YMMV / Scarlet Nexus

Video Game:

• Annoying Video Game Helper: Wataru and Haruka will frequently remind the player of status effects and breaking Other shells even late into the game regardless if the player has had a good grasp on them or not. They and your companions will also chime in to tell you which SAS ability to use to counter a particular Other's gimmick, which becomes extremely grating after the party fully gathers, since many enemies have more than one counter and your party will chime in to tell you each and every one of them.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Dream In Drive" by The Oral Cigarettes serves as the video game's opening, switching from gritty hard-rock in the verses to a much dreamer soundscape in the chorus and bridge, complimenting the beautiful visuals spectacularly.
  • "Welcome to the Musubi's", the theme for Musubi's. It's such an addictive, upbeat song that totally fits Musubi's role as a popular hangout for OSF officers and citizens alike and later, a neutral zone for the characters to meet up after the Suoh Incident and the OSF's fracturing in half. It's a beat that just encourages you to stay a while, enjoy the food, and the company.
  • Dominus Circus' final phase boss music is a comically upbeat and incredibly catchy electro swing number that you'll be bopping your head to during the whole bout.
  • The Melone Sisters fittingly get a hard-rock song that wouldn't sound out of place as one of the climatic rival battle themes in Namco's other major RPG series, which stands out for its high energy and amazing guitar solo that perfectly encapsulate the spirit of their boss fight.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Dominus Circus, a strange one-of-a-kind Other with a whopping four phases. The first three phase each have unique movesets and weakpoints, and the last one combines the moves and weaknesses of the previous three to give a real test of your knowledge of its abilities while busting out an extremely catchy electro swing theme song. It's a long but satisfying battle for sure. The finishing blow is particularly epic, because it's the first time the protagonists pull out their SAS skills for a finisher - including setting it on fire, teleporting in to deal some serious damage, and finishing up with duplication to hit it from all sides before sending all the duplicated debris they can possibly control into it.
  • The Melone twins are themselves a special gift that only Kasane players get to fight. Their animations are top-notch, and like the Dominus Circus above, they effectively have five phases, with each phase representing new tricks Yuta pulls out of her sleeve, culminating in the Dual Boss unleashing an awesome Desperation Attack where the two sisters rock out to the Awesome Music in the background and unleash sound wave after sound wave at the player; getting hit results in an HP to One attack, so it only feels all the more impressive if the player manages to dodge the attack. Then they still aren't done, because they'll bust out their own Brain Drive and Brain Field on you. The best part is that both sisters have really weak Brain Crush gauges - it's a wild, chaotic, fast-paced fight where both sides can slug it out at their best; a battle between two teams who, due to the mechanics, are now Glass Cannons duking it out to one of the best tracks in the game.
  • The final boss. Was there ever any doubt? You've fought him before, so you have some idea of what they're capable of, but they push their tricks into overdrive for the first phase, utilizing abilities that require the full team to counter. When the first phase doesn't do the trick, the boss resorts to having reality crash around them and form their own Other. What follows is utter bedlam as phantoms and powerful effects litter the battlefield, almost neccisitating the use of Hypervelocity and Sclerokinesis to survive. But the final phase takes the cake - it's effectively a glorified cutscene, but this makes it no less fun. It's virtually the same as the first phase, except Kasane or Yuito have to contend with it alone. Hitting is nigh impossible, and all seems lost... until one by one, the other teammates arrive, each getting a turn in the spotlight as they either counter or smash Karen; Shiden leads the pack by shocking Karen, giving Hanabi a chance to blast him with her flames; Tsugumi effortlessly counters Karen's mirrors before Kagero gets an impressive cheap shot on him; and Gemma blocks a kick and slams Karen hurtling into the air, which is followed by an amazing combo where Luka, then Arashi, then Kyoka just pound him into submission. Each section is punctuated by Kasane or Yuito getting a stronger showing during each section of gameplay, until Karen just simply can't dodge anymore by the last part - where you get to deliver the last few hits to finally take the boss down. And all of this is punctuated by a wonderful mix of Incompatible Thoughts, the normal rival music, demonstrating that everyone finally trusts each other enough to beat down the biggest badass in the world.
