@@countryboyred : Funny, Scarlet Nexus and Arise were my favorite games of the year, and I got Ys for Christmas and resolved to go back and retry Astral Chain sometime this year as well, since it came out at a bad time for me.
Scarlett Nexus was a Sleeper hit for me. I put in 60 hrs with both kasana & yuito.. I enjoyed Yuito swordplay much more personally.. Despite some flaws i absolutely enjoyed the game.. 8.5
The psychokinesis stuff is a problem only with kasane. Yuito is more focused in melee combat, beign easier to use regular attacks to refill the psycho bar.
Kasane is a range fighter and inflict damages around her. Every characters, there is a unique fighting style that one must master. Kasane is not a great damage dealer like Yuito. To me, she is like Nina from Tekken. You have to know when to attack, juggle and incorporate other move set to accomplish your goal.
I think the story wasn't focused enough and may have needed some more detailing especially in the last 5 hours of the plot. I enjoyed everything else tho. I really hope they make a 2nd part, since the story kinda leaves that open in the end.
Interesting. I think you need to play both. You only see the make story via woman protagonist eyes. He has a whole story and is nothing like you say. Beat it with both.
I liked the game a lot but I feel it dragged for too long, there aren't that many different enemies and every encounter starts to feel the same, the combat was great but they should have given you all the powers waaaaaaaay sooner, and dodge should cancel atk animations, getting hit from off screen is never fun. Story was fine but I didn't like that pseudo VN style, at least animate important bits and fights. Loved most of the characters.
i actually think it went too fast and should habe slowed down a bit. i was fine with not having access to all the powers way sooner so that doesn't really bother me. as for your other complaints those i agree with for the most part
I do recommend that you play through the game as Yuito, as his character does get more depth in his own story. I also thought there wouldn't be much to him, until I played his route, and discovered why he acts the way he does, and how he changes over the course of the story. I still preferred Kasane's route, but you get to see some stuff that Kasane never encountered, which really enlightens the player about the world and exactly how corrupted it really is. Trust me, totally worth going through it. Plus, you can new game plus it with Yuito, so you can get through the story faster. He keeps his level and weapons for endgame, so it actually was fun to go back and play.
i haven't played thru kansanes yet(the game has been shelved since i got it when it came out so im only now getting into it) and so far from what I've seem of kasane yuitos the better character. his issue is being unreasonably kind to those that don't deserve it which is do sometimes and understand its hard not to. i don't get why people dislike him
The fact that this game (and Cyberpunk 2077 from last year) made it into TGA's Best RPG category is proof that they were just looking for something to fill space and they just randomly went with whatever 2021 RPG that first came to mind. Space that could have been given to Ys IX, Bravely Default 2 or Solasta: Crown of the Magister.
With Kisane's psychokineses, if you use Yuito's skill it allows you to use Kisane's ability without losing the bar up until Yuito's power is used up. You can throw things for at least twice as long as normal.
Honestly, I came expecting to disagree a lot... But most of the points I actually do agree with. I do enjoy some of the background music, but I wouldn't put it on to listen to it in any other context. The Boss Fights in general are pretty okay. There's not that much complexity to most of them, except the later ones, but they're fun and there's usually extra stuff to fling at their faces... And then there's that one boss you showed footage from... It's the kind of boss fight that still gives me nightmares. I died at least 5 times against it, despite being 5 levels higher than the boss, yet I never even got close to dying against Karen Travers, despite being 10 levels lower than him by that point... That one boss is the absolute worst part of the game, and I wish it wasn't there. Or if it has to be there, make it an optional Superboss that gives some awesome reward... On a brighter note, I just completed Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana last night, and it was one of the most amazing games I've ever played. I understand why you praise it so highly so often, now.
Game's fuckin great. Brand new IP. Theme song slaps. Arashi Spring rules. The plot is space cadet nonsense, but it's the exact right kind of space cadet nonsense. I suck at all action games, but I mostly swapped between normal and hard for this one. The problem with what's being said here is that your combos are going to be based on swapping in and out between attacks, retreating attacks and PK. You can then increase combos by spending your XP which can lead to some cool stuff like the 4x hit which has a special animation. I can't disagree about the bosses. Especially the specific boss being listed. That boss was a huge pain in the ass. I also had to lower the difficulty whenever the game had you find one other individual person. None of the strategies that worked against monsters would work against your various fights against other military people and that was a drag. I don't think enough can be said about the graphics. They're good, but the graphical design and art direction is phenomenal. The area where the holographic overlay is broken so you see the city coming down on you from above. The winter area where when walking over a lake you can see frozen skyscrapers beneath you. The guts of the god computer. It's all gorgeous and haunting. I fear the game didn't do well. Not a lot of people talked about it (the Besties called it the first great game of 2021, which was nice) and it went on sale pretty quickly. I hope we get a sequel, though. It's easily my Game of the Year, and I'd really like to see what they can do with a follow up that refines the good, pares down the bad and is overall and even better game. Loved it. Played it twice. Loved Kasane. Loved Yuito. Loved Taugumi. Loved Kagero. I even loved Shiden, whose character arc takes him from petulant prick to petulant prick who is a reliable ally. And I loooved Arashi, the speedster with a chainsaw who just wants to nap. I'm not sure why such a positive review is called a RANT. Is this to encourage engagement? You've ranted more about plenty of other things.
Oh, and if you have a PS5 the way it uses the controller when you're using PK is great. It really gives an impression of what kind of strain it is to use your brain to throw stuff around.
As someone who platinumed this game, (yes that means I had to play it twice.....) Here are some of my own personal thoughts: 1. Arashi Spring 4 life 2. Everyone needs a friend like Kagero in their life 3. I agree with Yuito as a die hard Baki fan 4. Dream in Drive is a FANTASTIC theme song.
I agree with most of what was said here. I switched to easy mode about halfway through because I was getting frustrated with the annoying enemies that would show up, and it definitely helped out. Also, best music track for me was the hideout music! Such a great jam!
