With an intriguing set-up, likeable lead, and aspirations of grandeur, Scars Above is a sci-fi journey recreation that we actually wished to love. Sadly, the expertise is held again by lacklustre fight, abysmal map design, and a central narrative that in the end fails to launch.
After a mysterious alien artefact often called the Metahedron seems in Earth’s ambiance, a crack group of scientists and engineers, often called SCAR — Sentient Contact Evaluation and Response – is distributed to analyze. You play as Dr. Kate Ward, who, upon investigating the artefact and together with the remainder of the workforce, finds herself transported throughout the galaxy to a mysterious and inhospitable alien planet.
No less than initially, the plot is participating as Kate units out to find the destiny of her compatriots and involves grips with the hostile world round her. It is not lengthy, although, earlier than the shine begins to return off the expertise.
You spend most of Scars Above’s modest runtime (round six or so hours) exploring varied passageways, battling alien beasts, and fixing puzzles to progress. Given it is a smaller-scale venture, it is nonetheless outstanding how rapidly the expertise devolves into repetition and frustration. For readability, Scars Above retails for $39.99, or £34.99. Not factored into that worth, nevertheless, is your time, no matter it is price to you, and that is the place the gross sales proposition falls down.
There are a number of completely different biomes you will enterprise to over the course of your travels. Whereas some have mechanics related to exploration (reminiscent of setting a selected type of foliage on hearth to stave off hypothermia, or freezing worm-infested water so as to cross), none are significantly inspiring. There is no such thing as a map, which is not a lot a problem the primary time round, however within the again half of the sport, you have to return to every biome for narrative MacGuffin causes, and we discovered it extremely annoying to must retread our steps from a special course, usually turning into fully misplaced.
Fight is the following pillar of gameplay, and it is respectable sufficient for what it’s. Kate will craft a half dozen or so weapons, every with a special elemental affinity and firing mode. So, a charged rifle that imbues a goal with flame injury, for instance, or a shotgun that fires acid rounds.
There’s a fairly valiant try to tie this into a bigger system of mixing results, which we did admire. For instance, hitting an enemy standing in water with {an electrical} assault will imbue an space of impact, or following up on a burning enemy with acid will combo for enormous injury.
Nonetheless, it turns into rote quite rapidly as a result of extraordinarily restricted enemy selection, of which there are perhaps seven distinctive variants (outdoors of bosses). Of these, two are launched pretty late within the recreation. Count on to spend most of your time preventing both swarms of weak spiders or knock-off necromorphs that spit poison and might dive underwater.
There are just a few boss encounters sprinkled all through, and a few had been genuinely participating. One of the best of them incorporate components beforehand used throughout exploration into the encounter in a means that made them really feel like a last examination.
Nonetheless, there’s a degree of jank and stiffness that may’t be escaped, and whereas the whole lot runs easily and appears nice, navigating by every playspace and fight encounter turns into a chore lengthy earlier than the credit roll.
Puzzles are the ultimate piece of the, effectively, puzzle, and so they aren’t nice shakes both. There have been too many for our style, and what there was felt uninspired. Discovering energy sources so as to open doorways, finding passwords within the setting, analysing objects so as to discover clues — cookie-cutter online game fare with no reward apart from merely being allowed to progress.
On the flip facet, the voice performing is surprisingly strong, and whereas the supporting forged is paper-thin by way of character growth, Kate herself is likeable sufficient. We couldn’t escape the sensation that, given the possibility for a sequel with extra sources, she may turn out to be an enticing character.
Scars Above makes lots of hay relating to the truth that Kate is a scientist and never a soldier (regardless of her dealing dying to numerous aliens with the alacrity of a seasoned area marine). That is represented by her capability to synthesise gadgets after analysing alien natural world, and in some circumstances, reverse-engineering her findings into new gear. It is a cool concept however underdeveloped; you simply scan the factor and are given the merchandise.
This gear takes quite a lot of types, from weapons to a therapeutic injectable, a private bubble defend, and an poison antidote, to call just a few. All are powered by a battery that may be replenished utilizing supplies discovered within the setting. We discovered little or no motive to make use of any of them outdoors of the added heal and the defend, with the whole lot else feeling too situational.
Even when incorporating components of the Soulslike style, Scars Above fails to enact what makes FromSoftware’s method so particular. Enemies are robust, provides are restricted, and once you die, you are returned to an obelisk that features like a checkpoint, respawning the identical aliens in an space. However with none type of soul-equivalent financial system to lose or achieve, there’s little or no motive to not merely dash previous troublesome foes, and the aforementioned lack of enemy selection solely compounds the problem.
Conclusion
Scars Above is a extra interesting prospect than it’s a last product — an fascinating premise that is in the end misplaced amidst repetitive gameplay and mundane design. Some features of it are genuinely intriguing, if underexplored, however merely reaching for the celebs alone is not any assure of ever really leaving orbit, not to mention getting off the bottom — and recommending this expertise over some other is a bit wealthy, even for the decrease asking worth.