Have ya got what it takes, Pilgrim?

It’s Scott Pilgrim vs.…..The World. Well, maybe not the world exactly, but pretty much the entire town of Toronto is looking to kick your ass for whatever reason including the love of your life Ramona’s seven evil ex boyfriends and you must defeat them all to win her heart. Based on the comic book series of the same name, Scott Pilgrim won’t win any awards for original plotline or story, but it isn’t meant to. It’s a brilliant send up of old arcade style beat ‘em ups and it oozes with style.
The developers did an amazing job with making the game look old school, yet retain a fresh contemporary graphical look. It’s presented in glorious 2D and does a fantastic job of recreating the images from the comic. Character animations are fluid and varied, each has a distinct style and flair and levels are all varied with different locales or introducing new enemies to fight. The game never feels dull or repetitive, constantly providing something new in each area and the music is done in a very fun retro style that is extremely catchy and noticeable. It’s honestly a shame videogames don’t really do these kinds of fun upbeat soundtracks anymore. And of course, part of the fun is noticing all of the humorous references to old videogames from the 80s and early 90s. Some are obvious like the Super Mario Bros. style world map, others are a bit more obscure, such as the guys who wear Tom Guycot masks from The Clash at Demonhead. No doubt anyone who grew up in this era playing these styles of games will no doubt have a fun chuckle or two at some of these references.




While it would be easy to call this game “River City Ransom HD” and leave the gameplay portion of this review at that, it would do the game itself a bit of a disservice. While indeed heavily inspired by beat ‘em up games like RCR, Scott Pilgrim forges an identity all on its own. Play control is tight and responsive and the almost RPG like statistics and level building should keep things from getting too uninteresting as you play. Levels themselves don’t really do much besides giving you new moves to perform in combat; the real way to strengthen characters is to earn money from enemies and spend them on food or items at various shops to increase your statistics. Given the difficulty of the game this is something that is essentially mandatory. Even veterans of the beat ‘em up style of game will find this one to be fairly challenging otherwise. While the game is a bit on the difficult side, the game at least plays pretty fair. At anytime from the city map levels can be replayed over and over as many times as necessary to earn enough money to increase statistics or extra lives to make a run at some of the later stages. This game was designed very much with multiplayer in mind and anyone seeking to complete a solo run of the game will find it somewhat difficult.




But therein lies the one huge problem of the game. While there is multiplayer, there’s no online multiplayer. Sadly, this is an old school quirk of the game that could and should have been left in the 90s. The biggest joy to be had from these styles of games is to have 3 other friends to help you kick butt all about town and unless you have some buddies to call up and come over your house that’s simply not going to happen.



That’s not to say Scott Pilgrim isn’t worth a purchase. While the game can be beaten in a relatively short time frame, it’s game that not only should be played more than once, it demands it. Each of four selectable characters has their own stats and levels and each plays slightly different than the other. While it’s true there isn’t much post game stuff to get excited about the game itself provides more than enough fun to warrant at least a second play through. At a mere 10 dollars any old school gamer worth his salt would find more than enough reasons to get the game despite the lack of online.