Sad to hear you didn’t play the yuito campaign. I understand and agree with all your points for the positives and negatives. Most if not all the negatives you listed could be put into two categories: result of the lack of funding the team received, they didn’t have a full team either. Or you not understanding a mechanic as far as combat and bosses go. Assuming the gameplay is your own, you don’t use any of the aerial combos Kasane was designed for. The majority of her brain map(skill tree for new people) is designated for aerial chaining and juggling. While Yuito is ground and power slashes. The boss you pointed it was heavily ability dependent, you got it first try, I failed once but once I picked up on the mechanics I had an easier time than you did. To reach their own. Another negative I’ll add is the off putting nature of the character tropes at the beginning, I grew to love the characters but friends I recommend the game to had to be told “it gets better”. Personally I loved the music. After the ending I sat in the menu for an hour letting it all soak in. It gave the menu art a whole new meaning. Even with I said, this is a great review to show to people on the fence on picking up a great combat driven jrpg with stellar animations and character design.
I was told by many that Scarlet Nexus was just a rip-off of Persona series, but that's not what I'm seeing here and it doesn't look like rip-off at all, it looks really good and I'm willing to give it a try if I can, thanks Erick Landon for showing me what Scarlet Nexus is really is 👍
One thing that does annoy me with Scarlet Nexus is the navigator siblings continuously telling you which powers to use against enemies and there's no way to turn them off even in late game. I get it Haruka you've been telling me this in every fight just shut up please!!
First! I agreed that camera controls should have been better if your focus is on which action button to use. I like the auto detection of objects to throw, though.
Scarlet nexus is good but not great ive finished both routes but it left me drained after that. I felt that the missing dialogues in between the two characters was not that great enough to justify splitting the stories between yuito and kasane.
You really should make more dedicated reviews like this, I really liked your points: objective and explanatory regarding combat and personal regarding story. But something I look after when I want to play JRPGs are the length of the cut scenes. I do not play Tales of games because the cut scenes are way too long, and it's something reviews never review.
The party members definitely sucked at combat, I felt like I was fightning alone the whole time 😭 these guys didn't inflict any damage I swear. Still a good game though.
@Grampagohan They do a lot of distracting, especially the tank dude, and if you need them to distract anything, you're playing the game wrong. Also no, you only get the abilities of the people in your active party
What I think might change this is the setting for their behaviour during combat. You can choose for each of your support characters how they are supposed to act during combat, either being aggressive, more focused on self-preservation, focusing on the same enemy that you are attacking or focus on enemies other than the one you are attacking. It's adjustable in the settings, and it changed the combat experience for me at least.
The throw jump in attack with special attack then use throw again as a dodge follow up. There is a talent for it and causes these follow ups to do alot of damage. It's not super intuitive. There is also a slot gear that keeps you from getting constantly knocked over which makes the game play completely differently lol
Only real cons for me (anything i don't mention you can more or less say is a positive i guess): -lack of character driven/world lore driven side quests (I'm not considering Bonding events side quest. Side Quest needs to have some goal (beat an enemy, get a specific item, or reach a specific destination which may end with a boss fight/puzzle and may have some cutscenes attached (this last aspect is where SN failed to do)) plus reward)...too many were just a few second fetch quest/hunts -Story could've explored the New Himuka, Seiran, and Togetsu groups a fair bit more...especially what happens to them by the end of the game -important npcs needed a bit more screentime imo -the characters default movement speed (movement without holding the run button) felt a bit too fast....constantly ran past where i wanted to stop/turn a lot -you can not dodge out of an attack animation (cancel it), this is likely what you were complaining about evasion cause the game is made so you can Not dodge out mid attack like other games (Past Tales games, Ys 8 and 9, etc)...you more or less have to commit to the attack so it's somewhat like Monster Hunter/Souls in regards to needing you to keep a close eye on the enemies' tells to know when an attack is coming. Just about the only way to do things safely would be if you have Gemma's (stone skin) or Arashi's (super speed) power available to use mid combo to defend yourself/slow down time so your attack finishes before the enemy attack hits and you can dodge it. Tales of Arise also does this, and imo it's far less forgiving there than in SN as the longer animation artes in Arise (Dragon Swarm and many Blaze Edge artes come to mind) are about 2 to 3 times longer than the longest attack in SN leaving a huge window for an enemy to hit you and the only way to cancel artes in Arise is via Boost attacks, boost strikes, or mystic artes...both games' combat systems would've been far more fluid if they allowed you to cancel artes mid animation like most Tales games do (or at least allowed you to cancel at specific hits in an arte (for Example some of Yuri's artes can only be canceled at around the 1/3 or halfway point of the artes' animations so you needed to know which part of the arte you can cancel from or would need to commit to). -was a bit disappointed the world wasn't one with field maps connecting towns and the like (like Tales games from Graces F to now or Dragon Quest 11) -you couldn't play as all the characters (like lances/pole arms so kinda wanted to play as Hanabi lol) -like you said the AI leaves a bit to be desired...though if i'm to be honest Tales of Arise wound up doing it worse in the end (Arise while having the 2nd to best combat system after Hearts R/Xillia 2 has one of if not the worst ally AIs and the absolute worst AI strategy menu in the series as it is party based, as in you can only customize the entire party's AI as a whole and you cannot customize the Individual characters AI like in past games (Symphonia, Xillia, Berseria, Hearts R, etc)...you party members wind up constantly dying due to that from normal difficulty onwards (didn't try very easy or story so can't say how difficult/lack of difficulty those options have), especially Shionne and Rinwell who have a habit of running up to the enemies instead of sticking to range like a Healer/gunner and mage should...this aspect of their AI reminds me of 'suicide' Raine from Symphonia tbh lol...with that said Scarlet Nexus's AI never really ran into that issue for me, it was more them not attacking when i'd have prefer it. Now as for one concern you mentioned: dealing with enemy aggro always going to the player character there are 3 main ways you can deal with this in the game: -stone skin power so that you can just tank the enemies attacks (of course you need to keep an eye on Gemma's gauge to make sure it's not about to run out before an attack hits) -super speed/time slow down power that you can use to dodge attacks and get around enemies (gotta keep an eye on Arashi's gauge of course) -invisibility power to completely drop aggro (gotta make sure you keep an eye on Kagero's gauge and remember that once you attack the invisibility ends until you reach a specific bond rank with Kagero at which you will be given a few moments of invisibility after attacking...think it's one fo the later upgrades you get for his power). Is also the only one that actually drops enemy aggo. But ya besides these 3 options how you deal with aggro the enemies will more or less stay focused on you at all times One other thing i may add: I feel like this game either should've pushed Yuito's run first or had it be 1 playthrough where each character's part of the story would only occur at specific moments cause with the way the game was told you get quite a few end game spoilers/hints for Yuito's route on Kasane's route....for example I think it would've been better written to have Yuito's route be the only perspective you can see from chapters 2 to 8 or 9 when both parties reveal shit near Togetsu and then have more or less swap back to Kasane's perspective from the end of chapter 3/whenever the Kindad Gate appears to that moment the parties reveal shit. Before the Kunad Gate though (chapters 1-3 if i'm right) they can just alternate between the two parties before focusing on Yuito's.
