Scar-Lead Salvation Review

“Returnal meets anime” is a phrase that interests me greatly, and Scar-Lead Salvation made me think of just that. Thus, I was very much looking forward to playing the latest title by developer Compile Heart. This third-person action roguelike certainly looks good on paper, but does it play well?

Scar-Lead Salvation puts you in the role of Willow, a woman who awakens with no memories trapped inside a military complex, with nothing but some high-tech armour and a gun. Following the guidance of a mysterious AI, Willow must navigate this labyrinthine facility and find a way to escape.

Upon her first death, the strange 0000 mark branded under her eye changes to 0001. But what does this mean? Well, the story unravels as you attempt each run, with Willow and the disembodied AI having a relatively entertaining back-and-forth. Whilst this is an interesting idea that blends well with the roguelike format, the actual narrative isn’t that engaging. It’s a shame, because the game clearly wants you to care about what’s going on. It’s just that there wasn’t enough at stake for me to care enough about these characters.

That said, the voice acting is pretty solid — both in English and Japanese — and all the actors do a commendable job with what little they have. Likewise, Willow herself is a fairly compelling character. With the right script, she could have been so much more, but for what we get, she’s far from the worst gaming protagonist out there.

The anime-inspired stylings are impressive at first, with Willow in particular being very well-designed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long until it feels like you’ve seen everything Scar-Lead Salvation has to offer. You’ll fight through the same generic rooms against wave after wave of the same robot enemies, with very little variety in designs. The boss battles are the exception, with some genuinely creative foes to face off against, but they are few and far between.

The lack of enemy variety also goes hand in hand with the poor AI. More often than not, they’ll patiently sit and wait until you open fire on them, and even then they rarely put up much of a fight. You don’t even need to kill every opponent to move to the next room, so I often found myself collecting any upgrades and leaving for the next area unscathed.

It runs well, at least, and I had no issues with slowdown or crashing throughout my time with the game. The long hallways between rooms to mask loading screens did get on my nerves to the point where I think I’d have preferred a quick loading screen just to bypass the monotony of running through an empty corridor.

Initially, Scar-Lead Salvation’s gameplay is quite enjoyable, if not groundbreaking. You’ll go from room to room, using ranged weapons or a painfully slow melee attack to take out waves of robots. These mechanical foes will spew out laser fire, which Willow must dodge or parry. Movement feels solid enough, and you’ll zip around the battlefield with ease, making short work of most enemies. In fact, the difficulty as a whole is rather disappointing and I found only the boss encounters really tested my skills.

Things start to go downhill once you realise you’ve seen pretty much everything the game has to offer very quickly. For a roguelike, it’s far too linear, with no branching paths or optional rooms to tackle. There’s a lack of excitement in uncovering a room filled with tough-as-nails enemies or a helpful upgrade; it’s just the same thing, again and again. The gunplay isn’t enjoyable enough to keep things entertaining, either; the lack of any satisfying feedback makes it feel like another generic third-person shooter.

Although there are a decent number of weapons to equip (you can carry two at a time), none of them are truly unique. Assault rifles are practically identical to one another, and some, such as the shotgun, are so underpowered you may as well not bother using them. They can be improved via terminals located throughout the map by using currency gained from defeating enemies, but these don’t do all that much to boost their capabilities. Upgrades for Willow are also underwhelming, with these collectibles being little more than a slight boost to health, attack, or evasive range. It’s incredibly bare-bones and desperately needs more to make them worth seeking out.

You will eventually unlock the use of warp points, which alleviates having to start right from the beginning. This, coupled with certain upgrades that persist even after death, helps in relieving some of the monotony of the game, but I never once had that “just one more run” feeling.

Scar-Lead Salvation is a game that’s so close to being good. Its solid movement mechanics and interesting premise are let down by a stark lack of variety and an unengaging narrative. Repetition sets in far too quickly thanks to the constantly repeating areas and enemies. Perhaps my initial thought of “Returnal meets anime” was a bit presumptuous, as this game misses the mark on almost everything it sets out to do.