, "None of this makes sense to me." Same.

I think there were other things that I can't remember now, and I think it's safe to say the story was fine overall, but there were definitely unanswered questions that should not be left to the anime (if that's what's happening, because I dunno, I haven't watched any of it) or something else, and could have been addressed organically in the game. It was poorly executed at times and I think they were trying too hard to include some things that did not need to be included, but the ideas themselves were good.

I would play a sequel, but after I go do some grinding to get the last trophy for finishing the Brain Map, I don't think I'll be revisiting this game. There's not really any post game and I don't see any replay value in it.

Done with 9/12 Phases in Kasane's route now. This isn't really a spoiler, but just in case:

I just got my full party and it's really cool how, since everyone is now in the same hideout and it's a NG+, all of the gifts that Yuito gave the team in the first playthrough are there. So you get to see all of the gifts from both routes in everyone's little areas. Super cute. Wish more games had these hideouts with this kind of bond system.

It's finally review time! [PS4]

Yuito Route: ~55 hours

Story: 3.5/5? It's an okay enough story: kinda twisty, at times dark, some really interesting concepts. My main problem with it is having some questions still unanswered that I shouldn't HAVE to play Kasane's route for. I'm still going to play hers, but these are things that are actually relevant to Yuito's route. Overall, though, the plot was made clear enough by the end. There's rebellion, saving the world, family tensions--bit of everything. I do feel that some events were not addressed adequately, like in a, "Oh, I blame you for this but I haven't actually acted any differently toward you until this scene when it's relevant again" way, but it wasn't any great detriment to the story in general.

The breakdown after the Prologue is Phase 01 --> Standby Phase 01 --> Phase 02 --> Standby Phase 02, and so on for 12 phases. The standby phases are where you interact with your characters in your hideout: do bond episodes, give them gifts, look around at their cute little areas where they display everything. This is also when you can (mostly) freely travel to any areas you've been to to grind or collect materials, grab quests, and...that's about it. Each standby phase unlocks weapon upgrades, new gifts, new costume attachments, new shop availability (like healing items you might have been picking up but couldn't buy/craft yet), and bonding episodes. I would typically give out all of the new gifts and do the bond episodes, and then go through a couple of areas for materials for attachments and gifts. Whenever you're ready to proceed, you go to the coffee table and say you want to rest for a bit.

Characters: I really enjoyed the majority of the cast. There were some characters that showed up for one scene and were never mentioned again, so I really hope there's more to them in Kasane's route because otherwise there was a lot of design effort into one in particular that we saw for three seconds. There were some party members that were just fine, and others that I adored. While there is some repetitive combat dialogue, I think hearing them (even the inactive ones) all the time while you're running around exploring and fighting makes you as the player feel a little closer to them. Luka is complicated but is easily one of my favorites. I love Kyoka. Yuito himself is actually an impressive main character to me in one major way: he advocates for himself. You know that "I'll sacrifice myself!" main character trait that is pretty overplayed? Well, our boy Yuito is the type to be like, "Mm, hey guys, can you help me figure out a way for us to not die?" When asshole Shiden is giving him shit, he's like, "Hey, you're being insulting. I'm outta here." Good boy, Yuito. In general, he reminds me a lot of Sorey from Tales of Zestiria. It's probably his appearance, too.

Environments: This is one thing that kind of lost points with me. The environments in the game are all really cool, innovative, interesting to explore, etc. I will give them that. Most are run-down roads/buildings with some overgrowth, a lot of debris for throwing, and monsters. Some are super futuristic and clean. But there was never really a full-on natural area (other than a mountain but that's all just snow) and that made me sad. It makes sense with the story, so I get why there never was, but I really love forests and such in games and thought one would be really beautiful in this game in particular.

Combat: Ah, the thing that can kill a gaming experience for me. There were ABSOLUTELY some frustrating parts with this game, namely some recurring Others (the monsters) that had ridiculous requirements to be able to damage, and some boss fights that I wouldn't actually call difficult at all, just kind of tedious and annoying. That being said, 95% of the time, I actually enjoyed fighting, and it didn't grow old. The combat isn't just "okay, this is an RPG, so there's got to be fighting"; it's a huge part of how the characters interact and grow close to one another, as they connect their powers and bond through their journey. It's plot-relevant in that way, so the game is quite combat heavy. Through your Brain Map (like the FFX sphere grid or something similar tamed way down) and bonding with allies, new combat abilities become available over time, so there's almost always something new to try out. Also, after playing through 3/4 of the game with your party of 5, it suddenly doubles, so it was a bit crazy trying out everything new at that point.