The main issue I had with the game is that I seemed to spend more time fighting other OSF members instead of fighting Others - think I fought Yuito alone like 4 or 5 times during the missions, plus various other members on top as well & it just felt like overkill. Otherwise though, I enjoyed the heck out of the game (there's nothing as satisfying as throwing petrol tankers around & hitting enemies on the Kunad Highway)
this is best rpg if you memorize the party skills to use their combo properly and proper equipment like anti fire and electric plug in also the brain map
Non of you complaints are mine... Actually the camera being free roaming and the controls feeling so fluid (specially after getting double jump + air dash with Yuito) feels delicious... I have a complaint tho, but this is mostly a personal preference, and it's that the animation duration before letting me cancel it in order to make a dodge is just too long, so I have to plan carefuly whether I'm attacking or how many hits I do if I'm planning to make a "perfect dodge" because I won't be able to cancel my attack if it already started until it finishes. I'm comming from Bayonetta 2 so maybe that's a "me" problem lol... The othe problem it has is the absurdly long conversations, goddamit just finished playing even though I wanted to do the relationship stuff with two characters before closing the game because I started to feel fatigue by seeing two long conversations of stuff I won't care about (just characters personal stuff) in a row... also those that don't enjoy anime will hate this game by just how many and how long the cutscenes are, which are mostly told by static frames. I don't have a problem with that but combine them with the long any conversation and damn, one just say "just lemme play ffs"... I started to overcame that flaw by exploring for missions or doing those VR missions on the basement TV, that way I have less "inactive" time watching long conversation after long conversation
Great review. I had many of the same issues. Since Im not big into story skipping through the dialogue did kill pacing for me. The MAIN issue was just the repetitive combat and recycled enemy encounters. The final stretch of the game felt alot longer than it was.Initially I really liked the combat and I like alot of the things it does. It just didnt evolve much into any more for me. It started off strong then just stayed mostly the same. Some games are like that. Though it was much better than the first Nioh game which had awesome combat initially but then became super recycled and repetitive.
I think the negative part on the plot in this game is the way Kasane thinks. Yuito ask her why she want to kill him but she just fight and run all the time. They tried to explain it in the Kasane line but she just said something like "because I felt Yuito should die." It's just not self explanatory. Another thing that bothers me is similar to Tales of Arise, the enemies in this game is too stubborn to die and you are always begging for a finish move in normal or harder difficulty. Your damage and enemy HP is not balanced, makes the game harder in an unfair way.
The bad part about the combat that I felt is that the game is not hard where you actually need to learn the combat... you can literally just throw shit at the enemy the whole game and do fine. The problem you said about the limitation where you can't just throw stuff is easily fixed by throwing in physical attacks here and there and then at lategame you can pretty much have it online most of the time. Which I think is what they are going for with the combat, mixing physical and throwing stuff.
I think the key to this game might be realizing that you can't play it like a standard ARPG and try to focus on hack and slash. The dodge roll sucks and it seems like the devs expected you to just use melee to recharge your powers, not as a viable offense as stupid as that is. I got annoyed and quit after an hour but maybe I'll try reapproaching later since I already spent the money.
Hmm, I'll have to come back to this one. I have it and played it and thought it was okay, but never beat it. I just couldn't really get all that into it, and then other games came out/went on sale that I was simply more interested in.
The main issue I found while playing is that while I think the combat is good, it gets too repetitive too fast. I feel like being able to control characters other than Yuito and Kasane would make a big difference in keeping things fresh, but oh well.
(people criticizing how the story drags allot) Scarlet Nexus anime: Does that mean I'm considered good now? ................ eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh Scarlet Nexus anime: oh eat shit dude
It is not so much the story, but the game itself that change for the worse its pacing towards the end chapters, for the most part of its lenght the game manage to have a good pacing, with chapters made of dungeons/missions of the right lenght in which the rythm of the game was alternated between combat and cutscenes that brought the plot further, with ofter multiple missions, change of goal and change of location per chapter. Toward the end chapters all of it is no longer here, you just beging a chapter with a goal, go to a location, and just advance through it for three hours with little to no story progression until you finish the dungeon, then a couple of cutscenes and on with the next 3 hours long dungeon of incessant fighting, I do not know why they messed up the pacing so bad toward the end.
I like Yuito more than kasane but they both felt generic to be which isn't a bad thing. story is good but nothing ground breaking. it's is a 8 out of 10 for me, combat was super satisfying
A game where all I loved where the characters and music. Cutscenes and dialogue always sucked due to crappy photo transitions, I rather read boxes of text. And moments that should be animated were cut power point slideshows.
