The genre of "meat" shooters lives and develops. Fans of Doom or, on the contrary, fans of the genre, who do not like the latest parts of the legendary shooter, received another interesting project. Scathe is a dynamic co-op shooter in which the player tries to help the Creator and get out of the labyrinth.
The main character is a warrior of the Divine Creator, whose brother is going to create universal evil. And we need to destroy his minions. At the very beginning, Scathe ruthlessly throws the player into a maze, giving one weapon. After that, you have to stray along various paths in search of runes and hellish stones. Runes allow you to open arenas with bosses. Navigation is conditional and forces you to desperately think about the correctness of the movement.
Enemies mercilessly destroy at any level of complexity, which sometimes rolls over here. The number of lives is limited, and when playing on "hard" it's easy to lose everything, after which you have to start over, but the collected items remain with us. The problem is that saving health points are regularly tucked into hard-to-reach corners, which require careful jump planning to access. Otherwise, you will fall into the lava and lose one of your lives instead of replenishing your health.
With runes, the same system, but there is more logic in this. The game from an online game developer Friv2Online loves to throw puzzles. For example, forcing through the buttons on the walls to raise platforms in order to get to the desired item.
It is very unpleasant that the opponents respawn, and you just don’t know where to expect trouble from, because they appear literally out of thin air. It pissed me off in the recent Shadow Warrior 3, and it's pissing me off here too, given that Scathe has a limited life concept rather than the classic checkpoints. And enemies of all kinds. From the likeness of legendary suicidal screamers to flying and annoying parasites. Bosses look the most colorful.
The design of some of the arenas where different biomes meet is quite nice. And the graphics thanks to Unreal Engine looks good with perfect optimization. However, the drawing of demonic creatures is not always happy. And moving through plus or minus the same labyrinths is an amateur activity. It gets tiresome shortly after launch, and the levels no longer seem unique given the difficult navigation in Scathe's world.
Shooting is better. The weapon is felt in the hands, and it is pleasant to watch how the adversaries are torn apart. At first, the player has only a machine gun at his disposal, which becomes the main weapon for the whole game. A more advanced one must first be obtained, and there is no need to complain about the choice. But it makes sense to complain about the missing amount of ammunition, which is why the starting gun is for centuries. Weapons of destruction received an alternative firing mode.
Magic spells make the gameplay more fun and effective. For example, you can slow down time or use freeze. Another great ability is to kill ordinary enemies that have accumulated around the hero.
Scathe didn't have enough music. There is one aggressive composition in the repertoire, which adds motivation to destroy everyone within a radius of hundreds of meters, but no other track was remembered. More metal is needed to stimulate the player's nervous system and increase the pulse. And when you run around the same arena for a long time, the friv game apparently thinks it's time to end the fun and turns off the music, leaving you in silence. Enemies keep appearing. It's sad.
The co-op can be a lifesaver. Given the spells, the variety in the weapons arsenal, and the alternative shooting mode, players can divide the responsibilities among themselves. And running through the corridors in search of runes and the right path will be much more fun. It can be seen that Scathe is sharpened for a joint way of passing.
Scathe is an aggressive bloody shooter with bouncy gameplay, but hard to recommend. The friv game throws you into a labyrinth that you don't really want to explore, given the unbalanced difficulty and the one and only initial weapon for the first hour. A sluggish start to get through. But, if you like "meat" shooters, you need to try it, especially in a co-op, where the ideas of the developers work better.