Bonding: I loved the bonding aspect of the game, and the fact that it's very clear as to what level your bond is with your party members. There's no guessing at who likes you most or how that will affect a scene or anything. It ties into combat, as I've stated, which is a good way to keep such a combat-heavy game from getting tedious or old. The shop, which is at every save point (and save points are placed quite generously--and heal you fully), offers new gift options at every new standby phase. It shows which character will accept which gift. If their portrait is lit up, they'll accept it; if it has a small pink heart, they like it; if it has a big red heart, they really like it. It also puts a check mark on their portrait if you have given them that gift. There's no guesswork, which was really nice. You can give repeat gifts with no consequence, too. The bond episodes themselves can be simple conversations between your character and the party member, or they could ask you to accompany them to an area where you'll have to do some combat. Sometimes it's a bit of both. Eventually a party bond level was also introduced and there were a few full-party bond episodes.

Costumes/Attachments: Okay, this was another aspect, like the environments, that lost some points. EVERYTHING IS RED. I know the game is called Scarlet Nexus but come onnnn. Everyone starts in the standard OSF black-with-some-red uniforms with their varying personalizations. I got the red version for everyone as part of the Digital Deluxe, and the "Audio" ones as a pre-order bonus. That has some browns and like rock-band style fur type shit but is still mostly red and black. The white version unlocks with the team bond level, but it's still got a lot of red. I really love skins/costumes/attachments, so this lack of variety was a huge bummer. All of the attachments were also red, black, and white. Eventually there's also a "luminous" version of everything that's like NEON PINK and BRIGHT YELLOW but it DOESN'T MATCH ANYTHING SO WHY WOULD I WANT IT. I kept waiting for more costumes and was disappointed. One of Luka's costumes has him in a yellow shirt under all of the black, so I ended up putting the luminous wings, feathery leg guards, and oni horn on him to make him my luminous eagle boy. It barely matched that and literally matched nothing else, and that's super annoying.

Quests: These are...mostly pointless. One of the trophies is to complete 30 quests (across both playthroughs) and I did like 20/34 of Yuito's so I'll just do some of Kasane's to get that and be done with it. You either get garbo items (there aren't a lot of items in the game to begin with), or attachments which aren't unique, and which you probably already made three Phases before that quest opened up. Some are simple item fetch quests, like, "I need two of these healing items that you can't craft/buy yet." Easy. Most of them have tedious requirements like "defeat this monster using a combo with this party member" meaning, the finishing blow. 90% of the time they were monsters that were already annoying to fight, because you can't hit them unless you teleport with Luka and get in a swipe before they hide away in a box that makes them invulnerable. Then you have to make sure you whittle their health down enough to finish them off with the required move/combo/finisher/whatever, and hope that your party members who spent the whole fight standing in one place getting blasted by oil didn't suddenly recover enough to steal the goddamn kill. Yeah, so, I can be a completionist about quests, but they're almost entirely useless in this game, so just do 15 in each route to get the trophy if you care about that, or just don't bother. You turn them in via the quest menu, so at least you don't have to go back to the quest-giver.

Other stuff: Save points being frequent was great. They completely heal you, as well. Every save point is also a shop. You can craft or buy at any time (you just can't give gifts unless you're in a standby phase). Never sell anything; there's no point and you don't really ever need the money. Craft everything. Most of the stuff can't even be bought. There's like one version of every attachment available to buy but you'll have to craft all of the other varieties. Every character has a new weapon available each standby phase, and that uses their previous weapon and a couple of other crafting materials, so you're not buying weapons and comparing stats and stuff. Everything is quite linear and streamlined so that you can focus on battling and story.

Trophy completion is currently around 60%. I should actually be able to platinum this just running through Kasane's route without doing anything special, as everything left is bonding stuff/quest completion in her route. I've only ever platinumed visual novels before, so that's cool, haha.

