"Super brain power+dual protagonist storytelling" is the signature of Bandai Nanmeng Palace in promoting "Scarlet Knot".

This work under the new worldview is produced by the development team of the Legend series and Blood Eating Code, and we will be able to welcome a new animated series of the same name in July immediately after its release.

A dual approach, with great ambition. Bandai Nanmeng Palace is putting a lot of effort into promoting this new IP.

This raises expectations for "Scarlet Knot", as the previous trial version initially showcased the combat system and indeed received a lot of praise. So, what is the quality of the game when it is officially released?

*This review uses the Xbox Series X version of the game, version 1.0.0.5.

Due to time constraints, I have only played the route of the female lead at the moment.

A familiar yet unfamiliar "brain punk" world

Perhaps the first concrete scene people associate with cyberpunk is a neon lit rainy night, while the concept of "brain punk" advertised in "Scarlet Knot" brings players a different and bright world

Although Japanese signs can still be seen standing in the streets and alleys between buildings, the bustling and laughing pedestrians under the sunlight lack a hint of technological coldness, making people feel a sense of urban life that is close to our reality.

In fact, the game is indeed designed based on the streets of Japan in the 1990s. It simply replaces the physical signs with virtual entities that can only be seen through super intelligence, and is placed in various corners of the city in an orderly manner, accompanied by cheerful and somewhat humorous music tones, presenting a certain kind of unusual daily life.

Somewhat familiar, making people feel familiar; It's a bit unfamiliar, leaving someone to stop and take a closer look.

also has this design when entering battle levels

This "strange feeling" art style, when integrated into combat, is concentrated on the design of the enemy.

Every time a new monster appears, I can't help but want to stop attacking and take a closer look: the upper body of "Flower Porcelain Claw Teeth" is a pair of brightly blooming flowers, while the lower body is a pair of human legs wearing high heels; The "Plateau Monster" has a pair of powerful wings, but its hands and head grow towards the ground

By picking out each part of the enemy individually, I can distinguish that it is a common presence in daily life, but when these unrelated entities are combined, the overall feeling is very eerie and taboo.

Extremely Emmm... with a sense of attraction.

The combination of super brain power is 1+1> two

Because it is a super brain (i.e. superpower) battle, the scene of the fight is very cool, and the actual experience is also very refreshing.

The male protagonist Jie Renhuang and the female protagonist Zhong Randall are both "psychic" superhumans. Simply put, they are simply copying all interactive items in the scene - chairs, vending machines, cars, steel pipes, even ice sculptures, chandeliers, etc. - and smashing them at the enemy in one go.

"Mind attack" consumes mind slots, weapon attacks restore mind slots. This forms a positive cycle, and the player's attacks are derived from it: ordinary attacks are connected to psychic attacks, flat ground attacks are connected to aerial attacks, followed by psychic pursuit, precise evasion and additional weapon attacks

But how to smash it is also a discipline.

Short stored mental attacks are simple and unadorned, and can be easily smashed. Special object attacks bring about a formal change in combat - this is not limited to throwing things. Throwing oil/water buckets is just a small gesture, driving several large trains to collide with enemies, using ice blocks as flying blankets for transportation, and even allowing drones to "hack in" and operate it as electric numbing monsters.

Some special object attacks have added QTE, which is not only pleasing to the eye but also adds some variations to the battle.

If it's just a mental impact, there won't be many tricks to play. What truly enriches the game's combat system is allowing players to use their teammates' superpowers to achieve a "1+1> 2" effect.

What should I do after throwing the oil bucket as mentioned above? Directly use the super brain power of ignition - roll up the Fire Dragon Scroll and ignite the monster.

The combination of "mindfulness+XX" is often applied. In the game, there are a total of 9 different types of super brainpower from teammates. After clicking the skill of "simultaneously activating 2/4 super brainpower", the types of pairwise combinations are completely liberated. "Super high speed+instant movement" quickly brings the distance closer, "discharge+copy (i.e. clone)" makes the enemy paralyzed in seconds

However, to be honest, not all combinations have particularly good phase characteristics, and even cannot be combined (transparent+hard, anyway, the enemy cannot see it, and strengthening defense is useless). Most of the time during the gameplay, I still use a few powerful output super brain combinations.

