Scarlet Nexus (Next Gen Action game by former Tales of Devs at Bandai Namco)

Oh, there was a thread after all. Wonder why it didn't come up when I searched for it? Anyway...

Gameplay could honestly use more polish in a few areas. The dodging and camera in particular are just... badly done. Locking on does not in fact cause your attacks to be targeted at the enemy in question and doesn't even guarantee the camera will turn to face the enemy directly (which just raises the question what it's for... psychokinesis is my guess). And dodging can't cancel out of anything, is designed in the "move yourself out of the way of danger" sense and suffers from abysmally short distance covered. Even so-called perfect dodges are pretty useless, combining the tight timings of Dark Souls parrying with vague hitboxes and an overabundance of enemies who rotate on the spot to continue tracking you and attack constantly (and as far as I can tell, you can't chain dodges).

Your offensive options are better, though, especially once you've gone through the skill tree in a major way.

Still, frustrating. Play time's at... 23 hours? Well, more like 19-20 in game.

† Not even getting into explosions or having a status effect that blocks even that.

I enjoy the game a lot myself,. granted I feel like a couple of the bossfights are somewhat grossly unfair unless you just abuse super mode to delete the difficulty of it.

It's fun enough. The camera in combat is pretty horrendous though and the lock-on not having your attacks automatically face enemies just feels annoying. I started out with Kasane and her mid-range combat thing can feel awkward at times.

I'm at the end of Phase 7 or so and for the most part, the story beats are fairly predictable. I'm not really a fan of the characters interacting with each other as a lot of it just comes off like badly implemented Poor Communication Kills. Kasane in particular is pretty guilty of this as she comes off less like a socially awkward stoic and more like a rude, condescending person. This has cleaned up a bit in the second half of the story but I'm having a hard time resonating with any of these characters.

I thought the total lack of social skills came across fairly well. It's not like she's actually... condescending towards anyone? That would need more judgement than she has. Unfailingly blunt, though.

Meanwhile, as of Phase 10 standby, my hatred for quests is unending. Their rewards are always garbage and there's always one that's just so damn stupid. "Kill 5 enemies that explode with Brain Drive active". Yes, thanks, give me a quest I can't actually control because it's reliant on automatically triggering randomness and an enemy that wants to screw you over. Eugh.

So, finished one playthrough, not sure if I'll do others any time soon or take a break. That ending just... grates? You spend an entire game with time travel as a looming plot element, use it exactly once after it's introduced, and have both the main characters resolve that it's better to not dishonour people's memories by messing with time to save them. THEN you have the last antagonist be someone trying to do that... and finally succeeding. Oh, except it somehow caused them to never even exist because that was somehow required. But ONLY that one person survives.

It's like the ending is out to spite you in particular.

Finished through the Kanase story. It's a decent game overall, I probably would've enjoyed it more if I didn't see most of the major plot twists coming a mile away. I'd say my experience with it kind of got bogged down with the pacing of non-story things like the bond episodes, quests, etc. During the standby phase between story chapters, I'd find I was spending over an hour sometimes watching manga panels play out, followed up with some pretty drab 'Kill X monster with Y strategy' quests. It gets a bit irritating when I want to just play more of the combat but instead I have to sit through 4 or more Bond Episodes to get some kind of combat benefit.

While the combat was fun, the game's lack of variety in enemies and environments hurts the potential it could have. I'd compare it to something like Astral Chain, a game with combat I also found fun but instead of stopping at the end of the story, the game gives you several dozens of post-game end missions that's nothing but combat and was easily the best part of the game for me. Here, you just kinda fight the final boss and that seems to be that.

Well, you can go back and do MORE QUESTS, but you actually get the best weapon for each person on that route. Yeah, I... don't see the point, either.

Honestly, I think the game's plot could've worked better if it was only one route, Yuito leading up to the bad future and then swapping to Kasane to get the rest. Then preferably spreading out the bond missions rather than turning the final few standby phases into three hours of talking, making bond items, and crappy, crappy sidequests with awful rewards.

Of course, can't compare it with the game you're talking about, since that's a switch exclusive and I... don't own one.

Edited by RainehDaze on Jul 2nd 2021 at 3:08:35 PM

I like how telegraphed some deaths are just by going to the character bios and seeing which characters don't have Brainwave models.

For the self-destructing mobs sidequest there are a few strategies.

The trickiest one: Knock it out of the air with telekinesis. Zip in and launch it. Then slam it down to the ground. Then launch it. Then slam it. Repeat till dead. Make even the slightest mistake or hesitation and it blows up in your face.

The one I couldn't get to work: Use hypervelocity and kill it before it blows up.

The one I ended up doing: Use invisibility. Knock it out of the air with telekinesis, then zip in and air combo it to zero crush gauge and kill it with brain crush before it hits the ground.

Note that you can warp around the same zone from the world map without losing drive gauge, so what I did was warp to the midpoint and kill the midboss to build my gauge enough to activate drive, then warp to the beginning to kill the mobs in the first room (because these spawn one by one with no additional mobs or obstacles). Do not use pyrokinesis at any point; it seems like that lights their fuse and makes them blow up quicker.

Edited by HanabiraKage on Jul 2nd 2021 at 11:29:31 PM

Oh, those things? I wound up killing them by stacking hypervelocity, duplication, and electrokinesis. Stun, knock down. Just EK and duplication also works but it's annoying if they're behind you.

I do like the general combat loop but it is pretty simple. Like how the MC's only use a single weapon and only have one combo at that.

Huh makes me wonder how if all the teammates having unique weapons is set-up for the sequel to bring in more playable weapons.

I'm now dealing with killing the smoke-spewing flying mobs with the down finisher...I managed to get one, but accidentally wound up killing the others with something else. If only you could heal enemies.

The strat is a massive hassle. Get its HP down just low enough that it won't get killed by a combo vision. Wait for its crush gauge to recover. Perform the combo vision to hopefully knock it out of the air and not kill it and not fully deplete its crush gauge. Use hypervelocity when it hits the ground to give yourself more time, and duplication to raise finisher damage. Then execute the finisher and pray you didn't fuck up your estimate in step 1. The damn thing moves everywhere and the smoke forces you to use clairvoyance just to lock on.

Edited by HanabiraKage on Jul 2nd 2021 at 11:44:33 PM

A lot of the combo play is meant to be done by abusing SAS, combo visions, etc. and once you assemble the full party and get additional abilities to activate multiple SAS, you can do some pretty elaborate, albeit same-y combos.