I had a blast playing this, and I really recommend the game... but if there is one thing that really bothered me, that is the fokin enemies. I found the combat to be great in terms of the character you control and the skills that he/she has, but some enemies are just unfair or annoying to fight against. And this is amplified at the end, when the game tries to get artificially harder by just throwing lots of these annoying enemies at you at once... really lazy way of creating difficulty, imo.
Sounds like you’ve never played a classic hack and slash like devil may cry. The games combat is fantastic, repetitive enemies and a slightly wonky camera are the only things I’ll give you here. Also the music? Holy shit it was the ost of the year.
I actually liked some of the characters in this game. With other franchises similar to this I have trouble finding characters I like. It could also be the writing.. and this was clearly made for a western audience in mind. It's unfortunate this released along side Tales of Arise. I bet that reason alone killed the sales of this game. This game was definitely worth the buy.. But, Tales of Arise is an established and adored franchise from Bandai Namoc. Scarlet Nexus might've appealed to me more than Tales of Arise had, because I already knew I wanted this next Tales title.. I put Scarlet Nexus on hold. This is unfortunate.. What if now Bandai Namco doesn't want to produce anything further from the Scarlet Nexus IP. I hope this isn't how it ends up.
Before watching the video I just want to say, is it just me or the low health alert one of the most obnoxious things? Im currently playing Monster boy, and it just subtly vibrates my controller. What a welcome after hearing that nails on a chalkboard sound
The bad part. At the end of the game, devs run out of ideas 💡, so let's repeat every level in a memory lane. All the ae enemies, all the same. No new enemies, nada. The last monster follow instructions and be done. Not even close to Nier Automata where the end game flip everything with new stuff. Also, no quests, juts like challenges, kill this enemy on air, get a health pack. Like why? I did one and I was like no worth the grind. Quests need to be redone. The combat is peculiar, like use invisibility to remove the agro and backstabbing. But the ending and story was disappointing. Like Monsters look like made from an arts fair, so make it that makes sense like ghosts into the inanimate thing, but nope, Other particles and looks like everyone writing was high AF🤷💁
Don’t give an review if you are gonna be lazy about it if you only played one half of the game you can give a full review if you only played with one character.
you had the same thoughts I had when playing the game (minus the music). I played through Yuito's story, which made combat a lot more fun for me even when the gauge wasn't full just because he was more melee oriented. Though after the parties merge the combat was annoying and repetitive. I absolutely HATED the story, the presentation of the story, the plot twist, everything about it made me almost drop it if it wasnt for the combat.
but in the end is doesn't even matter.. sorry had to give that reference. i hope you talk about the anime, and how the game and the anime share the same exact story, but the anime includes secret words to be used in the game to give you bonus stuff. nope .. you didn't even mention it .. wow!
Before i watch the video i can tell you a few issues about this game that you don't think about till a 2nd playthought Most of the intersting plot points are dropped and are meanless (spoliers) the people on the moon meaningless the time travel meaningless cloneing and disgner people by the end the fact the world is 1000 years in the future and the "other" are really people all meanless at the end the most intersting plot points don't factor into the end or the actual plot.
the writing for the game starts of like someone with mass drive for a whole new genre then about 2/3rds of the way in the intersting guy was wacked and replace with the guy who writes Nautro filler arch's for anime is brought into to replace him.
Yuito seems like he was meant to be the only character as his game is much more coherent in gameplay. That said, it may have just been the fact that this game has more in common with Bayonetta than Tales.
Hehe, you mention the Tales games and then mention inteligent party members, when Tales of titles are well known for having incredibly bad AI. Even Arise has some garbage AI.
Scarlet Nexus, Tales of Arise and Ys IX Monstrum Nox are my favorite games that I played this year.
Mine too
You have great taste. Play Astral Chain if you haven’t yet, it’s amazing.
@@countryboyred Thanks. I haven’t played it yet but it does look interesting and kinda similar to scarlet Nexus.
@@countryboyred : Funny, Scarlet Nexus and Arise were my favorite games of the year, and I got Ys for Christmas and resolved to go back and retry Astral Chain sometime this year as well, since it came out at a bad time for me.
Definitely!
These were big. All of them are top-notch Action JRPGs.
Scarlett Nexus was a Sleeper hit for me. I put in 60 hrs with both kasana & yuito.. I enjoyed Yuito swordplay much more personally.. Despite some flaws i absolutely enjoyed the game.. 8.5
Same
I was really hoping you'd point out that absolutely horrendous boss fight and I'm glad you did.
Wtf scarlet nexus is fucking great, unbelievable having an opinion that is not mine,how could you
The psychokinesis stuff is a problem only with kasane. Yuito is more focused in melee combat, beign easier to use regular attacks to refill the psycho bar.
You're supposed to use her in the air. In the air, she plays like Yuito. Get good lol
Kasane is a range fighter and inflict damages around her. Every characters, there is a unique fighting style that one must master. Kasane is not a great damage dealer like Yuito. To me, she is like Nina from Tekken. You have to know when to attack, juggle and incorporate other move set to accomplish your goal.
I think the story wasn't focused enough and may have needed some more detailing especially in the last 5 hours of the plot. I enjoyed everything else tho. I really hope they make a 2nd part, since the story kinda leaves that open in the end.
Interesting. I think you need to play both. You only see the make story via woman protagonist eyes. He has a whole story and is nothing like you say. Beat it with both.
I liked the game a lot but I feel it dragged for too long, there aren't that many different enemies and every encounter starts to feel the same, the combat was great but they should have given you all the powers waaaaaaaay sooner, and dodge should cancel atk animations, getting hit from off screen is never fun. Story was fine but I didn't like that pseudo VN style, at least animate important bits and fights. Loved most of the characters.
i actually think it went too fast and should habe slowed down a bit. i was fine with not having access to all the powers way sooner so that doesn't really bother me. as for your other complaints those i agree with for the most part
I 100% the game and i loved every part of it:)
There’s no dodge roll. Half of the time you can’t dodge the attacks, dodging is the frustrating part in this game
Thinking about buying this. I've been waiting for this review specifically. Thanks Eric!
