SCARLET NEXUS

My experience with this game has been kinda mixed, but unfortunately it disappointed me on too many levels to give it positive review. [h1] Story [/h1] The main idea of the story is not that bad and I could see it being interesting, the writing however seems really...inexperienced. The dialogues seem like they have been ripped out of a high-school essay. The information is delivered in dumps by the characters, with key information being repeated over and over again, even within the SAME chapter, as if the game expects the player to not pay any attention at all. It even generates simulated chat conversations between characters that you can read later that are literally written as summaries of what happened in the chapter. As if the game expects you to be unintelligent or it knows, that the plot of this game can get convoluted at times and even person paying attention may get lost. The characters themselves are really stereotypical (like childhood friend, shy girl, MILF mommy, etc.), which on its own is not a problem if you can expand those characters further, but this game does not really do that. The game does sort of have a mechanic to do that outside of the main story through b…

[h1]Yuito's Playthrough - Normal difficulty[/h1] After 57 hours, I completed Yuito's playthrough and more than half of the Steam achievements (with the remaining ones basically requiring me to beat Kasane's playthrough to unlock them). The worldbuilding is definitely intriguing thanks to the interesting 'brain-punk' aesthetic and the surrounding lore regarding brain powers, the Others, and [spoiler]the moon folks, the secret research experiments, and the time travel[/spoiler]. While it gets convoluted with the repeated reveals of twists and such, the overall plot is sufficiently engaging to follow-through till the end. Beyond the plot, it's pretty weird how the game's reception comes true in different parts of the game. The characters criticisms being somewhat generic are very much valid at the start of the game - with the ensemble cast basically being superficial anime character tropes such as [spoiler]bland protagonist, super-shy girl, cold and distant girl, cheerful childhood friend, rival guy who hates your guts from the get-go,[/spoiler] and so much more. That said, the moment-to-moment gameplay of psychokinesis and hack-and-slash combat is very much enjoyable. Thr…

The game is fun and simple, the combat mechanics are satisfying and the action is fluid and fast-paced. The story isn't perfect but actually really cool, and the characters are good (a bit stereotypical at times but that's a classic of the genre). I'd recommend it to anyone looking to have fun with a cool hack-and-slash enjoying the feeling of playing, reading, and watching a playable manga/anime (animations are beautiful imho). The only downside might be the constant back-and-forth between gameplay and cutscenes, but if you're looking for a straightforward experience it's perfect.

I liked playing this video game, I can tell because I played through it twice, but overall I feel like it has given me little in terms of... anything, really. The story isn't that convoluted for how many moving pieces are there, but there's so many places in which it feels overcomplicated and undercooked. The characters recognise that the countries they serve are corrupt and do many terrible things, but they still follow orders. Their plan for fixing things feel appropriate for a bunch of teenagers, which they are, but they are not good storytelling material. Also, it feels like a majority of the plot happens to this characters. They they don't have a lot of agency until the entire gang gets together and by then the game is almost over. Speaking of the gang, the real star of the writing are the character interactions. Although you are in control of only two characters, the whole cast feels like a group of friends, which is very nice. The combat feels great, is very varied and the kit you get is very good and gives you multiple solutions to many problems. But the basic actions you take to actually fight things don't feel satisfying in the same way. Enemies can interrupt …

Not the worst game I've ever played or anything, but it was just kind of mediocre in general. Combat was already getting repetitive coming out of the intro mission, the storyline wasn't interesting enough to pull me in, and I just can't really imagine launching the game again to see more. The graphics are....interesting. On paper, the idea of an augmented reality world seems cool, but in reality it just made the game look kind of blurry and too busy. There was virtual junk everywhere, which sometimes made it hard to tell which areas of the map you were supposed to explore. Maybe that improves later, but I wasn't a fan.

Scarlet Nexus est une leçon de gestion de scope et de game design sur un budget limité. C'est une enfilade d'idées brillantes pour cacher les limitations d'un AA. Une direction artistique maîtrisées, sur un jeu certes techniquement à la ramasse mais rattrapé par un cel-shading qui navigue entre le très bon et le somptueux. Une narration haletante et des enjeux présentés sur un rythme parfaitement maîtrisé pour un jeu qui n'avait pas les moyens de s'étirer en suspens trop longs. Rien de superflu, droit à l'essentiel. Trop parfois, les interactions sont peut être expédiées à la va vite et semblent donc peu naturelles, mais c'est le prix à payer pour finir le jeu la première fois en 26h en ayant l'impression d'en avoir fait 10. Et sans une seule minute d'ennui. Pas les moyens de rendre jouable tous les personnages ? On lisse la progression du personnage principal sur toute l'aventure, et on intègre le reste de l'équipe intelligemment dans les combos. Alors oui il y a des défauts. Sur le gameplay c'est parfois un peu lourdingue, on se fait stopper par le manque de cancel dans le jeu, la majorité des donjons/zones sont franchement à chier contre et l'équipement ne sert presque à ri…