18 March 2023 , 07:00
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Don't be fooled by the dark, mysterious planet and the inquisitive female scientist forced to explore it. Returnal this is not.
Because rather than channelling that PS5 exclusive's roguelite and arcade-like sensibilities, Scars Above is a challenging third-person shooter that plays closer to – you guessed it – a soulslike. It places previously established gameplay ideas into a melting pot and hopes that what comes out feels like a bold new spin. It doesn't quite achieve its goal, but this is still an enjoyably challenging shooter experience thick in atmosphere and intrigue, providing you can stomach a so-so story and general lack of polish.
The star of the show in Scars Above is undeniably the planet itself. Though it begins as quite generic-looking, skewing heavily to the grey skies and muted grasslands seen in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, I was regularly impressed by the ways developer Mad Head Games brought variety to each hub environment. Yes, protagonist Kate Ward’s journey to save her crew begins surrounded by simple stone, but it isn’t long before snowy environments, internal alien intestines, and ancient temples make themselves known.
Each new area introduces fresh enemy types, all of which put up a fight primed to make you think on your feet. At first, I was taken aback by how quickly Kate can be defeated by even the little ground critters. With just the basic electric VERA rifle to begin with, shooting is purposely slow and awkward, designed to make you think about where you’re placing shots. Especially in Scars Above’s early hours; appropriately dodging, and timing when to shoot is essential if you don’t want to fail.
Scars Above isn't beyond layering bosses with glowing orbs, serving as weak points (Aaron Potter)Failing feels particularly draining in Scars Above because the littered-in Pillars where you respawn are fairly spread out. Several times before I could upgrade Kate to be more formidable, I left crushed, forced to work my way all the way back to the spot in which I died with hardly anything to show for it. That said, having such big resets between death and getting to the place I was did encourage me to play less aggressively, which is almost always a bad idea unless a shortcut has been opened.
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More impressive than the design of the planet, and the foes populating it, are how both impact gameplay. This is a third-person shooter with a sci-fi bent alright, but Kate will gradually acquire elemental upgrades for her gun – the effects of which spoll over into combat scenarios, boss battles and puzzle solutions. Acid, cryofreeze and fire are all firing methods that come in handy depending on where you are or what you’re fighting, and more than once was I left satisfied after learning that, say, shooting ice out from under a massive arachnid creature is far more effective that peppering them with bolt shots.
Boss battles in particular (though there’s only a handful of them) had me constantly thinking about which of my gun effects would work best in the current high-stakes scenario. Scars Above isn’t beyond simply lacing enemies with bright yellow weak spots, it’s true, but boss battles tend to differ in that a lot more is asked of you – be it having to simultaneously keeping smaller enemies at bay, or dealing with hazardous area affects like poison or hypothermia. The perfect solution to taking down a boss is often hidden, upping the pressure to find its weakness before health stims are depleted.
If Scars Above so far sounds tense and thrilling in its combat, it is. But unfortunately such high-stakes gameplay comes at the cost of polish. Some players will brush this off as Mad Head Games opting for a B-movie vibe and aesthetic, but I can't imagine that Kate Ward was meant to handle this stiffly. Whether it’s rolling away from an enemy’s attack or simply trying to switch between gadgets during an encounter, getting Kate to do what you need her to do can be cumbersome. Instances like this are a reminder that Scars Above doesn’t quite reach that AAA level of refinement, despite decent early impressions.
Kate can hunt down knowledge cubes that generate skill points to be spent in one of two upgrade trees (Aaron Potter)Another issue is how XP or 'knowledge' (as it's referred to in-game) is handled. You see, there are various cul-de-sacs and alternate paths in Scars Above to go down that aren’t as worthwhile as they should be. I can’t tell you how many times I went down one of these routes, hoping for a valuable weapon upgrade, only to find one of these arbitrary knowledge cubes that would incrementally unlock skill points. Worse still is in how enemies – once defeated – don’t tend to yield anything useful either, outside of ammo or the odd fibre pack that Kate can use to craft instant or temporary buffs.
Scars Above has the makings of a cool-shooter-twist on the established soulslike formula somewhere in it, but by the end it never quite comes together in a way that feels seamless, confident or satisfying. Thankfully, slight drawbacks like inconsistent enemy item drops and redundant level routes are made up for by some truly memorable boss battles and the ability to change my combat approach depending on the area and type of foe I was fighting.
I hope Mad Head Games gets another chance to build upon these ideas in a future sequel. But for now, as it stands, Scars Above is still a perfectly serviceable and surprisingly challenging shooter primed to indulge Sci-Fi fans.