I'm loving Scarlet Nexus. And I agree that this game's combat can be frustrating. And I actually consider to be my personal game of the year
I played the guys arc first and i'm glad i did, his combat is far more satisfying, her weapons are flashy but her attacks dont seem to have any meat.
I do recommend that you play through the game as Yuito, as his character does get more depth in his own story. I also thought there wouldn't be much to him, until I played his route, and discovered why he acts the way he does, and how he changes over the course of the story. I still preferred Kasane's route, but you get to see some stuff that Kasane never encountered, which really enlightens the player about the world and exactly how corrupted it really is. Trust me, totally worth going through it. Plus, you can new game plus it with Yuito, so you can get through the story faster. He keeps his level and weapons for endgame, so it actually was fun to go back and play.
i haven't played thru kansanes yet(the game has been shelved since i got it when it came out so im only now getting into it) and so far from what I've seem of kasane yuitos the better character. his issue is being unreasonably kind to those that don't deserve it which is do sometimes and understand its hard not to. i don't get why people dislike him
The fact that this game (and Cyberpunk 2077 from last year) made it into TGA's Best RPG category is proof that they were just looking for something to fill space and they just randomly went with whatever 2021 RPG that first came to mind. Space that could have been given to Ys IX, Bravely Default 2 or Solasta: Crown of the Magister.
With Kisane's psychokineses, if you use Yuito's skill it allows you to use Kisane's ability without losing the bar up until Yuito's power is used up. You can throw things for at least twice as long as normal.
Great review, the game is good, I love it.. My favorites are: Yuito, Shiden, Kasane, Hanabi and Luka.
Honestly, I came expecting to disagree a lot... But most of the points I actually do agree with. I do enjoy some of the background music, but I wouldn't put it on to listen to it in any other context.
The Boss Fights in general are pretty okay. There's not that much complexity to most of them, except the later ones, but they're fun and there's usually extra stuff to fling at their faces... And then there's that one boss you showed footage from... It's the kind of boss fight that still gives me nightmares. I died at least 5 times against it, despite being 5 levels higher than the boss, yet I never even got close to dying against Karen Travers, despite being 10 levels lower than him by that point... That one boss is the absolute worst part of the game, and I wish it wasn't there. Or if it has to be there, make it an optional Superboss that gives some awesome reward...
On a brighter note, I just completed Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana last night, and it was one of the most amazing games I've ever played. I understand why you praise it so highly so often, now.
All of them are on my aggro? Now thats a good thing. Thanks to that, allies cant ruin my plan.
Game's fuckin great. Brand new IP. Theme song slaps. Arashi Spring rules. The plot is space cadet nonsense, but it's the exact right kind of space cadet nonsense.
I suck at all action games, but I mostly swapped between normal and hard for this one. The problem with what's being said here is that your combos are going to be based on swapping in and out between attacks, retreating attacks and PK. You can then increase combos by spending your XP which can lead to some cool stuff like the 4x hit which has a special animation.
I can't disagree about the bosses. Especially the specific boss being listed. That boss was a huge pain in the ass. I also had to lower the difficulty whenever the game had you find one other individual person. None of the strategies that worked against monsters would work against your various fights against other military people and that was a drag.
I don't think enough can be said about the graphics. They're good, but the graphical design and art direction is phenomenal. The area where the holographic overlay is broken so you see the city coming down on you from above. The winter area where when walking over a lake you can see frozen skyscrapers beneath you. The guts of the god computer. It's all gorgeous and haunting.
I fear the game didn't do well. Not a lot of people talked about it (the Besties called it the first great game of 2021, which was nice) and it went on sale pretty quickly. I hope we get a sequel, though. It's easily my Game of the Year, and I'd really like to see what they can do with a follow up that refines the good, pares down the bad and is overall and even better game.
Loved it. Played it twice. Loved Kasane. Loved Yuito. Loved Taugumi. Loved Kagero. I even loved Shiden, whose character arc takes him from petulant prick to petulant prick who is a reliable ally. And I loooved Arashi, the speedster with a chainsaw who just wants to nap.
I'm not sure why such a positive review is called a RANT. Is this to encourage engagement? You've ranted more about plenty of other things.
Oh, and if you have a PS5 the way it uses the controller when you're using PK is great. It really gives an impression of what kind of strain it is to use your brain to throw stuff around.
Bandai Namco has been on a roll with Action RPGs in the last few years. With games like this, Tales of Arise, and Ni No Kuni 2.
Scarlet Nexus was my appetizer while I waited for Tales of Arise
As someone who platinumed this game, (yes that means I had to play it twice.....) Here are some of my own personal thoughts:
1. Arashi Spring 4 life
2. Everyone needs a friend like Kagero in their life
3. I agree with Yuito as a die hard Baki fan
4. Dream in Drive is a FANTASTIC theme song.
i agree with all of these
I agree with most of what was said here. I switched to easy mode about halfway through because I was getting frustrated with the annoying enemies that would show up, and it definitely helped out. Also, best music track for me was the hideout music! Such a great jam!
Sad to hear you didn’t play the yuito campaign. I understand and agree with all your points for the positives and negatives. Most if not all the negatives you listed could be put into two categories: result of the lack of funding the team received, they didn’t have a full team either. Or you not understanding a mechanic as far as combat and bosses go. Assuming the gameplay is your own, you don’t use any of the aerial combos Kasane was designed for. The majority of her brain map(skill tree for new people) is designated for aerial chaining and juggling. While Yuito is ground and power slashes. The boss you pointed it was heavily ability dependent, you got it first try, I failed once but once I picked up on the mechanics I had an easier time than you did. To reach their own. Another negative I’ll add is the off putting nature of the character tropes at the beginning, I grew to love the characters but friends I recommend the game to had to be told “it gets better”. Personally I loved the music. After the ending I sat in the menu for an hour letting it all soak in. It gave the menu art a whole new meaning. Even with I said, this is a great review to show to people on the fence on picking up a great combat driven jrpg with stellar animations and character design.
