Scarlet Nexus Review — The Ties That Bind

Scarlet Nexus takes us to a world the place people have developed psionic powers and the flexibility to attach their minds to one another. This has dramatically reworked life as we all know it, permitting for a brand new period of linked consciousness and superior expertise. Nevertheless, issues aren’t all sunshine and roses for humanity–the populace lives in concern of the Others, grotesque brain-consuming monsters that randomly emerge from a mysterious belt that surrounds the planet. Their damaging impulses have rendered many areas uninhabitable, forcing people to congregate in cities beneath the safety of the Different Suppression Power–an military of elite psionics educated to deal with Different assaults. Yuito and Kasane are two fresh-faced recruits to the OSF, they usually discover their abilities shortly put to the check throughout assaults. When a mission goes awry, they are going to be pressured to take sides and combat to reveal disturbing truths mendacity beneath the floor.

The setting of Scarlet Nexus is an intriguing mixture of cyberpunk imagery, dystopian society, and pure sci-fi that captures your consideration instantly. You get the sensation from the get-go that one thing is off about the whole lot that’s happening, which solely will increase whenever you first lay eyes on the Others–horrendous aberrations that blend acquainted natural and inorganic objects into monsters that transfer like residing creatures, however really feel disconcertingly unnatural. Moreover, the cutscenes are primarily offered within the type of comic-style nonetheless panels, giving the sport the distinct really feel of a high-stakes, episodic manga. It’s slick and distinct, which provides Scarlet Nexus a whole lot of persona.

You start the sport by selecting both Yuito or Kasane as your main playable character. Yuito is a reasonably normal action-game swordsman, whereas Kasane is extra of a technical fighter together with her ranged daggers. Each characters have combo assaults, leaping strikes, dodges–the standard array of 3D fight maneuvers. Nevertheless, additionally they have the flexibility to make use of psychokinetic powers, introducing an extra distinctive factor to fight. By holding R2, they’ll seize a background object and slam it straight right into a foe, doubtlessly catching the enemy off-guard and opening them up for additional combo assaults.

Fight doesn’t really feel exceptionally good initially–it’s somewhat floaty and disjointed, particularly when enjoying as Kasane. Chaining assaults collectively, specifically, will be onerous on extra resilient foes within the early phases. However it shortly improves with the addition of the SAS: a system the place your playable character can join their mind to different squad members and briefly make use of their powers. Hook up with Hanabi, and he or she’ll offer you pyrokinetic fireplace slashes that may set enemies ablaze. Borrow Kagero’s invisibility to cover from aggressive foes and you may carry out sneak assaults. Make the most of Tsugumi’s clairvoyance and you can spot hidden enemies and weak factors, and faucet into Gemma’s sclerokinesis to shortly mitigate enemy assaults. Utilizing these abilities transforms fight from a reasonably normal affair to one thing way more attention-grabbing, as sure talents will likely be notably advantageous in given situations–but you additionally should be taught to handle these abilities, as they’re all on cooldown timers.

Much more fight augmentations open up the additional you go into the sport. As you degree up, you’ll be able to fill out nodes in your Mind Map, which unlock particular abilities that grant new offensive and defensive capabilities to make the most of in battle. You’ll additionally be taught the Mind Drive, a super-powered mode that prompts after filling a gauge that will increase your injury output and combo means. Lastly, there’s the Mind Discipline: an absurdly highly effective however extraordinarily dangerous state that places your psychokinesis into overdrive and allows you to deal huge injury, however can kill you in case you keep in it for too lengthy.

Extra mechanics get added into the combination, as properly. Guard meters are launched. Utilizing the best abilities and assaults you’ll be able to break them right down to render enemies helpless and carry out a devastating Mind Crush assault for bonus loot. Distinctive objects additionally seem in environments that will let you carry out elaborate and immensely satisfying QTE-powered psychokinesis assaults, like pounding an Different into the bottom with a marble statue or operating over a line of enemies with a runaway prepare. And by establishing rapport along with your teammates, you unlock the complete potential of their talents in addition to new choices like follow-up assaults on downed foes.

Outdoors of the story missions wanted to progress, you’ll be able to revisit already-explored areas for expertise and sidequests. These sidequests are the standard-issue “kill enemy X” or “gather merchandise Z” missions, typically with extra necessities like defeating foes with a sure SAS energy. They don’t add a lot to the sport when it comes to story or worldbuilding, making their function that of an excuse to revisit areas to farm expertise and objects. Accumulating enemy drops and environmental information is necessary, nonetheless, as you’ll be able to commerce these objects on the retailer for unique weapons, improve plug-ins, and most significantly, objects to present to your teammates throughout story breaks.

Giving your crew issues they like raises their affection for you, unlocking “Bond Episodes” the place you’ll be able to hang around and be taught extra about their particular person quirks and backstories. As their bond ranges increase, you’ll have entry to improved SAS performance and extra assault and defensive choices. They’ll additionally use their presents to brighten your staff base, which is a pleasant visible contact. Bond Episodes vary in tone from the fully ridiculous to lifeless severe character drama, however it doesn’t matter what you wind up seeing, you’ll come out of it appreciating your in-game teammates much more.

It’s factor that the fight and character interactions of Scarlet Nexus are enjoyable, as a result of its story is a trainwreck. What begins as an intriguing sci-fi story of superpowered youths getting used to combat hideous creatures by a shadowy authorities will get fully derailed after just a few chapters, turning into a hodgepodge of more and more weird plot twists and inexplicable character actions. When you get totally different views (and totally different development) relying in your alternative of Yuito or Kasane as your lead, you’ll nonetheless expertise the identical main “WTF was that nonsense?” occasions.

Whereas I gained’t get into spoiler territory, instance of how irritating the plot can get is realizing that a lot of the mid-game battle may very well be simply resolved if everybody would simply sit down and speak about what’s happening (which Yuito repeatedly asks to do) as an alternative of attempting to kill one another. What’s much more befuddling is that among the enemy characters nonetheless ask to hang around along with your lead whereas these items is happening, making for a weird disconnect between narrative and characterization. Even as soon as all that’s resolved, there are quite a few plot threads that turn into extremely flimsy whenever you give them deeper thought. However as ridiculous because the story wound up being, I used to be taken with seeing how way more totally bonkers it may get all through, so I assume that’s one thing in its favor

Regardless that the plot devolves right into a trope-filled sludge pool by the top, I don’t really feel like Scarlet Nexus was a waste of time. Sure, the thrill of fight begins to taper off in direction of the top of Scarlet Nexus’s twenty-odd-hour runtime–and the areas within the remaining stretch of the sport really feel overly long–but I had a great deal of enjoyable mixing up my SAS talents, crushing enemies in my Mind Discipline, and watching my staff have a online game match at our base to settle an argument over residing area boundaries. It may not be a brand new pinnacle of action-game storytelling, however Scarlet Nexus remains to be loads of enjoyable in the best locations.