Is it odd to have a bad feeling about a video game based on one of the first enemies that you encounter? I say that because in Scars Above, the second type of alien enemy you encounter (seen in the first screenshot here) has a poison spit attack that can take out a good chunk of your health bar and leaves a "Toxicity" status effect that drains your health, essentially wiping out eighty to ninety percent of your health bar in one shot. Two things stood out here to me: One, this enemy appears and attacks before the player is introduced to any of the healing items that cure poison or restore health, and two, typically you don't expect enemies that deal status effects this early. Usually, that don't appear until after the first stage or so, after the player has learned the general gameplay basics. You know, ease the player in and make sure things are properly paced.

After experiencing that, playing a little more and having to deal with the game's first boss, I began to ponder if Scars Above might be artificially inflating its difficulty in order to mask potentially shallow gameplay. Well, there were bits of that here and there, but the sad truth is that regardless of the difficulty level, there's no getting around the fact that Scars Above is just little more than a by-the-numbers third-person action-adventure game to the point where you can practically see the numbers under the generic sci-fi paint job.

Scars Above follows the story of Kate Ward, part of the Sentient Contact Assessment and Response team (or SCAR), who are sent to investigate a massive structure called the Metahedron that mysteriously arrived in Earth's orbit. On their way to approach it, a mysterious event occurs, Kate blacks out, and the next thing you know she wakes up on what appears to be an alien planet and soon has to discover the remains of their ship, the remains of the previous civilization and a massive mystery in front of them as they try to figure out just what exactly all of this is and what their inhabitants would want with Earth.

It turns out that the road to this mystery isn't exactly filled with originality, though. It pretty much hits the exact beats that numerous other sci-fi games before it have already hit. There's the aforementioned ruined civilization, the ghost-like figure of a previous inhabitant that guides you along, the being obsessed with bizarre experiments on living beings, the crew member that snaps and goes crazy, et cetera, et cetera. It's not a bad story, by any means, even decent at times, but none of it is ever interesting enough to actually make any impact. Perhaps some more interesting characters would have helped, as Kate barely has any real personality, and thanks to the story, her crewmates are out of commission for extended periods, not making them any better and giving Kate no one to work off of.

The sad part is that Kate's character is what drew me into Scars Above to begin with. Her whole deal would be that as a scientist, Kate would have to rely on analysis, exploration and observation in order to figure out what they would need to do to survive, since they certainly aren't a soldier. When it comes to the finished product, though, all of that gets dumbed down to "go up to a thing and hold down a button to get an analysis/learn about an enemy's weakness." There are a few moments where Kate has to engage in a few puzzles, like working with power cores to operate a maze of elevators or using AR tech to scan objects, but these moments feel too far and between compared to the more action-oriented stuff. And despite the insistence that Kate isn't a soldier, she certainly knows how to instantly operate a laser rifle like a pro and dodge roll like a champ.

So yes, the supposed emphasis on exploration and analysis pretty much winds up being on the same level of exploration present in virtually every other generic third-person action game, mainly having you just veer off the path slightly at times to get the extra item, typically glowing purple cubes of knowledge that act as random amounts of experience points. And as you advance in the game, you don't even have to explore much to find those, as they instead start to pop up around every corner, sometimes in the main path. Heck, eventually you comes across rooms filled with at least three of them at a time. Occasionally you might find upgrades for your rifles, though, or some valuable fiber, but the lack of true exploration feels like a waste in more ways than one.

Speaking of those experience points, though, those eventually get translated into skill points to spend on what can only be described as one of the most disappointing skill trees in recent video game history. You know it's not going to be too exciting when the two skills in the highest tier, that require a combined twenty-one skill points just to unlock, grant you the abilities to...either deal fifteen percent more damage or increase your defense by fifteen percent. These are supposed to be the big skills to aim for, the ones meant to carry you into the endgame? Needless to say, only a portion of the unlockable skills come across as useful, especially since a chunk of them seem to be built around random chance, like the possibility of a consumable not being drained.

As for the combat itself, it's...there. That is to say, it's perfectly fine, if unspectacular. Here are a bunch of tough enemies, try to get a shot at their glowing weak points with the appropriate weapon if possible, dodge roll to avoid attacks, you know the drill. It mostly gets the job done, and some of the boss encounters feel like a much-needed boost of energy (especially the third chapter's boss, which requires a perfect mix of aiming skills and some puzzle solving), which is appreciated. Having to harvest energy ammo from various plants is also a welcome touch, and having all of Kate's combat-oriented gadgets (like slow-mo fields and holograms for distraction purposes) and their healing items each share their own resources (battery power and the previously-mentioned fiber, respectively) does add a nice management twist, which is appreciated.

Scars Above at least has good third-person shooter gameplay, but it's too bad it doesn't have an interesting world where the combat can take place. Save for those extremely brief detours mentioned before, levels are strictly linear and don't have much in the way of creativity, either from a design standpoint (especially with obvious enemy arenas and way too many moments where monsters try to jump scare you) or a visual standpoint, as you'll tread through the same biomes you've seen before: Swamp, fields, obsidian-like city with a ton of those floating rocks, labratories, snowy mountains...way too much of those mountains, actually. It really seemed like the game was trying to drag out a "hypothermia" mechanic where you have to use your fire rifle to light up certain bushes for temporary warmth, lest you die instantly, which got exceedingly annoying (especially when combined with combat). And maybe this was just a bug, but even well after that section/chapter, Kate would just not stop making shivering noises, as if the whole thing permanently stuck with her.

Really, there's just not a whole lot to say here. Scars Above may not truly be a bad game overall, but in case it hasn't been made clear by this point, it is almost aggressively unoriginal, not standing out in any notable way. If Hi-Fi Rush set a new standard for "double-a" games, then this game falls below it, feeling more like a c-tier seventh generation game that you find on the bottom rung on an EB Games rack. It's not the worst, but you can play better third-person sci-fi action games and probably have already.

Closing Comments:

Perhaps if Scars Above had put more work into the areas where our lead heroine has to explore this strange world and analyze it more in order to solve various puzzles, basically letting her be the scientist she is, it could have been vastly better overall, or at least help give it a better identity to help it stand out more. Instead, Scars Above settles for being a generic third-person action game that rarely, if ever, takes any sort of risks. While it may not fall prey to anything that feels egregiously bad and at least has decent combat, you'll likely walk away from the mystery of the Metahedron feeling more bored than satisfied.