Totally agree with all your points. It’s still in my top 3 favourite games of this year and I loved it despite its flaws.
Usually I don't like techno music, but I've always liked the combination of dubstep and anime girls. Lol.
I was told by many that Scarlet Nexus was just a rip-off of Persona series, but that's not what I'm seeing here and it doesn't look like rip-off at all, it looks really good and I'm willing to give it a try if I can, thanks Erick Landon for showing me what Scarlet Nexus is really is 👍
I’m about 5 hours into Yuito’s campaign and I’m loving it!
One thing that does annoy me with Scarlet Nexus is the navigator siblings continuously telling you which powers to use against enemies and there's no way to turn them off even in late game.
I get it Haruka you've been telling me this in every fight just shut up please!!
First! I agreed that camera controls should have been better if your focus is on which action button to use. I like the auto detection of objects to throw, though.
i don't care i like it
Scarlet nexus is good but not great ive finished both routes but it left me drained after that. I felt that the missing dialogues in between the two characters was not that great enough to justify splitting the stories between yuito and kasane.
What's the name of the first game in the intro? I remember that one in the wii a long time ago but i forgot the name!
I believe that is Odin Sphere
You really should make more dedicated reviews like this, I really liked your points: objective and explanatory regarding combat and personal regarding story.
But something I look after when I want to play JRPGs are the length of the cut scenes. I do not play Tales of games because the cut scenes are way too long, and it's something reviews never review.
The party members definitely sucked at combat, I felt like I was fightning alone the whole time 😭 these guys didn't inflict any damage I swear. Still a good game though.
They werent really meant too. They serve as distractions and extra abilities, that is all.
@It Burns When IP you get there abilities even when they arent there and they barely do any distracting. Bad excuse is a bad excuse
@Grampagohan They do a lot of distracting, especially the tank dude, and if you need them to distract anything, you're playing the game wrong.
Also no, you only get the abilities of the people in your active party
What I think might change this is the setting for their behaviour during combat. You can choose for each of your support characters how they are supposed to act during combat, either being aggressive, more focused on self-preservation, focusing on the same enemy that you are attacking or focus on enemies other than the one you are attacking. It's adjustable in the settings, and it changed the combat experience for me at least.
The throw jump in attack with special attack then use throw again as a dodge follow up. There is a talent for it and causes these follow ups to do alot of damage. It's not super intuitive. There is also a slot gear that keeps you from getting constantly knocked over which makes the game play completely differently lol
I really want to try Scarlet Nexus because honestly, it's a game I kind of missed out on. That and Tales of Arise.
both of them are really great
Only real cons for me (anything i don't mention you can more or less say is a positive i guess):
-lack of character driven/world lore driven side quests (I'm not considering Bonding events side quest. Side Quest needs to have some goal (beat an enemy, get a specific item, or reach a specific destination which may end with a boss fight/puzzle and may have some cutscenes attached (this last aspect is where SN failed to do)) plus reward)...too many were just a few second fetch quest/hunts
-Story could've explored the New Himuka, Seiran, and Togetsu groups a fair bit more...especially what happens to them by the end of the game
-important npcs needed a bit more screentime imo
-the characters default movement speed (movement without holding the run button) felt a bit too fast....constantly ran past where i wanted to stop/turn a lot
-you can not dodge out of an attack animation (cancel it), this is likely what you were complaining about evasion cause the game is made so you can Not dodge out mid attack like other games (Past Tales games, Ys 8 and 9, etc)...you more or less have to commit to the attack so it's somewhat like Monster Hunter/Souls in regards to needing you to keep a close eye on the enemies' tells to know when an attack is coming. Just about the only way to do things safely would be if you have Gemma's (stone skin) or Arashi's (super speed) power available to use mid combo to defend yourself/slow down time so your attack finishes before the enemy attack hits and you can dodge it. Tales of Arise also does this, and imo it's far less forgiving there than in SN as the longer animation artes in Arise (Dragon Swarm and many Blaze Edge artes come to mind) are about 2 to 3 times longer than the longest attack in SN leaving a huge window for an enemy to hit you and the only way to cancel artes in Arise is via Boost attacks, boost strikes, or mystic artes...both games' combat systems would've been far more fluid if they allowed you to cancel artes mid animation like most Tales games do (or at least allowed you to cancel at specific hits in an arte (for Example some of Yuri's artes can only be canceled at around the 1/3 or halfway point of the artes' animations so you needed to know which part of the arte you can cancel from or would need to commit to).
-was a bit disappointed the world wasn't one with field maps connecting towns and the like (like Tales games from Graces F to now or Dragon Quest 11)
-you couldn't play as all the characters (like lances/pole arms so kinda wanted to play as Hanabi lol)
-like you said the AI leaves a bit to be desired...though if i'm to be honest Tales of Arise wound up doing it worse in the end (Arise while having the 2nd to best combat system after Hearts R/Xillia 2 has one of if not the worst ally AIs and the absolute worst AI strategy menu in the series as it is party based, as in you can only customize the entire party's AI as a whole and you cannot customize the Individual characters AI like in past games (Symphonia, Xillia, Berseria, Hearts R, etc)...you party members wind up constantly dying due to that from normal difficulty onwards (didn't try very easy or story so can't say how difficult/lack of difficulty those options have), especially Shionne and Rinwell who have a habit of running up to the enemies instead of sticking to range like a Healer/gunner and mage should...this aspect of their AI reminds me of 'suicide' Raine from Symphonia tbh lol...with that said Scarlet Nexus's AI never really ran into that issue for me, it was more them not attacking when i'd have prefer it.