• Demonic Spiders: Unsurprisingly, all the enemies introduced into the DLC are a step above their base game counterparts. All of them are built to run out SAS and force you into a corner, but each have their own special issues;
  • Shut Ruts aren't dangerous by themselves, but they never come alone, and they're bunkers with confusion shots they fire in bursts of three. The battlefield will quickly become a Bullet Hell. They're easy to take out by abusing Hypervelocity, Teleportation, or Sclerokinesis, but since they're always in groups past the very first encounter with them, and you need to bait out their explosions, you might manage to blow up one or two while the others don't cooperate, running out the SAS clock and forcing you to stall to bait them safely again. And forget taking them out normally unless it's the last one; they're easily the most aggressive Ruts out there with their shots, meaning it's nearly impossible to combo them, and Kyoka and Tsugumi only go so far in breaking their defenses - doubly so with Tsugumi, because she needs to get in close to break their armor, which is where they like to explode.
  • Growly Chinerys aren't easily stunlocked with Shiden like the other Chinerys, because they have a gimmick where electricity powers them up but makes them targetable and clears the fog they create. Taking them out is a chore because of how erratic they are when they're 'on,' and taking them out without turning on their lights means relying on Tsugumi to do anything. Her power runs out before you kill one? Well, guess you need to wait for her SAS to recharge. And like normal Chinerys, they're fast, hit hard, and take a beating to bring down.
  • The worst of them have to be the Sparta Santas. Like Shut Ruts, they almost exclusively come in groups, and they fire quickly to bring the hurt with lightning. Unlike Shut Ruts, you can't bait them to suicide, and they never really have a moment when they're exposed to attacks; generally, breaking their annoying lightning shield just causes them to duplicate, and targeting the real Santa just causes it to emit its shield again. Fighting a Sparta Santa is often a battle of attrition you're going to lose because Kyoka's SAS or Yuito's SAS will run out before the Santa is dealt with, and like Saliva Santas, they will retreat into their impregnable boxes if you pressure them up close, making abusing Hypervelocity and Invisibility damn-near required to take them out.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Kasane Randall isn't so much duty-bound to the OSF so much as she seems particularly fixated on her role as a soldier. It's to the extent that she has to define even casual meet-ups with her teammates as missions. She also generally is pretty flat-toned except during moments where she experiences particularly extreme emotions, and she frequently struggles to pick up on social cues. She's also incredibly blunt - while aware that this can be hurtful, she'd rather be efficient with the truth. Notably, she isn't confused by or unaware of social norms, she just has little patience for them; she's also comfortable with outright lying if need be. It's later revealed that she's one of the Design Children, who don't naturally possess emotions but can develop them through interactions with others, as seen with Kyoka.
  • Tsugumi Nazaar is incredibly shy, has great difficulty in social interactions especially with strangers, has great trouble with picking up cues and common sense like how she shouldn't be saying out loud what she sees under clothes and through walls with Clairvoyance, and once she's on the subject of plants and gardening, she can suddenly talk your ear off for hours. It's telling that when she tries "normal" conversations like the weather or fashion, she struggles to do much past broach the subject (though choosing Kasane as a partner certainly didn't help).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: It's difficult to find anyone who dislikes Arashi. Not only is she a very competent teammate for Kasane who proves her worth with both her hypervelocity and intelligence, she's the de facto Game-Breaker that cuts challenges in half with her power. Add in a fun design, a lot of snark, and an awesomely silly weapon that she uses to great effect, and you have a fan favorite.
• Faux Symbolism: The game seems to frame the Final Boss as some sort of Satanic Archetype. He enters the scene lit by Holy Backlight, and then drops (not jumps) down. Then, right before the battle, he puts on never-seen-before combat mask with a demonic design, and somehow turns the entire place into a wasteland under the Red Skies. In the second phase he will create four massive Others named after various vices (not Seven Deadly Sins, though). Now, how does it tie to the story? The answer is — it doesn't. He does evil not because he rebels against someone, but rather out of his single-minded desire to find a timeline where Alice doesn't turn into Other or gets cured, and would rather leave the world in livable condition, if he can help it. Aforementioned massive Others also make little sense, and may even go against one of the themes of the story, as it's repeatably emphasised how the party has The Power of Friendship on their side, and he doesn't, and yet there are several "allies" on his side.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Missin Pounds create a fog that obscures much of the area, making it extremely hard to see enemies or the terrain and thus necessitating Tsugumi's Clairvoyance power in order to counter it. They also actively attempt to keep a far distance from the player, forcing you to chase them down. They aren't too durable or damaging, thankfully.