The production team is clearly aware of this issue, so they chose to focus on enemy configuration and use the characteristics of the monsters to maximize my ability to switch between super intelligence. For example, when encountering monsters that can be completely defended by close combat or those with hard shells, it is necessary to switch flexibly between super speed, telepathy, discharge, and replication to quickly reset the monster's "smash value" to zero (* killing in the air can trigger large damage execution, and miscellaneous warfare basically relies on this to clear monsters).

But because there are only a few types of monsters that come and go, playing too many can be a bit tiring.

There are also two systems in the game, "Brain Drive" and "Brain Space". The former adds a BUFF, but unfortunately, when the "Brain Drive" slot is full, it automatically starts, which is relatively uncontrollable, so it is quite useless. The latter is like a big move, with very cool damage and animation performance.

When I saw these super brainpower in the trial version, I was hoping that I could match my teammates to attack according to my own preferences. A slight regret is that during each mission, the game will assign specific teammates according to the needs of the plot.

In addition, there will be a relatively long process during the game where only a few fixed teammates can be used, during which players may find it somewhat repetitive and uninteresting.

The following content may involve spoilers:

In the later stage, you can freely combine the nine abilities, but due to the small overall change in enemy types, there are some repetitions after the freshness has passed.

The Story of Red Thread Entanglement

If the cool super brain combat gives this game a gorgeous packaging, then the compact storyline of the game gives this game a solid foundation.

If you carefully observe the four characters in the Chinese name of the game "Scarlet Knot", you will find that they are all related to silk thread (the "tie" next to the twisted silk). This implies the keywords of the game and is also a very prominent presence in the main visual image - the red line.

It is both a concrete existence and can be understood abstractly, and it is easy to think of - bonds, bonds, connections

In the absence of spoilers, I would like to say that the story of "Scarlet Knot" repeatedly surprises me, as the plot unfolds with the words "lying down" trying to make my mouth say "lying down" when there are significant events. And when thinking about the logic of the plot later on, one can always find some foreshadowing more or less in the front.

In addition to the main plot, some of the foreshadowings are also hidden in the "bond" stories of teammates.

9 types of super brainpower, corresponding to 9 teammates. I quite like the characters portrayed in Scarlet Tie. Although most of them look like teenagers, in the game setting, in order to prevent age from leading to a decline in super intelligence, all members of the Monster Saber Army have to take growth inhibiting drugs, so they have far more life experience and troubles than they seem.

Some of them worry about their super intelligence, some worry about their life after retiring from the military, and some worry about their background Many binding stories and main storylines are cleverly connected and complement each other.

So don't rush all the way to the main storyline, you need to build good relationships with your teammates. To put it utilitarian, if they do well in their superpowers, they will become stronger and their combat experience will be improved.

However, I would like to criticize that some of the binding stories in a certain part of the game process (which is the one mentioned in the previous section) are very unnatural, purely designed to exist for the sake of existence.

The following involves mild spoilers:

The previous second was a life and death battle, and the next second the two of them sat in a coffee shop chatting about their daily routine. Is it decent!

Finally, let me talk about the "dual protagonist" design of the game. One of the promotional selling points of the game before its release was to present the story from different perspectives of the dual protagonists. Due to time constraints, I have only managed to connect with the route of the female lead, Zhong Randall, and have not had the opportunity to try the route of the male lead forming an emperor. Therefore, I feel ashamed that I cannot make a comparison.

But from what I have experienced, their paths often overlap and overlap, so I can roughly infer what the male protagonist Jie Renhuang was doing during the same period of time in the game.

game has a facelift and appearance system

Although their abilities are equally "mental", their personalities and followers are not the same, and their attitudes and reactions to events in the plot are also not consistent. The selection of different protagonists during a week may vary from the perspective of incorporating them into the story.

If you only follow one path of a certain protagonist, you can basically grasp the full story, but if you are meticulous about details, it will take two weeks. Personally speaking, I would be willing to experience the "Jie Ren Huang" line in the future.

junction

Players who have played the trial version should already know that the majority of the game's storyline transitions are driven by still images. Although interviewed by the producer, he stated that this is one of the features of this game, in reality, playing it feels very simple, which is somewhat unacceptable for a game+animation joint promotion product.

However, even so, "Scarlet Knot" has already demonstrated what it wants to present to players: a unique and charming brain punk world, brain power battles that look flashy but actually quite enjoyable, and a story that shapes a group of good characters and can surprise people.

I want to try the "Jie Ren Huang" line quickly.