If you're expecting Scarlet Nexus to be something out of the ordinary, you'll find yourself quickly disappointed. I was able to adjust my expectations and enjoy it, but it reeks of missed potential. I had been watching Scarlet Nexus since its debut, and I was hoping for it to not feel like your run-of-the-mill action RPG with an anime facade. This all may sound negative, but I didn't hate my time with Scarlet Nexus, I just felt that with every positive I found, a negative was close behind. I was constantly reminded that fire is hot and will burn me if I touch it every time I encountered it. Your party only exists to offer their power, as they're useless on the field, and you're also bombarded with tips for things you don't need tips for. You'll also occasionally need to crack an enemy's shell or use a power to get sneak up on an enemy, but that's as complicated as combat strategy goes. You only ever get two elemental attacks, and you'll constantly find opportunities to use them in a combo. That's not to say that there isn't a feeling of progression, there's just not much to graze on aside from adding equipment to boost your attack and defense, and unlocking skills on the Brain Map. However, if you're hoping for deeper RPG mechanics, you'll find that Scarlet Nexus is about as deep as a kiddie pool. If you're going into Scarlet Nexus anticipating action, it has that in spades, although it's admittedly not too deep.

One step forward, one step backĪs I mentioned before, the Scarlet Nexus is pretty predictable in its first half, and fatigue started to set in fast once the overall gameplay loop of mission and post-mission friend bonding revealed itself. I don't expect every game to be open in that sense, but other cyberpunk anime games like Astral Chain manage to make their hub worlds with things to do, and Scarlet Nexus seems to have forgotten to do that.

The field is separated into sections by loading screens and aren't even that big. It's extremely linear, and for an RPG there's almost no incentive to explore. Scarlet Nexus feels distinctly last-gen in its design. Exploration on the field isn't much better, and you'll find yourself returning to the same levels over and over again. Cities are full of invisible walls and sidequests are boring fetch quests. The 4K cel-shaded visuals look great, loading times are lightning fast, and the performance is a rock-solid 60 FPS, but the cool and interesting world of New Himuka is often seen as a PowerPoint presentation. I found that Scarlet Nexus often takes one step forward and one step back in its presentation. Instead of cutscenes depicting wild transformations and over-the-top anime fights, you're often met with a slideshow of sorts and a talking portrait, and those conversations are often expositions dumps that could've been shown instead of told.įor all the character and world-building this game has, Scarlet Nexus makes the odd decision to show almost none of it. Unfortunately, for all the character and world-building this game has, Scarlet Nexus makes the odd decision to show almost none of it. Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central) I played with both, and while I prefer the Japanese dub, the English dub is serviceable, though some of the seriousness and urgency of the dialogue is sometimes lost in translation. As you level up, you'll be able to unlock more moves for Kasane and Yuito, but you'll also get opportunities between missions to improve your relationships with your team to unlock more battle skills.Īnime fans should note that the game supports both English and Japanese dubs. Mixing and matching powers each mission is where the gameplay starts to get interesting. In addition to psychokinesis, you can access your teammate's psychic power by using what's called the SAS, or Struggle Arms System. Eventually, players will get access to the Brain Drive, an automatically activated special mode that boosts your stats once you've done enough damage, and the Brain Field, an all-or-nothing attack that can potentially kill you if used for too long. If you deplete an enemy's stun gauge, they'll leave themselves open to a Brain Crush finisher, a flashy move that's always guaranteed to end the fight. Both Yuito and Kasane have psychokinesis, which allows them to hurl debris and objects at enemies to stun them and inflict massive damage with a QTE (quick time event) if you manage to manipulate the right hunk of junk. Players enter small arenas and the only way to break free is to defeat all the threats in fast-paced hack and slash gameplay, similar to what we've seen in Nier Replicant. Most of your time will be spent on missions in the field, where gameplay follows your typical action game format. It was fairly predictable for about the first 12 hours or so until a twist pumped the gas on the plot.

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