SCARLET NEXUS

Review

Upon starting a new game you’ll have the option of choosing the audio language, either English or Japanese, after which there’s the games difficulty to choose: Easy, Normal or Hard. The final choice you need to make is which of the two stories to play first.

The first option is to play as Yuito Sumeragi; he comes from a great family, he’s young, has an unwavering and kind heart. After having his life saved by the OSF (Other Suppression Force) when he was younger, he was inspired to join them as a volunteer so that he could save others as he had been saved. Yuito uses a sword for quick close combat attacks and has psychokinesis abilities. The second story option is to play as Kasane Randall; she was scouted by the OSF, an elite cadet at the academy, top of her class. She’s cool, rational and indifferent to others, and she only ever opens up to her adopted sister Niaomi. She fights using ranged, multi-blade attacks and psychokinesis abilities.

I decided to play as Yuito first.  Once the game starts you find yourself alongside some other cadets and an Examiner. The examiner will connect you to the Virtual Brain Link where you’ll run through the Other Suppression Force aptitude test. While the examiner will tell you that the purpose is to decide which platoon you’ll be assigned to, it’s really just a short tutorial. The tutorial will take you over the basics, such as movement, how to use your psychokinesis attacks etcetera. You will get more information on how things work as you unlock them throughout the game. Now that you’ve completed your training, you and the other cadets have got the next twenty-four hours to yourselves before you report back as fully fledged members of the OSF.

As a member of the OSF, it’s your job to protect the people against the “Others”, deranged mutants which began to descend from the sky with a hunger for human brains. These Others were resistant to normal attacks; however, a psionic hormone had been discovered in the human brain around the same time as the Others started to appear. This gave the people extra sensory powers, although not everyone had the same powers, and a very small portion of people never gained any powers.

You will head out on missions with other OSF members, who will assist you in attacking the Others. You can also temporarily use your allies' powers, through SAS. SAS is a brain-to-brain connection between you and one of your allies via a virtual cable. Some of the powers, such as Tsugumi’s clairvoyance powers, will allow you to detect invisible enemies or see-through poor visibility conditions. Luka’s teleportation powers are great for teleporting through certain walls. It’s also good for making quick strikes and retreating to a safe distance. There are other powers such as Pyrokinesis, Sclerokinesis, Electrokinesis which you can borrow from your allies. Depending on who is in your platoon on your current mission, you may be able to take advantage of four allies and their powers.

Yuito’s family has a place which you can visit and use as a hideout while in between missions. The current allies on your latest mission will normally go back with you there. When there you can talk, bond and give gifts to your fellow allies. As your bond with each of your allies grows then they will gain new effects, increasing their SAS powers.

Along with using your allies' powers temporarily, you will have your trusty sword (as Yuito) and your own powers, Psychokinesis. In order to use your power, you will be required to fill your power bar by performing attacks. Using an allies’ power will take a small amount of time before you can use their powers again. Your psychokinesis will allow you to pick up and throw objectives such as barrels, cars, concrete blocks and other items which you may find in your surroundings.

The enemy has a health gauge that you will need to reduce to zero in order to defeat that enemy. There is also a crush gauge which can be reduced by performing follow-up attacks with your weapon and your psychokinesis powers. When the crush gauge is depleted, you will be able to perform a Brain Crush attack. This attack will demolish an enemy’s weak point and allow you to defeat it in one hit, although you’ll have to be quick, as the enemy can recover given time. Enemies which find themselves on the receiving end of a Brain Crush will always drop items when defeated.

Performing actions, defeating enemies or receiving damage will fill your Brain Drive. This will take longer to fill but once filled it will automatically activate your Brain Drive. Upon activating the brain drive you will have increased focus, movement and psychokinesis speed increase, increased attack, and other various other buffs. While the brain drive is active you will gain increased Experience Bonus from performing actions, like perfect dodges, activating brain crush, defeating enemy's etcetera.

Defeating enemies will allow you to gain Experience Points, Brain Points, Money and Obtainable Data. Experience points will allow your character and allies to level up. Brain Points will allow you to unlock new skills in subjects Expand, Enhance, Brain Drive, Support and Brain Field. Obtainable Data comes in varying types and rarities and are dropped from defeated enemies, although you can find some scattered around the levels you’re exploring. You can sell these obtainable data for a few pennies but it’s far more rewarding to exchange them at the shop. You can exchange them for Weapons, Battle Items, Plug-ins, Visuals and Presents if you have the right Obtainable Data items.

In the options you will find plenty of settings; there are the categories, Settings, Brightness, Keyboard, Controller, Graphics and Others.

I absolutely love the artwork within the game and the graphics are very nice also. I ran everything maxed out in graphic settings and with Framerate “Not Fixed” (30 and 60 FPS other options) with no problems at all. I tried to play in Full Screen as I normally do but if I ever needed to Alt / Tab out of game it would drop to task bar and I wouldn’t be able to have it go back to full screen. When this happened, I would have to close the game down and start from my last save point. In the end I changed from Full Screen to Borderless Window after which I never had this problem again.

Another problem I had which is a bit more of a pain in the botty than the full screen issue was that I was unable to play the game using my Xbox One Wireless controller. Nothing seemed to do anything; pressing the X button for example didn’t attack with my weapon. No buttons seemed to do what they were supposed to according to the settings in the options under Controller. Because of this I had to play with keyboard and mouse, which wasn’t too bad overall, but because of some problems I have I would have preferred to have played the game using the controller.

However, I have played an “EARLY PRESS RELEASE” of the game, so these few hiccups may not happen upon the games full release. Despite this I have full enjoyed playing Scarlet Nexus so far.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com