  • Session Pounds are Action Bomb Others that let out a repetitive, ear-grating droning sound as they charge at the player then explode. They don't do much damage and are easily survivable, but there's so many of them, they can spawn in and begin their detonation the moment they get within aggro range of the player, can explode even when knocked down, and you need SAS (Invisibility or Hyperkinesis to prevent getting their attention, Sclerokinesis to negate the damage) and Psychokinesis to put them down safely. In the middle of a crowded melee with many Others competing for your attention and trying to kill you, they cause plenty of chaos, much frustration, and lost health as you either don't have enough charge in the necessary SAS power or they happen to spawn right beside you. The saving graces are that they damage fellow Others and the fact they only appear in Mt. Hieno and the Mt. Hieno section of Karen's Brain Field.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Even before you get access to multiple SAS skills at once, Kagero's Invisibility is devastatingly effective. The tips would have you believe its best use is to use its backstab attack to massively reduce an enemy's Crush Bar, but that will drain the entire bar in one go for one enemy. What's even more devastating? Regular attacks while invisible, as they all count as critical hits and drain the enemy's Crush Bar and health rapidly for little trouble on your part, all while keeping Kagero at 40-50% charge by the time the effect shuts off automatically.
  • Shiden's Electrokinesis is insane. It's basically everything Hanabi's Pyrokinesis gives you but better, in that it increases the range of your weapons, deals extra electric damage, and can confer upon enemies the shocked status. Shocked enemies are sitting ducks just waiting to have their crush bars drained in seconds, and Shiden has one of the longest time limits for his SAS skill.
    • While deadly on its own, Shiden's Electrokinesis is one of many reasons why Kasane eventually outdoes Yuito easily. Kasane not only has Shiden for most of the game, she gets a special ability with Electrokinesis active that allows her to, with the press of the triangle button, spam electric attacks on whatever hapless enemy is in front of her. She doesn't need to soak the enemy at this point; it's nearly impossible for this skill to not inflict shock on the enemy. It also rapidly recharges Kasane's psychokinesis, is easily chained into psychokinesis combos, and best of all, can be spammed, stunlocking even bosses. Combined with Hypervelocity, Yuito's Gravikinesis, and/or Duplication, you get a move that just allows for infinite pounding on almost any enemy, the only limiting factor being the possibility another enemy will try to knock you out of it. Oh, and did we forget to mention it also tears through the Brain Crush gauge?
  • The "Concurrent SAS Activation" skill allows you to have two SAS effects active at a time. Once this is obtained, certain combos of SAS will wipe the floor with anything that isn't a mini-boss Other such as the Yawn-type enemies. One such example is Hypervelocity + Invisibility. Enemies will stop targeting you and leave them vulnerable, time will slow down to a crawl, and all your attacks will count as critical hits, so you can unload massive damage even without relying on Kagero's Back Stab mechanic; weaker enemies will have their Crush Bars depleted in moments and stronger ones will lose a gigantic chunk of it. Once you get the second level of this skill (allowing 4 SAS to be active), you can add Duplication + Electrokinesis to cause even more damage, potentially stun the enemy and keep them vulnerable once Hypervelocity ends, and make your Psychokinesis follow-up attacks and finishers even more effective, most Others won't stand a chance.
