SCARLET NEXUS

it's like i wished for a tales game on a monkey's paw. So let it be said I got the game because I'm a fan of the tales of franchise and a lot of my friends called it a spiritual successor and in many ways it is by inheriting the worst parts. Okay Pros- The combat is very much like someone combined everything that worked about Tales of Xillia and Zestiria into one system and it's very fun to play with a lot of cool combo tricks that make it really easy to just relax and flow into the button mashing. The soundtrack is pretty fun and a good enough time. The map designs are cool fun Cons- ok for one I mean it when I say this game is like someone heard every complaint ever made about the tales of games and crammed it into one title. For one this game very much plays exactly like tales of xillia 2 in the worst ways. Almost immediately you will notice the maps being repeated over and over and while it's very easy to fall this under the game having a low budget at times I am left to wonder if instead of making long maps that were mostly empty or just long hallways could we not have made shorter but more varied maps as a lot of he side quests or character quests just have you backtracking over the same 5 maps that are mostly just long hallways with no variation. A lot of the side quests also are annoyingly based on killing specific enemies with certain combo finishing moves that require a lot of timing. It's not that it's extremely difficult it's simply it becomes so annoying that unless you're a completionist or are just really good at the combat it's just not worth it. The characters within the game itself are largely flat, uninteresting, and very clearly rip offs of other tales characters throughout the series once you note certain behavioral ticks. Almost all of the game is side content around interacting with these characters and yet none of it actually has an impact if you don't bother engaging with it. In fact the game dialogue is repetitive because of this as the characters will repeat information from the side stories as if it is new. The side stories themselves are also largely just talking head cut scenes that end in running through a map you've already been through multiple times by that point killing enemies. It's almost exactly how the side stories functioned within tales of xillia 2 but these don't even have a broader impact on the plot of the game. The characters overall also don't act as if they live in the world they do. There are so many moments the game stops to deliver exposition or have the characters ask about the world they live in ways that make them seem more like isekia protagonists than child soldiers that have been living here their whole life. It often unnatural and jarring how little the characters know or care about their own world and how it operates. the dual protagonist system creates for a really annoying experience as Yuito is definitely intended as the first time playthrough much like how Jude was for Tales of Xillia and almost all of Kisane's plot doesn't make sense until you backfill it with Yuito's. Kisane and Yuito also just don't have personalities in the first place. There's nothing actually narratively to Yuito or Kisane other than positive boy and sister complex girl and the process means both feel dragged along by the entire plot of the game. Which is stupid. I say this with love the plot is extremely b movie schlock level of nonsense the overall design of everything feels incredibly slapped together at times. It's a cyberpunk world but there's no rhyme or reason for why certain things are just holograms now other than to convey that element. I wouldn't normally complain about this if it wasn't for the fact that the game has really ableist world building logic that it brings into it's plot that makes the use of holograms even more stupid. That's another weird element to this game. It has an extremely weird and at times uncomfortable tone towards disabled people that to me at least is really distasteful. and finally this game has so many ads for its own anime and it's genuinely cringe I won't say there's no reason a person wouldn't like this game just that i don't think it's worth it to buy full price or to 100%.