Scars Above begins with a strange object, dubbed the Metahedron, appearing in space above the Earth. Our heroine Kate, is one fourth of the crew (one that seems way too small) dispatched to investigate what the Metahedron's whole deal is.
But as you approach the massive, mysterious structure, the Metahedron begins to draw the ship in. Kate suddenly wakes up on a dark, swampy planet. There, she begins sifting through the bits of the wreckage of her ship, looking for any indication of what happened to the other members of her crew. A purple hologram known as The Apparition soon surfaces and begins to guide Kate through the hostile landmass. On her journey she finds audio logs from the other crew members, which indicate that some time has passed since the crash. Kate sets out to find the rest of her crew and a way off the hostile planet.
And it is hostile. As you explore, you will encounter all manner of creatures who can demolish your health bar in short order. Your progress is marked by Pillars, glowing yellow obelisks that offer healing and save your progress, but reset all enemies in that area. In time you will find new Pillars and shortcuts which route you back to old ones. This gives Scars Above's early hours a Dark Souls feel, but this FromSoft-inspired approach to exploration and combat dissipates as you delve deeper into your quest.
That feeling is exacerbated by the harsh difficulty of the game's early battles. At first, Kate is weak, with little health, and few weapons or abilities. This makes the first few big fights against groups of acid-spewing earthworm lizards and stony-armored beasts built like gorillas pretty difficult. I died quite a few times attempting to time my fire launcher's delayed projectile to the brief window when the muscular ape alien rears up on its hind legs.
You’ll eventually gain access to new tools that give Kate a leg up in battle. Your core arsenal consists of four elementally-charged guns. There's that fireball launcher and an electric rifle in the first hour or two, then an ice slinger and an acid shotgun later on. Scars Above's greatest strength is the combat system you'll employ these weapons within, leveraging the power of the elements against each other. Those armor-covered gorillas have glowing weak spots on their chests that need to be hit with the corresponding weapon. So if one has a sparking blue spot, you need to pump it with electricity. If it's glowing red, enflame it with a fireball. Or, if you're fed up with how quickly your foes are moving, you can use your ice launcher to freeze them in place, giving you a wider window to hit their hidden Achilles heels or strike them with electricity that does extra damage when their bodies are drenched in frozen water.
Mixing and matching weapons is hugely satisfying and further complemented by a wide variety of tools. You can toss flammable liquid on a fire-weak monster, then torch them with your flame gun and watch them burn. If a monster's weak spot is on their back, you can throw a gravity bomb that slows their movement down as they pass through it. If you prefer distraction, chuck a hologram and draw their attention away. All of these tools are powered by battery or fiber. Fiber comes in black pucks you'll find on the ground as you explore, and can be used to recharge your battery and resupply your toolkit with health items. As you make your way through a level, much of the strategy involves deciding when to use certain items and when to save them; when to spend fiber and when to leave it untouched.
This constant trickle of new weapons and tools breaks the game a bit as you head into its second half. Though the latter hours boast a few tough boss fights, it mostly feels like you're over-equipped for the challenges it throws your way. Two battles against a giant spider-like robot challenged me, but I breezed through the final fight in one try. After struggling in the first few hours, the difficulty curve crests around the midpoint and becomes a toboggan ride speeding you along as you rocket toward the ending. There are challenging moments in the back half, but they're few and far between. It feels like the game hits an "Oh shit!" moment and starts throwing out Knowledge (its XP equivalent) way more often in the last few chapters, as if developer Mad Head Games had forgotten to give you enough to finish your skill tree and dumped it in at the last minute.
In this mad dash, the game also disappoints narratively. The appearance of the Metahedron is an intriguing hook, but I was largely uninterested in everything the game offered by way of explanation. The Apparition who guides you and who relays much of the story to you isn't an especially interesting character and Kate doesn't make up for that lack of personality. You spend so little time with your missing crewmates that Scars Above feels like it's lacking a human core. There's nothing here that you haven't seen done better elsewhere, and that absence of emotional connection prevents it from achieving any real resonance.
The game has a distinctly double-A feel to it. Its graphics are less detailed than most third-person action titles hitting the market right now, and the environments are drab and a little muddy. In a nice bit of detail, Kate's ponytail swings in response to your movement, but after you've killed a beast, its carcass sticks around and you'll walk right through it if you approach, leading to the janky sight of Kate's torso poking out of the corpse like a cake topper. This gives the game a bit of a push-and-pull, with polish evident in the mechanics but lacking in the presentation.
Despite its flaws, Scars Above's engaging combat and expansive toolkit keep it interesting for its entire 10-hour campaign. Though its world is gray and the story leading you through its levels is a let down, the moment-to-moment gameplay makes the journey worth taking. This space adventure isn't the final frontier of third-person action games, but it manages to offer roughly the same thrills as a pretty good SyFy Original movie. It isn't the cutting edge, but it's sharp in its own right.
Scars Above
In Scars Above, you must explore a strange alien world after being mysteriously pulled by an extraterrestrial structure. A third-person shooter, it features crafting, researching, and challenging bosses.
