PREVIEW : Scathe (PC)
It’s strange to think that many of the classic FPS games published in the late 1990s were labelled as DOOM clones, and now, two decades later, I can’t help but consider Scathe, along with several other recent FPS, to be DOOM (2016) clones.
I’m not talking about FPS with bunny-hopping and fast-paced, twitch-shooting – the broader phrase “boomer shooter” covers that. I’m thinking about the style choices and attitude. Scathe follows the same power fantasy narrative as the previous DOOM games, but it still needs development to make the gameplay experience as interesting as the premise.
The titular Scathe, who is muscular and armoured to the point where their in-game mobility is illogical, is summoned by a “Divine Creator” who manifests as a luminous rune-covered ring (Halo?). He discloses his brother’s impending invasion of his kingdom and assigns Scathe to be his “fist,” striking first and seizing a strong staff to bring light to the pandemonium of hell.
After hours of play, pressing down each of the three routes accessible in the preview build sums up all of the narrative content I could locate outside of brief codex notes.
Of course, this genre is not known for having a strong narrative hook. Scathe, while exciting in brief spurts, requires development if it is to maintain players’ interest for more than a few hours.
Scathe assigns you the task of cleaving your way through the monsters of the underworld, zone by zone while seeking for runes and Hellstones that unlock a road to the centre. You begin your adventure in front of a frightening tower; you enter a hub area to obtain the basic “Hell Hammer” assault rifle, and then you choose one of three exits to continue your journey.
Each leads to a sequence of interconnected zones with varying aesthetics, layouts, hazards, and a smattering of new opponents mixed in with common foes. You’ll come across a shotgun, crossbow, or a powerful spell that just makes your enemies explode into a spray of gore about halfway through each of these three branches – think of it as a magical hit-scan grenade.
The all-purpose assault weapon has endless ammunition, even for the secondary rocket attack, which has a cooldown, but the situational crossbow and shotgun rely on scattered ammunition pickups. Magic attacks necessitate filling a metre by murdering enemies and taking their souls. As a result of this design, Scathe’s sense of ambience is often incessant gunshots.
The developers use the phrase “relentless bullet-hell fuelled battle,” which is partially accurate. There is a good variety of enemy kinds, but many uses ranged attacks with sluggish but frequent missiles. Weaving left and right to avoid bullets is popular, but jumping and dashing – which can also be utilised offensively – are equally crucial, as many courses contain cruel insta-kill pools of lava or acid.
The stages are all handcrafted, and many of them are cleverly planned, with a mix of narrow passageways, open arenas, overlapping walkways, and traps. Pick-ups like ammunition, extra lives, and a brief berserk mode are stashed away in corners, as are a few secret runes that require switch-hunting or some light platforming.
With shambling undead zombies, basic demonic melee charges and gunners, skeletons with flamethrowers, nimble aerial drones with guns and grenades, walking tanks, a cyber-demon copycat, and, of course, massive boss confrontations, the enemy variety is also decent. Weave through them to activate friendly fire, and they’ll battle amongst themselves. However, the roster contains a few duds. Floor turrets have much too much health, and many varieties of bursting demon balls – which bounce towards you in random patterns – may wreak havoc on your health faster than any other foe.
In theory, everything is in order. Despite the restricted number of weapon types and spells available with this configuration, shooting can be enjoyable. The enemy models and environments aren’t the most geometrically complicated or detailed, but they look amazing and the gore is out of this world. The soundtrack is appropriately metal if a little bland and uninspired. Even on my old gaming machine (i5-8300H, 16GB DDR4, 4GB 1050 Ti, SATA-connected SSD), performance could be tuned for a dynamic-1080/60, except in a few rooms that destroyed my framerate so badly I’m sure it’s an optimisation issue.
Scathe’s advancement structure and battle tempo are both issues for me.
Scathe’s convoluted architecture ensures that you’ll eventually wind yourself in the proper location, but several zones have several exits, and the runes and Hellstones required to proceed can be overlooked, requiring you to return. On top of that, you have to deal with a “lives” system. Dying with spare lives simply returns you to the fray, but lose them all and you’re back at the beginning point.
At first, I thought everything was fine. You keep any collectables, and the tower’s overview map always shows what you’ve missed. The issue is that while retracing, not only basic foes but even wave-based arena encounters respawn.
Of course, many shooters follow the premise of locking you into an arena and summoning waves of adversaries; Scathe simply executes it poorly and drags out these moments far too long. One especially memorable encounter charged me with slaying 120 demons in a tiny square arena to unlock the exits, for all the wrong reasons. There were flamethrower traps, a ring of insta-kill lava around the exterior, and opponents appeared at random. It was tedious enough the first time I had to go through it, bunny-hopping around a little space while burning through lives, but it was awful the second time. I selected to die frequently, was returned to the hub, and chose another path instead.
Maybe if backtracking allowed you to run-and-gun past adversaries back to an exit like a speedrunner, the pacing would have been more pleasant. However, the current design is leaving me frustrated and bored.
Scathe’s saving grace may be the promised drop-in/drop-out coop support, but after failing to team up with anyone in the preview build, the solo experience quickly became repetitive, leaving me time to nitpick other issues such as the simplistic enemy AI, some stiff animations, the superfluous face-wiping mechanic, limited player-damage feedback, and a few collision issues.
Scathe was at its best when the enemy confrontations felt as handcrafted as the levels themselves, rather than a series of overlong arena battles. Some may say that I should spend more time taking branching pathways and exploring all of the 60+ zones, but that would require more returning to junctions and enduring more repeat encounters.
If the creators persist in adhering to this template, they must reassess the opponent mix, spawning zones, and length of each encounter to improve both the tempo and the overall sense of polish. I’d also advise that the devs create a method to display the rune or Hellstone needs of approaching blockages to reduce the amount of retracing.
Bear an eye on Scathe, but keep in mind that it may take a few patches and modifications to perfect the experience.
REVIEW : Super Bullet Break (PC)
