A recommendation from a friend and a second-hand online store brought this smaller game to me easily enough. It’s shortish, on the verge of indie downloadable territory, but a few years before that would be such a big thing. As it was, it released on both GBA and DS; the DS version is basically identical but with a map on the bottom screen.

Scurge Hive is a Metroid-inspired isometric game. You explore interconnected rooms in a research base, fighting off a parasitic incursion and finding upgrades. The ¾ perspective makes depth perception and jumps occasionally off, but it’s fairly forgiving. There’s a lot of combat, being rushed by aliens or robots while you only have ranged attacks to keep them at bay. You’re always switching between three main elemental attacks depending on which enemies are around, plus more for puzzle solving. This mechanic is well integrated and it’s snappy to switch between them, so it feels good especially when you turn an “overwhelmed” situation into a bunch of enemies exploding into health refills.

These pickups also add to your experience bar, which is the only way to improve your character apart from plot-based suit enhancements; and these level ups only increase your max health. There’s an enjoyable survival element with your main character Jenosa being constantly worn down by the alien infection, an ever-present tense encouragement to seek out the next save room to reset your timer, or else risk pushing on. Backtracking can be tedious if you miss something, though.

The main loop is to find a new area and seek out security keys by exploring and solving environmental puzzles, while also pulling things into thing sockets to unlock the teleport out, at which point you confront a boss. These bosses make pretty good use of the isometric angle, and are also the only hard part of the game. The final battle in particular is a hardass but satisfying to conquer; by clearing the game once you unlock a boatload of extra palettes for Jenosa. Unfortunately with there being no optional content in the game (upgrades, collectibles, etc) I felt no need to play again—I wish the costume options had been present throughout the game instead of all at once at the end.

I’d mention the typos but I’ve seen worse in games from bigger companies like Capcom and Konami, so I’ll forgive them. For a studio with so few games to their name it’s well executed. Too bad they put a “to be continued” message at the end; the company apparently folded not long after making this game. But I loved having a spunky lady protagonist, especially one with long flowing hair (Shantae or Zero fans take note), and the pixel art is crisp and colourful, with a unique “big hands” art style.