Now as for one concern you mentioned: dealing with enemy aggro always going to the player character there are 3 main ways you can deal with this in the game:
-stone skin power so that you can just tank the enemies attacks (of course you need to keep an eye on Gemma's gauge to make sure it's not about to run out before an attack hits)
-super speed/time slow down power that you can use to dodge attacks and get around enemies (gotta keep an eye on Arashi's gauge of course)
-invisibility power to completely drop aggro (gotta make sure you keep an eye on Kagero's gauge and remember that once you attack the invisibility ends until you reach a specific bond rank with Kagero at which you will be given a few moments of invisibility after attacking...think it's one fo the later upgrades you get for his power). Is also the only one that actually drops enemy aggo.
But ya besides these 3 options how you deal with aggro the enemies will more or less stay focused on you at all times
One other thing i may add: I feel like this game either should've pushed Yuito's run first or had it be 1 playthrough where each character's part of the story would only occur at specific moments cause with the way the game was told you get quite a few end game spoilers/hints for Yuito's route on Kasane's route....for example I think it would've been better written to have Yuito's route be the only perspective you can see from chapters 2 to 8 or 9 when both parties reveal shit near Togetsu and then have more or less swap back to Kasane's perspective from the end of chapter 3/whenever the Kindad Gate appears to that moment the parties reveal shit. Before the Kunad Gate though (chapters 1-3 if i'm right) they can just alternate between the two parties before focusing on Yuito's.
That's alot of attention to detail
1000 words essay.
The main issue I had with the game is that I seemed to spend more time fighting other OSF members instead of fighting Others - think I fought Yuito alone like 4 or 5 times during the missions, plus various other members on top as well & it just felt like overkill. Otherwise though, I enjoyed the heck out of the game (there's nothing as satisfying as throwing petrol tankers around & hitting enemies on the Kunad Highway)
this is best rpg if you memorize the party skills to use their combo properly and proper equipment like anti fire and electric plug in also the brain map
Make a list of top bad AI-partners
omg that Tree boss. It took me 2 attempts, and only after i brute forced it with tons of items did i realize there was a gimmick to it
What that song at the end of the video???? I need the sauce
i love scarlet nexus
Am I the only one who was absolutely confused with this story?
Don't agree with your cons, but totally agree with that it's not a masterpiece, but it's a very good action RPG. Worth it every minute.
Non of you complaints are mine... Actually the camera being free roaming and the controls feeling so fluid (specially after getting double jump + air dash with Yuito) feels delicious... I have a complaint tho, but this is mostly a personal preference, and it's that the animation duration before letting me cancel it in order to make a dodge is just too long, so I have to plan carefuly whether I'm attacking or how many hits I do if I'm planning to make a "perfect dodge" because I won't be able to cancel my attack if it already started until it finishes.
I'm comming from Bayonetta 2 so maybe that's a "me" problem lol... The othe problem it has is the absurdly long conversations, goddamit just finished playing even though I wanted to do the relationship stuff with two characters before closing the game because I started to feel fatigue by seeing two long conversations of stuff I won't care about (just characters personal stuff) in a row... also those that don't enjoy anime will hate this game by just how many and how long the cutscenes are, which are mostly told by static frames.
I don't have a problem with that but combine them with the long any conversation and damn, one just say "just lemme play ffs"... I started to overcame that flaw by exploring for missions or doing those VR missions on the basement TV, that way I have less "inactive" time watching long conversation after long conversation
This game might have plot holes , but I wouldn’t claim it does if I hadn’t played both characters. That may be the point of having two play throughs….
I wouldn't use the word plotholes, the issue is with plot points that seens interesting but are relegated to the secondary plan on the end.
Great review. I had many of the same issues. Since Im not big into story skipping through the dialogue did kill pacing for me. The MAIN issue was just the repetitive combat and recycled enemy encounters. The final stretch of the game felt alot longer than it was.Initially I really liked the combat and I like alot of the things it does. It just didnt evolve much into any more for me. It started off strong then just stayed mostly the same. Some games are like that. Though it was much better than the first Nioh game which had awesome combat initially but then became super recycled and repetitive.
scarlet nexus was my game of the year
I think the negative part on the plot in this game is the way Kasane thinks. Yuito ask her why she want to kill him but she just fight and run all the time. They tried to explain it in the Kasane line but she just said something like "because I felt Yuito should die." It's just not self explanatory.
Another thing that bothers me is similar to Tales of Arise, the enemies in this game is too stubborn to die and you are always begging for a finish move in normal or harder difficulty. Your damage and enemy HP is not balanced, makes the game harder in an unfair way.
The bad part about the combat that I felt is that the game is not hard where you actually need to learn the combat... you can literally just throw shit at the enemy the whole game and do fine. The problem you said about the limitation where you can't just throw stuff is easily fixed by throwing in physical attacks here and there and then at lategame you can pretty much have it online most of the time. Which I think is what they are going for with the combat, mixing physical and throwing stuff.
I think the key to this game might be realizing that you can't play it like a standard ARPG and try to focus on hack and slash. The dodge roll sucks and it seems like the devs expected you to just use melee to recharge your powers, not as a viable offense as stupid as that is. I got annoyed and quit after an hour but maybe I'll try reapproaching later since I already spent the money.
Is that tree a Kasane boss, I don't remember it on yuito but it's been a while. I don't remember any bosses being that bad.
It's only in Kasanes story.
@@Godisbilar ok cool I really do need to go back and play her story
This review just sounds like “I didn’t bother to get good” rather than “the game isn’t good”
Hmm, I'll have to come back to this one. I have it and played it and thought it was okay, but never beat it. I just couldn't really get all that into it, and then other games came out/went on sale that I was simply more interested in.
what is the game at 0:30?
The main issue I found while playing is that while I think the combat is good, it gets too repetitive too fast. I feel like being able to control characters other than Yuito and Kasane would make a big difference in keeping things fresh, but oh well.
The bond events for me were a huge bore at the very least they could've spiced things up a bit if there were romance mechanics but not even that.
Only good thing going for this game is it's gameplay.