Overall experience with this was quite positive. I think it might be too linear for some, but it was kind of welcome and worked quite well with this concept. I hope Kasane's route fills in some gaps.

I'm going to do Kasane's as my New Game +. I wasn't going to originally, but I don't want to spend so much time crafting accessories and stuff. It will carry over my level and points to spend on the Brain Map, as well as items and everything. I already went through the challenge of the game once so I just want to see her story and the diverging events without all of the extra time on side stuff.

The one dumb thing is that, after finishing Yuito's route and the ending scenes and such, it has you create a clear save file. Okay, normal, but... You can then load that to open up the last several available quests and what looks like a final weapon upgrade for everyone, but you have to do those quests for a special material for each, and they're all those tedious specific monster-finisher quests, but with 2-3 each of TWO different Others. No thanks. Anything I do on that loaded save won't carry over unless I fight the final boss again and create a new clear save. It opened up a few new things in the shop to craft, too. This morning, I started Kasane's route from the clear save and when I got to the shop in the prologue, I did see some of the stuff, but I don't have crafting yet, so I don't know if ALL of that unlocked with the clear save. I don't want to play too far and find that it didn't and then have to go back and do more in Yuito's route, fight the boss again, and create a new clear save to carry it all over.

Final thoughts: Probably a 3.5/5. It's not perfect and I had some nitpicky complaints about it, but I really enjoyed my time with this game overall.

Edit to add more thoughts since finishing Kasane's route [7.13.2021]

Kasane's Route-Specific Stuff:

-The story was messy, way messier than Yuito's. I knew to expect "big reveal" stuff sooner, but the overall presentation of the story was nooootttt great, missing great chunks of storytelling that was present in Yuito's route, and just overall not a full story. The story is this game already has problems, but it was just terribly executed with her route, and makes it obvious that Yuito is the true protagonist. Definitely do not recommend playing her route first for this reason alone, but also because...

-Playing as Kasane was, for me, mostly miserable. She uses SIX KNIVES CONTROLLED BY HER PSYCHOKINESIS and she STILL MISSES CONSTANTLY. She's more suited for aerial combat for whatever reason (apparently) but fighting flying enemies was a pain in the ass because she missed constantly. Howwwww? I would be right on them doing nothinggg. Her movements are way more fluid and graceful than Yuito, but I hate that her strong attack is a backstep. She's weaker and has less defense, so even though I had already played through the game once at this point and knew how to fight everything, knew which powers were effective, knew how to use combo visions, etc., she was still getting WRECKED by monsters FORTY LEVELS LOWER in the early game (since this was NG+ and I started at level 60), and was barely doing damage to them. It was insanely frustrating. I'm sure there's more of a learning curve with her, and yeah I got more used to using her as I progressed, but it was never as fun or effective as fighting with Yuito. Maybe I just suck, and I admittedly don't play games with this sort of combat often, but honestly, I know I'm not that bad.

If I had chosen to play as Kasane first and had tried to struggle through this game without being overleveled...? I probably would have never finished this game.

Now for all of the questions that I still have because the story did not do a good job of answering them, or just created stupid plot points. I'm just going to put them all in spoiler tags:

1. Why the fuck is Karen--not quite the main antagonist, but eventually kind of is--doing all of this to save Alice, who was FUBUKI'S FIANCE, while Fubuki is like ENTIRELY UNBOTHERED BY IT ALL? This bothered me endlessly through both playthroughs. FUBUKI lost his fiancé, not stupid-ass Karen with his stupid-ass name, and yet Karen is the one off time-traveling a billion times and then erasing himself completely to "save" Alice. This makes no sense and I almost feel like it was a translation error. Sure, he can love his best friend's fiance, I guess, but Fubuki is always otherwise shown as a decent, kind man, and he somehow never acknowledges like any of this situation.

2. Karen "sacrificing himself" by erasing his existence is what brings Alice back, and everyone else in the world forgets him except the main party and Fubuki because they were there and attached via SAS for the time-travelling. This is just so stupid. It makes no sense. Why would that even need to be what has to happen? Why were all of his attempts to save her even failures? How hard was it to go back to the mission she got turned into an Other on, NOT do that mission, and be fucking done with it? Fuck. Bamco is becoming obsessed with someone sacrificing themselves for no reason and that's becoming one of the weakest parts about Tales games. I'm getting sick of those endings.

