Scarlet Nexus Review

I heard of this game back when it came out and especially how it tried to have more ambitious combat than a lot of JRPGs would try to have. It took awhile but I finally did play it. As a whole, there are things about Scarlet Nexus I enjoy and has aspects that have more going than a lot of action RPG combat but it's held back by so many things. It personifies the entire game. What is interesting on paper is held back by lackluster execution. I wanted to like the game a lot more than I did. There's still enjoyment to be had but it gets tedious the more it goes on.

It can be seen in the game's visual presentation. It has very nice cel shaded look and very well animated cutscenes...sometimes. Much of the game is spent watching these visual novel style sequences when you aren't in combat. I get it since there's a lot of dialogue and you can't animate every cutscene but it kind of makes the clean and crisp visual style not stand up as much.

The story is an interesting aspect of the game to talk about. The game has two routes with Yuito and Kasane. Both sides show different sides of the story when the two aren't together. It's interesting on paper but the cracks start showing in how Yuito's campaign while having it's interesting characters is rather dull. It's often said by many who played that you should start with Yuito first and do Kasane after. That can really test one's patience since both routes take about 20 hours to complete. There's no epilogue chapter recontexualizing everything and to add the final nail, Yuito and Kasane are together for the last 4-5 hours of the game making a second playthrough eventually become a slog. According to the trophy list on PS5 less than 10% of people actually did that so it's even less encouraging.

What also doesn't help is how Yuito's campaign writing is "fine" and is carried by the side characters. The writing in Kasane's route curbstomps it so much to the point where I wished I played as her first and skipped over Yuito entirely. Kasane's more cold, stoic and her initial refusal to care about anyone other than her sister makes for far superior character interactions. She has a more concrete motivation of wanting to protect her sister and the urgency she shows in wanting to cure her. The main antagonist Karen Travers is much more promient and has more screen time and Alice gets far better foreshadowing. There's also a much better narrative hook to kick off her side of the story too.

Yuito's campaign is mostly carried by side characters like Gemma, Luka and Arashi when she joins up later. Kasane's campaign has more going on by comparison. I could talk about the rest of the story but I can't help but feel a little "tricked" after looking up Kasane's cutscenes.

Gameplay falls in the same line. On paper, Scarlet Nexus SHOULD be a game I really enjoy. It foregoes many of the tropes found in RPGs. No gear or loot systems, XP is relegated to the skill tree, and stats don't really matter at all. You got interesting power like pyrokinesis, clairvoyance, a Crysis like maximum armor ability, teleporting and being able to speed up while time around you slows.

You got enviromental interactions to hurt enemies and stun them. This helps get an enemy's core out faster and do a quick finishing kill rather than killing them by widdling down their health bar. You can put oil on enemies and dose them with flames or find parts of the enviroment to use your psychic powers on them.

These powers are encouraged in gameplay too. Invisible enemies? Clairvoyance can help you see them. Use pryrokinesis to burn enemies to do more damage and destroy armor. Use hardened to take more damage than usual. Use teleportation to close the gap on enemies before they hide in their industrutible hiding spot. There's also a perfect dodge and a few different ways to do more damage like a rage mode when clicking the sticks. The optional "social links" missions even unlocks more interesting abilities for your party which made me want to do them even more.

This sounds great right? It does but then the game reuses most of the same enemy types for much of the game. Add to that the stages can drag on for ages and since they are less RPG stages and action game ones, it can really start to wear thin. You see so much of what the game has to offer early on. The tedium can really start to get mind numbing especially how I wrote describing what I liked about the combat. Add the challenging bosses and the stage lengths wearing out my healing items, I eventually lowered to easy and just went through the rest of the game.

For a game that had this much going on for it's combat, it's disappointing I wanted to lower to easy just to get it done faster. I don't even want to say that but that's just much steam the game loses after a point.

Overall while I did like Scarlet Nexus enough to finish it, everything about it feels I should like way more than I do.