(people criticizing how the story drags allot)
Scarlet Nexus anime: Does that mean I'm considered good now?
................ eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh
Scarlet Nexus anime: oh eat shit dude
It is not so much the story, but the game itself that change for the worse its pacing towards the end chapters, for the most part of its lenght the game manage to have a good pacing, with chapters made of dungeons/missions of the right lenght in which the rythm of the game was alternated between combat and cutscenes that brought the plot further, with ofter multiple missions, change of goal and change of location per chapter.
Toward the end chapters all of it is no longer here, you just beging a chapter with a goal, go to a location, and just advance through it for three hours with little to no story progression until you finish the dungeon, then a couple of cutscenes and on with the next 3 hours long dungeon of incessant fighting, I do not know why they messed up the pacing so bad toward the end.
Some cons I agree with you, and I only play the demo. Maybe get it on sale
I like Yuito more than kasane but they both felt generic to be which isn't a bad thing. story is good but nothing ground breaking. it's is a 8 out of 10 for me, combat was super satisfying
A game where all I loved where the characters and music. Cutscenes and dialogue always sucked due to crappy photo transitions, I rather read boxes of text. And moments that should be animated were cut power point slideshows.
I'm glad it was on Gamepass. Didn't care for it enough to play beyond an hour or two.
I had a blast playing this, and I really recommend the game... but if there is one thing that really bothered me, that is the fokin enemies. I found the combat to be great in terms of the character you control and the skills that he/she has, but some enemies are just unfair or annoying to fight against. And this is amplified at the end, when the game tries to get artificially harder by just throwing lots of these annoying enemies at you at once... really lazy way of creating difficulty, imo.
Sounds like you’ve never played a classic hack and slash like devil may cry. The games combat is fantastic, repetitive enemies and a slightly wonky camera are the only things I’ll give you here. Also the music? Holy shit it was the ost of the year.
I really liked Kasane but playing as her felt so awkward compared to generic protag-kun
I actually liked some of the characters in this game. With other franchises similar to this I have trouble finding characters I like. It could also be the writing.. and this was clearly made for a western audience in mind.
It's unfortunate this released along side Tales of Arise. I bet that reason alone killed the sales of this game.
This game was definitely worth the buy.. But, Tales of Arise is an established and adored franchise from Bandai Namoc.
Scarlet Nexus might've appealed to me more than Tales of Arise had, because I already knew I wanted this next Tales title.. I put Scarlet Nexus on hold.
This is unfortunate.. What if now Bandai Namco doesn't want to produce anything further from the Scarlet Nexus IP. I hope this isn't how it ends up.
Before watching the video I just want to say, is it just me or the low health alert one of the most obnoxious things? Im currently playing Monster boy, and it just subtly vibrates my controller. What a welcome after hearing that nails on a chalkboard sound
The bad part.
At the end of the game, devs run out of ideas 💡, so let's repeat every level in a memory lane. All the ae enemies, all the same.
No new enemies, nada.
The last monster follow instructions and be done.
Not even close to Nier Automata where the end game flip everything with new stuff.
Also, no quests, juts like challenges, kill this enemy on air, get a health pack. Like why?
I did one and I was like no worth the grind.
Quests need to be redone.
The combat is peculiar, like use invisibility to remove the agro and backstabbing.
But the ending and story was disappointing.
Like Monsters look like made from an arts fair, so make it that makes sense like ghosts into the inanimate thing, but nope, Other particles and looks like everyone writing was high AF🤷💁
I agree with you 100% I pushed myself to beat it and then I deleted it from my console, I played Yuitos story it was good but not for a replay.
Don’t give an review if you are gonna be lazy about it if you only played one half of the game you can give a full review if you only played with one character.
Guys I didn’t enjoy tales of arise that much
Cuz story was so meh and characters weren’t that great
Will i enjoy this game?
Are you the mandalorian
Good game, indeed
you had the same thoughts I had when playing the game (minus the music). I played through Yuito's story, which made combat a lot more fun for me even when the gauge wasn't full just because he was more melee oriented. Though after the parties merge the combat was annoying and repetitive. I absolutely HATED the story, the presentation of the story, the plot twist, everything about it made me almost drop it if it wasnt for the combat.
but in the end is doesn't even matter.. sorry had to give that reference.
i hope you talk about the anime, and how the game and the anime share the same exact story, but the anime includes secret words to be used in the game to give you bonus stuff. nope .. you didn't even mention it .. wow!
Ugh u played as kasane , she is the worst
The same enemies room after room was cringe!
It was good but dragged on and battles got repetitive. I quit halfway through the game as I was literally falling asleep.
Before i watch the video i can tell you a few issues about this game that you don't think about till a 2nd playthought
Most of the intersting plot points are dropped and are meanless
(spoliers)
the people on the moon meaningless the time travel meaningless cloneing and disgner people by the end the fact the world is 1000 years in the future and the "other" are really people all meanless at the end the most intersting plot points don't factor into the end or the actual plot.
I think the developers were planning a sequel
the writing for the game starts of like someone with mass drive for a whole new genre then about 2/3rds of the way in the intersting guy was wacked and replace with the guy who writes Nautro filler arch's for anime is brought into to replace him.
@@overlordzetta7410 You couldn't be more right
Combat better on ps5 or pc due to 60 fps
that framerate is painful to look at
Even though the game looks good is still mediocre at best, didn't bother to finish my second run through it.
This was a bad year for game awards. Not a lot of great games but a ton of good games. No all time great games came out that I can think of.
I did not like the demo, same negative points than you.
Yuito seems like he was meant to be the only character as his game is much more coherent in gameplay.
That said, it may have just been the fact that this game has more in common with Bayonetta than Tales.
Hehe, you mention the Tales games and then mention inteligent party members, when Tales of titles are well known for having incredibly bad AI. Even Arise has some garbage AI.
Super generic game
i hated the story. it's a mess, with no explanation and the characters doesn't understand the concept of logic.
The story is trash