3. The endings. They're basically the same, which is fine. Kasane wants to go to the moon to help the people there now that the Extinction Belt is gone, and see how they've been faring for the past 2000 years. This is true in both endings. In Yuito's ending, he's going to retire soon because he's "going to lose his powers eventually." This goes against everything Yuito. It makes no sense. Also, Yuito 50 years in the future still had powers, so why the hell is he even stressing? In Kasane's route, he does NOT mention retiring; he just says he thinks he'll stick around the OSF for a while since he plans to straighten out the world while she works on the moon.

4. Yakumo Sumeragi. Okay, so Karen went back in time, killed Yakumo and took his place. Yakumo is Yuito's ancestor. After the final fight, Yuito thinks, "Does that make Karen my ancestor?" Unlikely, BUT, it does make one wonder, where the fuck was Yakumo's family? He obviously had one to begin the whole Sumeragi line on Earth. There was mention of his "personality changing" which we know is when Karen replaced him, but did his family never see his face again at that point? Was he already old, wife dead, kids grown? Like, how did any of that work out?

5. Karen meeting Yakumo-Karen. That scene still just...what? Shiden said, "None of this makes sense to me." Same.

I think there were other things that I can't remember now, and I think it's safe to say the story was fine overall, but there were definitely unanswered questions that should not be left to the anime (if that's what's happening, because I dunno, I haven't watched any of it) or something else, and could have been addressed organically in the game. It was poorly executed at times and I think they were trying too hard to include some things that did not need to be included, but the ideas themselves were good.

I would play a sequel, but after I go do some grinding to get the last trophy for finishing the Brain Map, I don't think I'll be revisiting this game. There's not really any post game and I don't see any replay value in it.

Playing Kasane's route--and hating playing as her--and seeing how the story was executed even more poorly there and didn't clear anything up made me lower my overall score on this.

I got about halfway through the final phase/area last night before I had to get some sleep. I'm around 53 hours. Review probably coming tomorrow.

Even with summer school finally being over, I still have barely had time to play much, because as soon as that ended, we had to rip up 16 tiles in the living room that popped up into a bubble because they weren't placed correctly apparently and one loosened, and they're 14x14in tiles which NO ONE MAKES OR CARRIES. I'm not even trying to match my current tile, but just find something to make a pattern in part of the giant hole currently in my living room. We thought we'd be able to just pull them up and re-lay them, but nooooope, the mortar/thinset/whatever on the backs of the old tile is impossible to remove and I don't have enough replacement new tiles scrounged up from around the house (I didn't put this tile down; it was here when I bought the house), so I have to find something to fill in 9 of the spots.

Then, before heading to Orlando yesterday to visit a closing Barnes&Noble ( :( ) and try to hit up some floor stores, I checked my tire pressure and saw one had a nice lump in it and sat in a tire place for THREE HOURS replacing that, AND when I asked the guy if they would just replace two on that axel, they only did the one. And then we didn't go to B&N or floor places. Did that today and found nothingggg.

None of this is relevant to anything but jesus I just want to finally start my summer and play games and not have all of this shit to deal with.

STORY: 5/5 GAMEPLAY : 5/5 EXPLORATION: 3/5

This is one of the best JRPG of 2021. The combat and gameplay is fun. Story is also nice. The one that disappointed me was the Exploration. The world is not that big and the side quests are not that rewarding. The bond system was nice you can unlock game changing abilities if you manage to go to level 6. Overall great game. Definitely worth playing

I'm about 24 hours/6 chapters (out of 12) into Yuito's route now, and it's finally the last day of summer school (!!!!!!) so I can devote more time to gaaaames. (Made some sick extra money, though, so can't complain too much.)

I'm loving pretty much everything about this.

["Spoilers" (??) about outfits:] The bond system and the way that it ties into the combat system is really cool. In your "hideout," everyone gets their own little desk and rug, and when you give your party members gifts, they put them up in their area. So cuuuute. <3__<3 I finally unlocked new white outfits for everyone yesterday. I've been making attachments like crazy, but there have only been the standard black outfits, and then the red versions and "rock band" versions that are still pretty much just red and black from the pre-order. Most of the attachments focus on red, black, or white with a bright blue, so I've been waiting for some outfits to actually match with those white attachments.