    • The above gets even better when Yuito joins Kasane's team. After having the rest of the game to master Kyoka and Arashi's power, you can now effectively spam Psychokinesis attacks with all the former buffs applied to an even deadlier combo. Really, the question is who you want to give up in return for having infinite things to throw.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Karen Travers, Commander of the Second Regiment of the Other Suppression Force (OSF), is a powerful psionic capable of mimicking powers who witnessed the metamorphosis of Alice Hachijo into an Other, vowing to save her through whatever means he saw fit. Karen aligns with the city of Seiran to use their research on Others to find a cure for metamorphosis while also convincing half of the OSF to rebel against the oppressive New Himuka government. Learning of the power of the Red Strings, Karen mimics the powers of Yuito Sumeragi and Kasane Randall to go back in time 2,000 years ago where he kills and replaces the New Himuka founder Yakumo Sumeragi, builds the supercomputer Arahabaki out of human brains to ensure his present counterpart learns what he needs. Defeated by Yuito, Kasane and their platoon, Karen agrees to both remove the entanglements from his time travel and uses Arahabaki to give the two enough power to move the Extinction Belt inside the Kunad Gate. Karen then mimics the Red Strings once last time and sacrifices his own life to remove the Kunad Gate and successfully ensures Alice's survival.
  • Kagero Donne, real name Shin Daniel, was a Togetsu assassin and colonist from the moon selected 2,000 years ago ostensibly to re-populate Earth, but in truth was assigned by his superiors to sabotage the work done by Yakumo and his team. Living for centuries through cold sleep, Kagero grew disillusioned by Togetsu's goals when he learned of their plan to use the Red Strings to turn back time and prevent the colonization of Earth and infiltrates the OSF, becoming one of their members, pretending to still hold loyalties to Togetsu by assassinating Joe Sumeragi, the chairman of New Himuka and Yuito's father, and pinning it on Kasane. Putting on the facade of an aloof and fun-loving simpleton, Kagero attempts to assassinate Kasane several times to ensure Togetsu cannot obtain the Red Strings, relenting only after she has no intention of helping the cult. Deducing that Kyoka Eden was a Togetsu spy, Kagero separates from the platoon and breaks into Togetsu's base of operations to rescue his captured allies, killing one of the Design Children in the process. Motivated by ensuring his wife and daughter's survival, Kagero assists in defeating Togetsu and Karen before going to prison to atone for his crimes.
• Memetic Mutation: Karen's name hasn't been lost on western players, so some like to jokingly depict him being a "Karen" (basically, an Entitled Bitch). It also doesn't help that his traveling into the past to Kill and Replace Yakumo stems from being unable to save Alice, somewhat akin to a "Karen" throwing a hissy fit over not getting what they wanted. Even more so when you learn that by killing Yakumo, he's essentially attacking the closest thing to a "manager" that New Himuka's government had.
• Narm: The name of the Togetsu's main computer is literally called BABE. This leads to dialogue like this, which the game expects you to take seriously:
  Kyoka: You were going to use my brain to build a new "BABE."
• One True Threesome: Fanfiction often ships Fubuki, Karen, and Alice together like this. The DLC revealing that Karen loved both of them so much he'd rather destroy reality than lose them gave it another boost.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: While the visual design and music have been heavily praised, and the gameplay is considered fun, if a little repetitive, the story has been considered the weakest part of the game. The plot structure, fast pace, constant twists, and Gambit Pileup can make the story hard to follow, and the Poor Communication Kills makes both sides of the story frustrating; Yuito's because his supposed allies refuse to explain anything to him for quite a while, and Kasane's because she consistently makes stupid decisions because she believes that efficiency is the best way to handle every situation.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The side quests are often cited by players and reviewers as the lowest point of an otherwise good-to-great game. They require you to go out of your way to kill Others in difficult ways. But to add insult to injury, they offer rewards you can easily obtain through the shop for far less effort (even taking material grinding into account). They also do not provide any additional story beyond the initial request and a thank you message from the quest giver...who you have to find again to read it since you turn in quests via the menu and quest givers are no longer displayed on the map after you accept their quest.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Kasane has actually been shipped with Hanabi by a portion of the fanbase, despite Kasane acting as a firm Shipper on Deck for Hanabi and Yuito in canon and them only interacting in any significant way in dedicated Bonding Episodes.
• Spiritual Successor: The plot of Kasane's story, her greater focus on her psychokinesis actually gravikinesis, but the effect is virtually the same over Yuito, and the time travel aspect makes Scarlet Nexus the best attempt to make a fun version of Silver's Story from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), with Kasane as the Silver of this game. It helps the successor part is an honest assessment, given this telekinetic romp is a lot more fun and better written.
