Scars Above Review - Surface Level

Scars Above on PS5

I began Scars Above anticipating one thing much like different third individual-shooters that fancy themselves Souls-likes. However, the developer Mad Head Games hasn’t adopted any ordinary components, so the sport is a unique expertise, even when not all the time for the higher.

Scars Above begins with a gaggle of astronauts known as the SCAR (Scientific Contact Assessment and Response) workforce despatched into orbit above Earth within the Hermes to analyze the Metahedron construction that appeared six months in the past. There hasn’t been any contact with the alien construction, however investigating phenomenon like that is precisely why the SCAR workforce exists.

First contact with the Metahedron causes rapid failures all through the Hermes, and the Metahedron begins pulling the crew in via a gravity effectively. Mission specialist Kate Ward blacks out and awakens alone on an unknown planet. For an inexplicable purpose, This isn’t the Metahedron, as there’s one other (or the identical one) seen within the distance, however it’s undoubtedly an alien world. The story is definitely the spotlight of the sport and provides a pleasant sci-fi story. Surprisingly, there may be even a pleasant rationalization for why Kate is introduced again after dying.

When beginning out, Kate finds an Electric Cutter as the one melee weapon in Scars Above. It’s good there’s solely a single melee weapon, although, because it’s a functionally ineffective mechanic within the recreation. The first enemy sort thrown at you as a part of the melee tutorial is the one one within the recreation that’s weak sufficient to kill that means with out an excessive amount of threat. The melee weapon additionally works on breakable partitions/barricades, however I discovered in all probability below 10 all through the sport.

Ice Gun — Image Source: Mad Head Games by way of Twinfinite

Instead, the primary weapon all through Scars Above is a gun. Technically, it’s all one gun, as each new attachment that provides a component sort simply slots onto the identical base. In a pleasant change of tempo, each component sort works in another way. Shock is only a regular rifle, hearth requires charging pictures, ice is a lobbed ball, and corrosive is a shotgun. The base shock and hearth parts additionally get alternate options, however each are easy beams, which was considerably disappointing.

Scars Above does have an XP system for enhancing Kate, however the best way it really works is perhaps the factor I loved least within the recreation. Unlike related video games, you don’t get XP per enemy killed. Instead, you get it from scanning the primary enemy of every sort you kill and by discovering purple cubes within the setting. The cubes can solely be collected as soon as and provides a proportion of the XP bar in an quantity that all the time feels arbitrary.

XP Cube — Image Source: Mad Head Games by way of Twinfinite

These strategies imply you possibly can solely progress and enhance as the sport permits, for each purple dice can solely be collected as soon as. This is a extreme blow to any replayability in Scars Above, as you’ll solely be capable of attain the identical spots on the ability tree on the identical time each playthrough.

While the sport does have branching paths to probe for XP or weapon upgrades, there’s nonetheless solely ever a single technique to get the place you’re going. This isn’t an enormous drawback by itself, however all of Scars Above appears like you might be speculated to expertise every thing multi function go after which simply by no means play it once more. I used to be moderately disheartened after I completed the sport, and my playthrough save was immediately gone, with no choice of reloading earlier than the boss or something.

The XP change additionally cancels out the trope of punishing deaths. In Scars Above, there isn’t a penalty for dying as a result of there can’t be. The recreation provides a finite quantity of XP for gamers to seek out on their very own, so lessening that quantity can be fully unreasonable. Though, to the sport’s credit score, there may be additionally extra XP than is required to fill out the entire ability tree by a number of ranges.

Speaking of the ability tree, there are some good nodes to it, and the well being and stamina will increase are simple to get early on within the first tier. But, it turns into very obvious what number of nugatory abilities are within the tree when you’ve grabbed the one ones that really matter. For occasion, there’s a ability for getting HP again per enemy slain via melee.

The factor is, there are also common stretches the place you gained’t encounter any enemies. I’m not saying I needed the sport lined wall to wall with preventing, however it was very noticeable at many factors within the recreation as I made my technique to the subsequent checkpoint. It made for good stress at first to not know when or the place the subsequent enemy would seem, however after that, it simply felt empty.

The Construct Boss — Image Source: Mad Head Games by way of Twinfinite

As is perhaps anticipated, the bosses of the sport have been definitely one of the best components of the sport, although it felt like they ran out of concepts when the ultimate boss is only a barely remixed model of the primary boss. Outside of that, the boss fights required switching between weapons/parts to beat the problem offered and is recurrently the one purpose to make use of sure weaponry.

Scars Above provides a moderately condensed third-individual shooter journey. While I used to be shocked at how rapidly I breezed via the sport, contemplating the opposite titles it was borrowing concepts from, it was nonetheless an attention-grabbing journey. I wouldn’t say there’s something refreshing in regards to the recreation, however there’s sufficient there for these wanting a jaunt via an alien world.