Scarlet Nexus has some great fun to offer through its experimental and varied combat system, and there’s a deluge of skills, attacks, and counters to mish-mash against one another for increasingly satisfying results. That Scarlet Nexus doesn’t properly let us connect with the everyday characters that it uses to ground its cityscape is an unfortunate missed opportunity, one that reduces side activities to a slate of objectives for accruing XP for your protagonist in Scarlet Nexus’ leveling system instead of being enjoyable missions for relatable people. Scarlet Nexus has an abundance of side missions, the vast majority of which sadly fall into the “fetch mission” category of “go here, kill this”, or “keep an eye out for X amount of an item”.
What it would’ve been nice to see from Scarlet Nexus is the hammering home of these relatable cityscape traits through side missions and stories. It’s a subtle but brilliant method of making this pulsating neon city oddly relatable, even if there are brain-eating demons descending out of the sky. As soon as you’re clear of the prologue section of Bandai Namco’s game and spat out into the maw of the city, there’s human hallmarks of any city on the face of the Earth: businessmen and street vendors jostling among crowds of office workers and lackadaisical kids everywhere you look. Just over a month ago, I wrote about in our Scarlet Nexus preview (opens in new tab) of how the game's world allowed the mundane to shine through its futuristic cityscape of Tokyo. There’s a lot to like about Scarlet Nexus’s increasingly whacky and ever-twisting plot, but it’s a bit of a shame that with so many constant twists and turns, it never really lingers on one interesting subject long enough to properly dig into it and break it down. The plot zips between brilliant and bold ideas in equal measure, dipping its toe into analyzing subjects like post-humanism, militarism, the disposability of modern soldiers after their time has been served, and so much more. Over the extended runtime of Scarlet Nexus though, there’s a whole lot to unpack. Scarlet Nexus’s side characters might not amount to genuinely memorable companions over the course of 20-odd hours, but the Bond missions undoubtedly give each an added depth that would otherwise be dearly missed. One Bond mission has Kasane and Yuito going to retrieve a fountain pen, deeply cherished by one of their commanding officers, an opportunity which Kasane pounces on to judge if Yuito is worthy of dating her younger sister (it’s an anime thing). The Bond missions themselves are simple in design, but vital for making the ensemble cast surrounding you feel like more than the one-dimensional personas they lead with. This hideaway lets you recuperate and procure items in between combat gauntlets in missions, but it also offers you a chance to better acquaint yourself with the characters surrounding Kasane and Yuito through limited-time optional story missions focused on fleshing out one character at a time. In between story missions, you’ll be transported to a hideaway, which is actually a really snazzy modern apartment located in the belly of Tokyo, along with all your allies. There are also infrequent “Bond” episodes peppered throughout Scarlet Nexus. On the flip side, having the player embody your average hapless redshirt for the entirety of the 20-hour game would be more likely to frustrate than entertain, the latter of which Bandai Namco’s new action game is obviously jockeying for. Action games like Scarlet Nexus are all about empowering the player through abnormal abilities and devastating battle techniques, so they naturally lend themselves to falling into the ‘hero’ trope category that any avid anime viewer will no doubt be accustomed to.
It’s an understandably difficult tightrope to walk. Both of these leads are no-name fighters vying to stand out from the pack, but - surprise! - it emerges Kasane and Yuito are wicked warriors with untameable drive and skill. As one of the two playable leads - Kasane or Yuito - you’re the fresh-faced rookie looking to prove yourself in the Cadets, a force of elite human warriors dedicated to repelling the nightmarish creatures dropping out of the Earth’s atmosphere to feed on human brains. It’s a trope that Scarlet Nexus fully embodies.
SCARLET NEXUS STEAM SERIES
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S
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