• That One Level:
  • Mt. Hieno. The level is vast, wide-open, and very monotonous visually to really hammer in that this is a frozen wasteland. Combat-wise, the wide space and the placement of the ice sculptures on the sides means you're often without objects to throw at enemies when you really need them. This is also where the Goddamned Bats, the Session Pounds, are introduced as the game's equivalent of an Action Bomb. Add to all that the boring gimmick of ice walls that need several hits to crack at almost every junction and side path, and you've got a level that's unnecessarily long, difficult to fight in, full of frustrating elements, and is boring to look at beside.
  • Inside Togetsu. Similar to the Cathedral of the Sacred Blood in Code Vein, this is a vast, lengthy complex full of twists, turns, and monotonous, intentionally dreary level design. Though thankfully not as labyrinthine and difficult to navigate as the Cathedral was, it's still a slog to get through and all the side-paths for item opportunities are so long, winding, and drastic changes of course that most players will be tempted to run through them to the main goal just to get this part of the game over.
  • Karen's Brain Field in Sumeragi Tomb. While the aesthetic of past locations mashed together in a horrifying hodge-podge of a fractured, deteriorating psyche is fascinating for a while, there's several levels worth of these full of unavoidable encounters with tough Others and seems to feel like padding out the end of the game. If it's any mercy, there are frequent and plentiful shop and save points to replenish health, items, and just turn off the game if you get sick of fighting slightly different waves of common enemies. The only benefit to this is that it concentrates several different types of Others in a convenient space for completing sidequests easily.
• That One Sidequest: Several examples.
  • Any sidequest that requires you to use a specific Combo Vision with a character. It doesn't count if you land one of them during your regular combos, it has to have either been the killing blow or what breaks the Other's Crush Bar before you Brain Crush them. Considering that it takes 60% SAS bar and SAS recharge items don't become conveniently available till end-game (along with having a lengthy cooldown on use), you're going to be spending a lot of time hoping and praying that your teammates don't kill off an Other you were whittling down and that when you use the Combo Vision, it'll count for quest completion. (That said, there appears to be a loophole, where if you hit a enemy with a Combo Vision after the enemy's Crush Bar is broken, it'll still count.)
  • The sidequest involving killing Session Pounds while in Brain Drive. There are several compounding factors. One, Session Pounds are Goddamned Bats by being Action Bombs that sound annoying and have to be killed in a very time-consuming, specific way to count toward the quest. Two, they spawn in Mt. Hieno, That One Level with wide, open fields and a stark lack of things to throw at enemies in general. Three, Brain Drive needs to be built up to, can't have charges stored like Brain Field can, and begins decaying as soon as it's active. This means you'll have to go around a good portion of the level building up the bar, then hoping you can run into enough Session Pounds spawning, not to mention the trouble of killing them in a way that counts. It doesn't help that, except for one space full of the Session Pounds, they almost exclusively spawn partway into battles with different Others, which are usually pretty tough and can distract your attacks. Like many sidequests, the reward isn't nearly worth the effort, completionism aside. This one is so bad a later patch reduced the number of Session Pounds that have to be taken down from five to two, with additional updates adding a Plug-In that allows you to manually activate Brain Drive once the gauge is maxed.
  • The "Totally Lost" and "Verifying the Secret" sidequests, both of which involve defeating the Missin Pound with Psychokinesis Finish due to the finicky nature of the skill. Despite its node on the Brain Map stating that the skill needs to be used on a knocked down enemy, the enemy has to be knocked down in a very specific way for it to work (the easiest way to trigger it is performing an intercept on the Missin Pound's fireball attack while Clairvoyance is active), meaning enemies on the ground due to their Brain Crush gauge being depleted or being juggled do not count. The skill also has to defeat the Missin Pound, meaning that it runs into the same problem as the Combo Vision sidequests, requiring the player to put a lot of effort into whittling down Missin Pound just to ensure Psychokinesis Finish kills it.

Anime:

• Awesome Music: Continuing from performing the video game's opening theme song, The Oral Cigarettes provided two opening theme songs for the anime adaptation:
  • "Red Criminal", the opening theme song for the first cour, is a Darker and Edgier tune that has the band at the most hardcore to date as its dramatic sound underscores a narrative of self-hatred and rage.
  • "MACHINEGUN", the second cour's opening, is equally awesome.