I started playing Scarlet Nexus and the english voice cast is just Everyone From Three Houses

Scarlet Nexus (2021): Bernadetta von Varley develops psychokinetic powers and battles aliens in a holographic future tokyo

rad aesthetic

extremely funny Lore detail: everyone in the world is a hot anime teen specifically because they all take drugs to halt aging so they can fight better

I was expecting Scarlet Nexus to feel a sorta like a followup to Code Vein, being a new bamco anime action-rpg and all, but in fact it is nothing like code vein and is EVERYTHING like Astral Chain??

the visual presentation is like... nearly identical, and movement and combat are an INCREDIBLY accurate reproduction of the like Mid-Budget Platinum game feel lol

you got witch time, you got the swooshy horizontal dodge into super-responsive sprint, the weird fiddly jumping...

It's even got the same confused tone, where like you're playing as esper cops in the ruins of a city destroyed by demons, but also everyone hangs out in shinjuku with their anime best friends eating burgers and looking at holographic ads for luxury shoes

anyway none of these are bad things. astral chain is great and scarlet nexus is also pretty great so far

also the soundtrack kicks ass. sounds like Videogame Music in a way that is becoming increasingly rare

rabbit with gamer headphones and also knives

for real though listen to this beatmania-ass Videogame Music

[clap emoji between every word voice] PUT MORE SUPERSAWS IN GAME SOUNDTRACKS

T-Square-ass 90s fusion Videogame Music

extremely good idle pose

lmao so, there's a side quest where you have to type in codes, but this is the PC version so it can't pop up the console-native keyboard, and also the game is Japanese, so they have to just explicitly tell you HALF-WIDTH CHARS ONLY

BY THE POWER OF COMMUNISM

talking to friends in 2021 like

Scarlet Nexus is a good videogame because it contains a level that progressively adds more sick-ass drum beats to the music as you proceed

all games are Kingdom Hearts and I think that's beautiful

so I finished playing Scarlet Nexus and:
Scarlet Nexus kicks ass you should play it

incredibly fun combat system. You basically have one button combo that you just loop as long as possible and it gets cooler the longer you can keep it going, and then there's a bunch of powers you apply to it that modify its effects

so like you pretty much just mash X X X Y RT forever, but in between hits you're constantly switching different buffs in and out to change the way it affects enemies or the environment

nails an incredibly tight balance between fun button mashing and more hardcore character-action spacing/awareness stuff

it's never like bayonetta-style punishing; most of the time it's pretty easy but there's always TONS of stuff happening to keep it engaging

combat system is like... inspired

art direction's extremely cool

plot is 1000% Anime Bullshit; not particularly Good but extremely overwrought and melodramatic. All the "let's all violently oppose the concept of fate" cyberpunk JRPG angst you could ask for

still not over how magnificently Videogames the scarlet nexus soundtrack is

Sega-ass FM slap bass Videogame Music

there's multiple tracks with Bemani samples in there; this composer 100% knew what he was doing lmao