PSYCHOBABBLE

SCARLET NEXUS’ excellent combat system buffers a classically unhinged anime story

- Luke Winkie

Bandai Namco’s latest original game aims high – this is an action-RPG hybrid festooned with Devil May Cry-like swordplay and Monster Hunter weak spot targeting, bottled up in an epic narrative that seems to explore a new high-concept sci-fi theme with every chapter. In the margins, you’ll find a Persona-ish relationship system, an interlocking network of psionic powers, and a boatload of frilly, cosmetic customization options. It’s a wonder how close it comes to pulling all of that off at once.

You take control of either Yuito Sumeragi or Kasane Randall, two young members of a paramilitary fighting force called the OSF. They’re tasked with exterminating horrific, eldritch beings known only as The Others who are laying siege to our futuristic, mysterious, and slightly uncanny society. Both characters have their own full campaigns that crisscross at certain junkets, giving players a lot of content to chew through once they finish their initial trip through the plot. (Like many other games that have used this trick, such as Nier: Automata and, um, Sonic Adventure 2, there are plenty of lore-bombs hiding out in each of those crusades.)

Regardless of what perspective you choose, you’ll start out by following orders and clearing out teeming pods of Others on the outskirts of human civilization, before the story takes a darker, increasingly cryptic turn. Who exactly are these creatures we’re killing? What’s in those shipments that keep leaving the metropolis?