Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2023
I watched a preview of Scars Above earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised. It seemed to tick off a few of my interests: fast, third person, action shooter with a sci-fi setting and a cool alien planet environment. Being on a smaller budget, it’s also an interesting release, considering it’s aiming competently at replicating a heavier budget feel with its presentation and visuals.
A good sci-fi story, with an intriguing and frightening alien object discovery always sits well with me, and Scars Above serves just that. A neat intro, followed by a playable and interactive spaceship level, is a big plus in my book! I love wandering about a futuristic vessel like this and looking through the various rooms.
Released: 2023
I watched a preview of Scars Above earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised. It seemed to tick off a few of my interests: fast, third person, action shooter with a sci-fi setting and a cool alien planet environment. Being on a smaller budget, it’s also an interesting release, considering it’s aiming competently at replicating a heavier budget feel with its presentation and visuals.
A good sci-fi story, with an intriguing and frightening alien object discovery always sits well with me, and Scars Above serves just that. A neat intro, followed by a playable and interactive spaceship level, is a big plus in my book! I love wandering about a futuristic vessel like this and looking through the various rooms.
This opening level works as an introduction to your basic controls over Kate, the main protagonist with clear Lara Croft vibes, and her weaponry: an electric cutter sword and the VERA rail gun, which can be altered to fire various ammo types later on.
In general, throughout the game, the cutscenes are quite interesting, with a neat sci-fi movie style to them, although lacking a little polish on the animation and dialogue. Suffice to say, your time aboard the spaceship is cut short, and you end up on an alien planet where the combat begins.
Scars Above lends a lot of ideas from various titles, combining them quite successfully. With influences from Dead Space, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil being present, in story, presentation and game layout. The relentless, yet captivating, Soulslike elements of dodge rolls and life refill checkpoints, are present too. The latter, when activated, fills your life up, but respawns all enemies in the area. All these inspirations combined work well.
Gameplay is fast, with a responsive framerate and controls. It’s about using the right type of gun for the weaknesses of enemies, including a close combat melee sword attack to defend yourself. The aforementioned rail gun has elemental attacks of electricity, fire, ice and bio acid. Enemies often require certain ammo types to take damage. Upgrades to the weapons can be found in the environments, tempting the player to explore dead ends and offbeat routes through the levels.
In general, throughout the game, the cutscenes are quite interesting, with a neat sci-fi movie style to them, although lacking a little polish on the animation and dialogue. Suffice to say, your time aboard the spaceship is cut short, and you end up on an alien planet where the combat begins.
Scars Above lends a lot of ideas from various titles, combining them quite successfully. With influences from Dead Space, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil being present, in story, presentation and game layout. The relentless, yet captivating, Soulslike elements of dodge rolls and life refill checkpoints, are present too. The latter, when activated, fills your life up, but respawns all enemies in the area. All these inspirations combined work well.
Gameplay is fast, with a responsive framerate and controls. It’s about using the right type of gun for the weaknesses of enemies, including a close combat melee sword attack to defend yourself. The aforementioned rail gun has elemental attacks of electricity, fire, ice and bio acid. Enemies often require certain ammo types to take damage. Upgrades to the weapons can be found in the environments, tempting the player to explore dead ends and offbeat routes through the levels.
Visually it's a fairly solid, with some nice looking and atmospheric alien landscapes to traverse. The detail level is quite sparse, but it's running at 60fps and compensates by looking sharp and playing responsive. I appreciated it's visual design and look, it's what appealed to my sci-if interest the first time I laid eyes on the game.
In addition to permanent abilities, like an item sonar to find ammo and hidden boxes, there are several abilities that require a power meter to utilise. Ranging from a protective shield around your body, fire grenades, toxic antidotes and a cool slow-motion grenade to mention some. I didn’t utilise all these abilities, but the ones I found useful I used frequently. They’re easily accessible through an onscreen menu wheel.
Added into the mix is XP unlocked upgrades available to your character too. These require you to defeat enemies to gaining enough XP and unlocking them with ability points. These allow upgrades like power regeneration, increased attack power, extended health bar and so forth. Reaching the top of this upgrade tree wasn’t difficult through a single playthrough.
In addition to permanent abilities, like an item sonar to find ammo and hidden boxes, there are several abilities that require a power meter to utilise. Ranging from a protective shield around your body, fire grenades, toxic antidotes and a cool slow-motion grenade to mention some. I didn’t utilise all these abilities, but the ones I found useful I used frequently. They’re easily accessible through an onscreen menu wheel.
Added into the mix is XP unlocked upgrades available to your character too. These require you to defeat enemies to gaining enough XP and unlocking them with ability points. These allow upgrades like power regeneration, increased attack power, extended health bar and so forth. Reaching the top of this upgrade tree wasn’t difficult through a single playthrough.
There's a varied, but small, selection of enemies. Their design isn't super exciting, but they do the job as nasty aliens that need exterminating. They usually require one or two types of ammo to find their weakness, something you want to do quick as they deal out brutal damage.
I began the game on normal but had to drop top easy. The relentless enemy difficulty and the respawning checkpoints made it too hard for me. Then again, I’m not so used to this Soulslike flirt it has with its gameplay. The bosses also have a steep learning curve and take a massive amount of damage.
It's not without its issues though. While the presentation is impressive from a smaller team, it rests in an uneasy balance between looking pretty in some areas and lower budget in others. Animation looks a little stiff and while the gameplay is fun, the enemy design and sparse environments make it a repetitive affair. That said, it's roughly a 10-hour experience, so the repetition isn’t too bad. My only ending disappointment is a lack of new game plus, to carry over all your abilities.
Scars Above blends influences from multiple titles, even genres, and is generally successful in its execution, never truly excelling itself in any way. It’s just an all-round good playthrough, with notably nice scenery and atmosphere for a lower budget title.
For sci-fi fans and people who enjoy titles like Tomb Raider, the Resident Evil remakes or Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I’d recommend checking this one out!
Scars Above blends influences from multiple titles, even genres, and is generally successful in its execution, never truly excelling itself in any way. It’s just an all-round good playthrough, with notably nice scenery and atmosphere for a lower budget title.
For sci-fi fans and people who enjoy titles like Tomb Raider, the Resident Evil remakes or Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I’d recommend checking this one out!
