Scarlet Nexus is an anime-inspired action-roleplaying game with some incredibly slick combat, interesting characters and a very shonen-esque storyline. But let’s have a look at the game on a deeper level and see if this flashy action game is just that, flashy.

Scarlet Nexus isn’t going to be for everyone, if you aren’t a fan of extravagant and kind of floaty storytelling that you can find in anime, and in turn anime style games, this game is going to make you cringe. The characters, particularly the two main characters you play as, are very stereotypical characters, Yuito is the happy go-lucky, kind of floaty and incredibly trusting male protagonist, while Kasane is somewhat broody, incredibly logical, and not driven by her emotions. It’s reminds me of Naruto and Sasuke, and their character development arcs, I actually enjoyed the character’s quite deeply, but I am a sucker for a good action anime, so the characters resonate well with me.

This extends to the ensemble of characters around the main two. There is a very large cast in the game, with 8 interactable team-mates, 4 for each character but you can still build your relationship with the opposing ones. Which in the context of what is happening for an extended portion of the game, requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Considering Yuito and Kasane are trying to fight each other for half of the game, the fact you can still have bonding moments with the characters trying to kill your chosen main character, comes off as more than a little bit strange.

These characters are very much typical anime characters, the shy and introverted girl but with the one person that she actually talks to. A close to retirement veteran who is hard-headed and on the straight and narrow, the flamboyant man who is just a little bit too flirty with all the girls, you know how the rest goes. If you aren’t a fan of shows like Attack on Titan, Naruto and similar, you’re going to have a really hard time getting past these characters. They aren’t all that unique, and realistically, they never get fleshed out to an adequate enough level, there’s more emotional attachment to characters who you never get to have on your team but have actual backstory development.

However, if you are a fan of action style combat, with unique mechanics and great feel, then Scarlet Nexus is going to be 40 hours of a great time for you. At first, I thought the combat was awkward, and too flighty. After working out that I didn’t need to hold forward the whole time I was attacking, I realised how dumb I was being. In the space of 5 seconds, you can activate a fire enchantment on your weapon, throw a car at an enemy, dash rapidly at them, and cut them to ribbons. You rinse and repeat, and whilst it may feel repetitive at times, the combat feels incredibly rewarding. When you take a fight well, you watch enemies melt away, and find yourself using your brain crush, a unique instant kill for most enemies, over and over in a fight. Whilst the game suffers from recolour syndrome there is actually small additions to the abilities of enemies of the same style as the game progresses that they feel somewhat unique.

On that note, enemy design is pretty inventive. The ‘Others’ that make up the bulk of the enemies and bosses of the game have an incredibly large array of designs and abilities. It keeps the game feeling fresh. You can instantly recognise dangerous threats from fodder designed to refill your psychokinesis gauge so you can slam more barriers and cars and pallets into the tougher enemies. The more you play, the better the combat feels and the psychokinesis works so seamlessly. It’s actually a combat mechanic that I’d love to see more games try and pick up and put their own spin on it. It’s what makes this game really worth playing.

Perhaps I’m a bad judge of difficulty at times, but I don’t see a reason to really play this game on anything but the hardest difficulty. There was maybe two boss fights in the whole game that I found truly difficulty, but they were rewarding in playing out correctly. The combat is easy and intuitive enough that playing on a lower difficulty may actually detract from the best aspect of the game. The game allows you to lower difficulty at any time, so I would definitely recommend starting on hard, and dropping the difficulty if you find the game too difficult, but I honestly believe the game was designed with hard being the optimal difficulty to play on.

Unfortunately, the story is where this game sort of falls apart. I didn’t mind it too much, because I am a sucker for a wild confusing ride of anime stupidity at the best of times. But the story is just… never really explained in any significant detail, it expects you to just accept a lot of things as “that’s just how it is”. As the game goes along the story gets more and more outlandish and becomes increasingly more difficult to follow. Kasane seems to undergo a complete character change, whereas Yuito develops very little, almost painting him as the perfect character, and Kasane as the flawed one who needed to change.

It’s probably something that will be a breaking point for some, and for others it will be irrelevant. For me, it wasn’t a big thing, but I did find myself getting more and more lost as I went along. It was unfortunate because I was really enjoying myself in the first 15 odd hours. Alas It is likely to be an issue for people who aren’t typically into the ludicrous nature of anime storylines with rather cookie cutter characters. The combat and overall gameplay is really the selling point here, and there is definitely enough levelling growth with the characters to keep the game interesting.

Scarlet Nexus isn’t anything truly ground-breaking, but it definitely holds its own. It’s fun, has plenty of gameplay to be had, and for any fan of games like Persona and Nier, they’ll find a lot to love here. It’s a good entry into the action-rpg genre and brings an interesting combat style that should be looked at by other games to influence them in what is a fun, smooth and unique combat style.