Aggrogate

Scott Pilgrim vs the Review

To be perfectly candid, this may be the hardest review I ever write. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is easily one of my favorite franchises. I've bought all the soundtracks including the original movie score, the movie soundtrack, the game soundtrack, and the music from the trailers. I spent all day driving to various bookstores hoping someone had put out the last volume early. I've seen the film no less than four times. You could say I'm a pretty big fan of Scott Pilgrim. So the real question is: does this game hold up to the franchise from which it was spawned? Short answer: maybe.

Like the movie and the graphic novels, the game is the tale of a strangely lovable slacker forced to fight the seven evil exes of the girl of his dreams in order to be with her. This is serves as an extended metaphor for how every one of us has to fight off their demons and fears when trying to win someone's heart. Unfortunately, the game pretty much skips over all the narrative, instead dropping you in stages and telling you to go left and kill all things in your path. It makes the game feel all the more retro, but I do wish that some more of the storytelling had made it into the game.

As the screenshots show, SPvTW tries extremely hard to to invoke gamers' nostalgic sensibilities. The chiptune soundtrack from Anamanaguchi would easily be the strongest part of the game, were it not for the equally amazing pixel art work done by Paul Robertson. Before you even get to the gameplay, the graphics and sound are excellent reminders of the days of 16-bit gaming.

The face buttons map the two attack buttons, both heavy and light, a block button and a jump button, while the shoulder buttons and bumpers activate your crowd-clearing special attack or call out your striker for special moves like healing you or stunning every character on screen. You shouldn't recklessly user those attacks because they use "guts points," and the first time you are knocked down with no health points your remaining guts points get converted into health to prevent you from losing a life.

Even the cheat codes are retro: X, Circle, X, Square, X, Circle, Circle turns on Blood Mode just like in the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat, while the same-character code (Down R1, Up, L1, Triangle, Circle) is right out of Street Fighter II. You'll find yourself punching yellow boxes with question marks for coins, running down rainbow roads, and hurling turnips at your enemies. To increase your stats, you can buy items like the Bionic Arm, Never-ending Fantasy, and Speedy the Porcupine. This game manages to be more chock full of old-school gaming references that I thought was possible.

All that old school goodness comes with a price. Scott Pilgrim is a hard game, and that difficulty is compounded by its odd leveling system (lifted straight from the beat-em-up classic River City Ransom). Retro callbacks are great, but nostalgia doesn't justify all but forcing players to grind cash in levels, just to be able to buy the upgrades necessary to beat the next stage. That doesn't even take into account the last stage, which has 3 separate boss battles and will punish you if you aren't very well prepared.

Fortunately, autosaving helps a lot. The game will automatically save your progress whenever you complete a stage, lose all you lives, continue, or return to the map. This is a very good thing, because the game is buggy. There are numerous glitches throughout the game, and while some can be exploited to your advantage, others might force you to hard reset your system (the latter type of bug is probably unintentional). The worst part is that the glitches seem to appear wire no rhyme or reason, so I can't even advise on how to avoid them. The only other possible complaint would be the lack of online multiplayer. For myself, I understand they opted to leave it out to make it feel more oldschool. Still, even the upcoming Street Fighter III re-release is getting an online versus mode. Considering how pervasive as online gaming has become, most reviewers will knock points off for the lack of online co-op.

If you are a huge Scott Pilgrim fan or just loved old school arcade beat-em-up's like Battletoads, Double Dragon, and River City Ransom, you'll find a lot to love here. Gamers who aren't such big fans of the franchise or old-school gaming might find the reliance on retro mechanics to be more of hindrance than a boon. As for me, this is currently on my top ten games of the year.

Above is the original pitch video for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World found by Comics Alliance. It's interesting to see just how retro the game was planned to be. This video is pre-Paul Robertson and pre-Anamanaguchi, and is a very different take on the franchise than the final product. The chiptunes rock covers are pretty awesome, though.

Played on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Completed with Scott Pilgrim and Kim Pines.