Scars Above is a pretty good game, but I think it's better than most of the other critics who reviewed it, so your mileage may vary. A good way to check your gut on a game is to ask how you felt while you were playing. For me, the answer is that I had a pretty good time basically the whole way through. Ergo, it's a pretty good game.
However, the one wrench in the works for my ‘Scars Above is a pretty good game’ theory is that I had a miserable time whenever the game threw flying enemies at me. They're awful, and they highlighted my other pet theory, which is that airborne foes are the hardest thing for an action game to nail.
In Scars Above, there's only one variety of flying enemies: Winged Leeches. The name would have you believe that they would attempt to suck your blood, but these assholes actually fly above you and spit acid down at you. Once you get hit with acid, your health will slowly drain away until the green goop wears off. That's frustrating by itself, but they're especially irritating to take on in a group because while you're trying to get your sights on the one hawking venom, another can swoop in with a melee attack.
The most difficult moment in Scars Above, in fact, is a perilous trek through a long stretch between Pillars — the glowing yellow bonfire equivalents where you save your game and restore your health. During this lengthy journey, you encounter several groups of these bastards, plus exploding poison spiders that are equally annoying. Unfortunately you can't just run past them because you need to have cleared all nearby enemies in order to progress to the next area.
If you're playing Scars Above and have been having trouble with these hovering hazards, I have good news. If you hit them with your ice launcher they freeze, fall, and die immediately on impact. Good to know, right? It took me forever to figure this out, but trying the ice launcher immediately helped me conquer the trek. If you don't know that, you're stuck firing seemingly endless rounds into them, having to sight them up each time they move.
That specific solution aside, Scars Above got me thinking about how easy it is to get flying enemies wrong. Though it's a much better game than Scars Above on the whole, Horizon Zero Dawn fell into the same problem with its Glinthawk fight in The Sun Shall Fall quest. There, Aloy is confined to a linear, circular track as the metal pterodactyls — which have a moveset that's similar to the Winged Leeches in Scars Above — roost on pillars and attack. It was one of the most frustrating parts of that game, forcing you to look up to spot the Glinthawks, while constantly running and rolling to dodge their attacks.
That's what's annoying about flying enemies. They're hard to hit, the sky gives you less reference points to measure positioning than the ground does, and constantly looking up feels like the virtual equivalent of craning your neck. Aerial opponents are a strong spice. They add variety to an action game, but a little goes a long way.