If you’re playing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Scarlet Nexus, you better be prepared to put your controller down a lot. The combat is surprisingly deep, and it has the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:best use of psychokinesis in gaming, but you’re going to have to get used to t🌜aking breaks. While most games have cutscenes, the trend is shifting to see them integrated seamlessly into g💞ameplay. One second you’re playing, the next it’s a cutscene, but it all feels like one cohesive moment. Unless you fight against what the game wants, attempting to run off or draw your gun in a situation that clearly doesn’t call for it, you’ll barely even notice that a cutscene has begun - it’s all just part of the game. Scarlet Nexus goes the other way.
While the flow of battles isn’t interrupted too much, each escapade is bookended by a long cutscene, ranging from dramatic conversations about what constitutes a corporeal form or the concept of time, to banal discussions about what type of pen a squadmate prefers. These aren’t too dissimilar f😼rom something you might see in Persona 5, which uses anime cutscenes at the end of story arcs. There’s generally more of a clear divide between gameplay and narrative with this style, but it’s nothing too out of the ordinary, especially for a JRPG. However, once you get back to your 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:eclectically decorated hideout, Scarlet Nexus&rsq💝uo; cutscenes take on a life of their own.
Here, rather than the more active cutscenes𒈔 at the end of missions, sequences passively transform the ga🎀me into a visual novel. The cutscenes you have here are all about bonding with your squadmates, learning what makes them tick, opening up to them, and potentially giving them gifts. These scenes, to be polite, can take a while. I don’t have an issue with a game committing to telling its story thoroughly, and even with Scarlet’s slightly wayward and melodramatic narrative, I respect its commitment. However, because this information does not come seamlessly, and is instead fed to you via targeted episodes where you put the controller down and watch, this part of the game feels like a visual novel.
There’s nothing wrong with being a visual novel - but the very fact I have to type that is a bit of an issue. I already suspect my headline will upset people, as it implies that the visual novel both needs and lacks legitimacy, but when you look at the industry as a whole, it’s hard to argue against those things. The House in Fata Morgana has a 98 on Metacritic, higher than Breath of the Wild, The Last of Us, and The Witcher 3 - when was the last time you saw any major gaming website cover it? For April Fool&rsqꦉuo;s Day, Riot Games released a phony press release about Valorant being transformed into a visual novel, because the very idea of a ‘serious’ game becoming something as superfluous and ridiculous as a visual novel is inherently a comedic concept, right?
When I say the visual novel needs legitimacy, I don’t mean that I wo♊n﷽’t take it seriously if it’s not surrounded by action-packed gameplay, I mean the world won’t.
There are other games in the pseudo-visual novel mould; 13 Sentinels did something similar last year. Meanwhile, games like Fata Morgana and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Doki Doki Literature Club get critical acclaim and passionate cult followings - the visual novel is not in danger of dying out, but it fe🦋els like it needs a spark to take it into the mainstream. Being popular doesn’t mean something is better or has more artistic value, but for developers struggling for funding, increased attention brings tangible benefits. I fear Scarlet Nexus might be bubbling beneath the surface too much to be the game that carries the visual novel all the way there, but it seems to have at least inched it a little closer - maybe that’s enough.