If I had a penny for every time an indie game failed spectacularly at tackling mental health issues, I’d have… two pennies, which isn’t a lot, but it’s still concerning that this isn’t the first time it happened. I mean, it’s not particularly unusual for horror games to choose a sensitive subject matter to explore in their narratives – Silent Hill 2, just to name one of the more notable titles in the genre, is a very good example of this. Scarred, a game centered around the troubled lives of a couple of Singaporean students, is no different: it dives head-first into heavy themes such as depression and suicide, but the way it handles them is about as graceful as an elephant attempting to figure skate. Let me put it this way: when a scene in your game about bullying and depression makes the player laugh out loud, you have a problem. A big one.
A few pros in a sea of cons
That said, there are a handful of things that Scarred did do right. It’s going to be a short list, though. First off: the game’s locations, while hardly mind-blowing, are decently atmospheric for the most part, and some of the more symbolic environments of the story (representing various aspects of trauma) are quite nicely done in terms of aesthetics. Similarly, the soundtrack also features one or two genuinely good songs, although if I’m to be perfectly honest, they really deserved to be in a better game. Long story short, from an audiovisual perspective, the game is… fine, I guess. Everything else, though? Mind-numbingly dull at best, and laughably immature at worst.
A narrative nothingburger
Scarred is largely about the story of Olivia, a young student with plenty of inner demons to fight, but the narrative also features a few other characters as well, including protagonist Alan, whose ties to Olivia become more and more evident as you progress through this nightmarish adventure. You delve deeper into their stories by reading dozens of journal entries scattered across the levels, but if the game’s chronic obsession with presenting 90% of its narrative on slips of paper wasn’t monotonous enough, you also occasionally get to watch clunky and badly voice-acted cutscenes. As you might imagine, none of these things result in a particularly riveting experience, especially since the actual story being told is hardly anything to write home about, either. You never get to know these characters beyond the surface level, which makes the game’s attempts at getting an emotional reaction out of the player about as effective as a glass of water against wildfire – and that’s not even mentioning all the clumsy symbolism that tries very hard to be sophisticated, but ends up coming off as childish. I mean, giving people the middle finger? Seriously? (For some reason, the game thinks this is really cool. It’s not.)
Basketballs, basketballs everywhere
So, we’ve established that the plot is a boring mess, which is a fairly big problem in a narrative game. The thing is, Scarred wasn’t content to just tell a story and have you solve a bunch of puzzles. No, it needed to have unnecessary gameplay elements that are some of the worst I’ve ever seen in this type of game. Okay, so get this: the protagonist really likes basketball. So what does Scarred do? Give the player the ability to throw a magic basketball around. If you think this is just a silly one-off thing, you’d be dead wrong: in fact, the entire game revolves around throwing basketballs at things. A switch that needs flipped? Throw a basketball at it. An enemy that needs to be taken out? Throw a basketball at it. A glass wall that needs shattering? You guessed it: throw a basketball at it. Even the final boss – this giant, hulking monster – is fought with that godforsaken basketball. I mean, my God. It’s absolutely comical. There’s a specific scene where a classmate tries to murder you with a trophy (yes, really), and you fight him off by repeatedly throwing the ball in his face. I swear I’m not making this up.
The obvious conclusion
Honestly, I found little to nothing to like about Scarred, so obviously, I’m not going to recommend it, even to people who are otherwise into these types of games. The dark and heavy subject matter isn’t handled particularly well, and the plot is neither interesting, nor memorable; it’s a bland and predictable narrative with subpar voice acting, spotty writing and gameplay elements that are frustrating, repetitive, and – absurdly enough – revolve entirely around throwing basketballs. I mean, this is still not as over-the-top as the interactive fever dream that was Of Bird and Cage, but at least that game managed to be bizarrely entertaining in its awfulness. Scarred, on the other hand, simply feels torturously tedious to play. My verdict: avoid.