Combat is still fun and feels fressshhh. Bond levels unlock new abilities with each character, and you're also unlocking abilities/moves on your brain map as you level up, so there's always new stuff to try out.

The story has been hella dark. I was expecting it to be somewhat, but damn. I cried like three times before I was even 15 hours in. Please, game, you know I'm a baby. I've gotten pretty attached to several characters. I LOVE LUKA, PRECIOUS TINY BOI. Do not have everyone yet at this point, so even more to look forward to.

Recommend so hard. I'm having such a blast and I honestly wasn't sure how I was going to feel about the combat for an extended amount of time, but it's great.

Scarlet Nexus is t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶y̶p̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ the latest game by Bandai Namco and produced by Keita Iizuka, known for also being the producer of Code Vein. While these two games are vastly different in what they try to accomplish, I believe Scarlet Nexus manages to be a huge improvement over Code Vein in every single regard, though it is still not without its issues. While I feel Scarlet Nexus absolutely nails its combat system, it falls just short in its messy storytelling. I won’t say anything of its English voice acting as I played with the Japanese voices.

Scarlet Nexus is an Action RPG that places great emphasis on the psionic abilities of its characters and the “Strong Arms System (SAS)”. Every character has a unique psionic ability that can range from pyrokinesis to invisibility. Using SAS, your main character is able to incorporate other character’s psionic abilities into yours. Pyrokinesis will coat your weapon in flames, invisibility will make you… invisible, teleportation will replace your dodge with a teleport and so forth. Using these abilities is crucial to your success in combat as some enemies are of course weak to specific abilities or at least made easier to handle. On top of health, most enemies also have a “Crush” gauge that depletes with damage but greatly depletes when you hit their weak point or topple them through psionic abilities. Depleting this gauge will allow you to use a finisher that will kill the enemy immediately and guarantee an item drop. Apart from SAS, you also have a skill tree to invest points in with upgrades that range from extending your basic combo, mid air dash/combos, base attack increase, etc. If there’s one thing I don’t like about the skill tree is that some of its upgrades are basic QOL that shouldn’t really be locked behind a skill tree, such as recovery or a mid air dash. It’s not a big deal but you also have other things such as an upgrade that skips item usage animation which is a bit… odd and a waste of a slot in the tree in my opinion. Using an item is already really fast so I don’t really get the reasoning behind it. To further add on to the combat, bonds between you and your party members will also unlock new abilities and upgrades such as them blocking a hit for you, calling them in for a powerful attack, and additional effects to their unique psionic ability. While combat is initially slow as you will lack most of these upgrades, eventually you’ll have so much to play with that it can even be overwhelming at times. At one point you’ll have eight psionic abilities to play with and up to four you can activate at the same time. It gets to the point where I even sometimes forgot my character had his own psionic ability that I barely used once I had a full party. When everything comes together, combat becomes so incredibly fun and flashy as you’re constantly switching in and out of psionic abilities, performing finishers, zooming between enemies, and calling your allies for extra attacks. This game gives you so many tools and it lets you and encourages you to use them all as much as possible and this is something I wish so many games would do. The gameplay loop is very simple; Story, dungeons, story, intermission where you get to bond with characters, repeat. Nothing special which is fine as the game really shines with its combat and ideally you get to it as often as possible.

Now… the story. I’ve said it numerous times before that story is normally the least of my concerns in most games but the way this game handles its story was actually very annoying for the first eight or so hours of the game. Immediately I want to say that having the story be split up between two selectable protagonists was a terrible mistake. The reason for this is that the game’s story’s events happen and progress in such a way that will constantly leave you confused because you will be lacking information from the other character’s story. Events will start happening and move at such a fast pace without explaining ANYTHING and it honestly made me mad at times. On top of that, the game tries to incorporate a few too many ideas at the start and it feels messy. Each of these ideas could easily be their own story but they're all eventually just dropped.

