#Scarlet nexus xbox one full#

Fortunately, beating one campaign allows you to carry over your progress to the other, much like a New Game+. The result of the lack of mechanical variety is that by the end of Yuito’s campaign, which is punctuated by multiple hours of very similar fights against very similar enemies, I was pretty exhausted from Scarlet Nexus’ combat and was not looking forward to immediately fighting through another one of a similar length (speaking strictly from a combat perspective). The Others are a fantastical mix of beauty and monstrosity, combining the organic and inorganic in wildly inventive ways that are always unsettling to look at. I do wish there were more of them, but I have to at least shout out the fact that the visual design of the enemies we do have to battle against is fantastic. When going up against tougher enemies, you really need to put it all together by mixing in regular attacks, psychokinetic attacks, and SAS abilities that target enemy weaknesses in order to succeed, which leads to some really satisfying fights that feel like you’re firing on all cylinders. On top of that, you’re able to borrow the abilities of your squadmates through the Struggle Arms System (SAS), which allows you to target key weaknesses of certain enemies or take advantage of specific status ailments, like when you use Hanabi’s pyrokinesis to ignite a group of enemies that have been doused with oil. And then there are the crazy environmental interactables that you can use, like grabbing a train with your mind and causing it to crash through a crowd of enemies, taking them all out in a single go.

The result of the ease of transition between the two is a really exciting and smooth mix of long-range and close-range combat. At any point of a weapon combo, you can press the right trigger to immediately hop back and throw an object, then follow that with a weapon attack that brings you right back into melee range. What really makes Scarlet Nexus’s combat stand out is how the telekinetic moves flow with the weapon-based attacks. Sometimes the interactions in these bond episodes are outright hostile, but the important thing is that you always learn something about the character and why they act the way they do, or something that better explains the actions they just took in the main story.

This is nothing super new to fans of the Mass Effect or Persona series, but what’s interesting about the way it’s handled here in Scarlet Nexus is that the bond episodes are very often tied to what’s happening in the main story, are entirely different depending on which campaign you’re playing, and are not always about improving a relationship. After most big missions, you’re brought back to your hideout for a “stand-by phase” that gives you an opportunity to converse with your teammates, give them gifts (which they amusingly occasionally play with,) and trigger “bond episodes” that allow you to increase your bond level with each one. While the overarching story is great, what really makes Scarlet Nexus special is the amount of care taken to develop its large supporting cast of eight characters who join Yuito and Kasane’s parties. Bandai Namco does an outstanding job of posing questions in one character’s playthrough and then answering them in the other by providing added context that better explains what led to certain events in ways that lead to some really satisfying pay-offs.

#Scarlet nexus xbox one full#

City streets are colored with augmented-reality advertisements, people are able to send messages directly to each others’ brains, and those with exceptional combat abilities are drafted into a Special Forces-like organization called the OSF (Others Suppression Force) to do battle against otherworldly monstrosities known as “Others.”īoth Yuito and Kasane begin as newly minted members of the OSF and are placed onto two different platoons, each with their own squadmates and leaders from that starting point, their journeys branch out in ways that have each character experiencing one side of a dense and complex plot full of conspiracies, ulterior motives, and surprising twists.

And it’s a story worth experiencing – one which takes place in a fascinating world where the vast majority of the population are gifted with powers of the mind.