SPOILERS FOR STORY BELOW SKIP IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS

As Yuito, you and your team will have a conflict with Kasane, the second protagonist, and her team but they will not explain why the conflict is happening or why they’re doing the things they are. It honestly gets so ridiculous and even a bit funny when part of the dialogue is Yuito explicitly asking “We literally don’t know anything so why don’t you tell us instead of attacking us on sight every time?” and no one says anything and they just run away. It boggles me when a game calls out its own storytelling like that as if it’ll fix the issue. The first 8-10 hours of the game are like this and just completely nonsensical and dumb. Eventually when Kasane and her team join you the story stabilizes as this is the point where you’ll have both protagonists together and the story isn’t split up anymore. As for the story itself, as I said before, Scarlet Nexus tries to incorporate multiple ideas at once and it comes out a little convoluted, dumb, and with no sense of direction. The game immediately does this thing where it shows how the media portrays the OSF, the organization that specializes in hunting Others, the main enemies of the game, as sport celebrities that are revered by the people. The media’s drones, aptly named the Crows, constantly follows OSF members and broadcast their missions and hunts very persistently, almost comically downplaying the severity of the Others, and more importantly have decided to latch onto Yuito the rookie with high expectations. This plot point goes nowhere and is quickly dropped. The next is the reveal that people can be made into Others through unknown means and one of your team members is made into an Other. However, no one else important will ever become an Other after this which is in my opinion a lot of wasted potential. Next, there is suddenly a rebellion that splits the OSF into two sides and you follow whichever protagonist you picked and this is kinda where it settles for a while. Eventually there is time travel involved, a third faction, and the moon. It’s… messy. Once both protagonists are together things will at least be explained to you and it’ll be pretty straightforward from there. A simple but solid story once it decides to settle on an idea and reaches a satisfying conclusion. God the first ten hours though… absolutely terrible.

SPOILERS END

The last thing I want to talk about is the characters. They’re all about as tropey as anime can get which isn’t really a surprise. You have your super shy girl, the big sister/mom character, the dude who is uptight/snobby and really hates you but will eventually warm up to you, etc. However, I’m generally not concerned about how much a character defines its trope so much as how these characters interact with each other and I feel Scarlet Nexus did well on this point. I personally liked all the characters and their progression throughout the story and during their bonding events. One of my favorite parts of the game is your hideout, the place where your party members hang out and where you can give them gifts and see their bonding episodes during intermissions. While the bonding episodes are nice and some even sweet, what I really love is how each member has their own section in the hideout where they display their stuff and the gifts you give them. Most gifts are unique to each character and will provide unique dialogue which, while small, adds to their character significantly as opposed to just saying “Thanks”. By the end of the game, the hideout will be packed with all the gifts of every character along with extra gifts they themselves will give your character and it adds so much to everyone. Depending on the gift, you’ll even see characters interacting with it. One of the gifts you can give will allow a character to put up a picture of her sister which honestly hits quite hard considering the story. Another gift is a game console and you’ll see two of the characters playing with it together, or a punching bag that one of the characters uses. The game also has team bonding events where multiple characters are involved though they’re few. I wish there were way more team bonding events because seeing more everyday interactions outside of the characters fighting for their lives is very endearing. In the end, I was honestly a bit sad and moved when I took a final look around the hideout before heading off to fight the final boss and seeing just how much there was all over the place. To the characters, this would be proof that at one point they were all together and fighting for the same cause. One more thing I want to add that has no relevance to the game and it’s because my brain has been rotted by growing up on watching/reading romances is that if you’re going to add bonding events then please let me see some of the characters find happiness with each other or on their own. Some of these characters’ back stories I would love to see a conclusion on or see how they move forward after everything is over. If you won’t give me the choice then at least let the childhood friend who very much has a crush on Yuito achieve her goal or attain closure. That’s just me though.

Despite my grievances with the story, Scarlet Nexus is a great game that absolutely shines on its combat. While I still wish you could play as the other characters, the combat works in such a way that you’re basically already using most characters, whether it be through their abilities or calling them in for attacks. Characters, while being walking tropes, are developed very satisfyingly and I grew quite attached to them by the end. I honestly hope we get to see more games of this nature by Keita Iizuka in the future and I highly recommend this game as a fan of action rpgs and especially if you don’t mind anime and all its tropes and nonsense that may come with it.