I’ll be honest – a couple of months ago, I barely knew of Scott Pilgrim. While I’d heard whispers of the book’s greatness (mainly from Garv), I’d never read them myself. However, when the movie was released last week, the gamer side of me felt obligated to go and see it, given that it was supposed to be an homage to all things gaming. Two hours later, I walked out of the cinema grinning like a chimpanzee that just spotted a banana buffet – I loved it, and would happily say it’s the best gaming-related movie I’ve ever seen.
The first thing I did when I got home was download Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game on PSN. While I generally avoid movie related games like the plague, there were two reasons for this - firstly, the game appeared to be based more on the original texts rather than a movie-to-game adaptation. Secondly, the game looked to be a retro beat-em up filled with gaming references and in-jokes. For the decent cost of £7.99, I downloaded it and got ready for some old-school gaming.
With 1-4 players locally, you can choose from four of the Scott Pilgrim cast – Scott, Kim, Stills or Ramona. Assuming you’re familiar with older titles such as Streets of Rage, Golden Axe or Knights of the Round, you’ll feel right at home with Scott Pilgrim – the game plays as a side-scrolling beat-em-up, taking town groups of enemies as you go – finally leading up to the stage’s boss. Naturally, the game’s main bosses include all seven of Ramona’s evil exes, each with their own stage with its own environments and music.
The game’s graphical style looks very retro with its pixel sprites and it’s animation style – and it looks great. The game is really colourful, and the areas are vibrant and are oozing with artistic detail. Having only seen the movie (so far), there are plenty of locations that I recognise – including Scott’s lair, the park, the Toronto film set and the Chaos Theatre. There are plenty of other locations, however – ranging from on a train, to a graveyard, a forest, a party and more. The game’s music also shines – offering a retro-style arcade soundtrack that would sound very at home with the classic titles, and being enjoyable enough to get stuck in your head.
Although the game has a very retro style – it’s been a bit updated. As with the awesome Castle Crashers on Xbox Live, characters are able to level up and gain new abilities. While you start off with a couple of basic moves and a block ability, defeating enemies earns you experience – and each time you gain a level up (with a maximum of 16 levels) you unlock a new ability. These include low attacks, down strikes, throws, evades and signature skills, and they really do offer a good mix of abilities – with each character having their own set of combos and moves to learn. On top of this, you have “guts” points under your HP, which can be used in a few ways. Firstly, they can be used to perform each character’s “guts” attack – usually a crowd clearing special move, such as Scott’s spin-kick. Secondly, you can spend them to call in Knives to do an assist attack – which varies depending on which character you are, and lastly, they can be used to restore some of your HP if you hit zero, which can be a life-saver at times (literally). There’s also a special ‘hyper mode’ that you enter if you defeat five enemies without taking a hit – which allows you to move faster and do more damage for a limited amount of time.
Although gaining levels earns you new abilities – they don’t actually make your stats stronger. Instead, you must collect coins dropped by enemies, with which you can purchase various items. During most levels, there are often doors in the background that you can enter (some of them hidden) where you can spend your coins on food, CDs, books and other items. Some of them boost your different stats, making you stronger or faster, others heal you. Snacks can be taken with you “to go”, so that if you hit zero HP, they will be used to heal you a little, similar to how guts points can.
While you’ll obviously be battling the evil exes, the game has a variety of opponents to battle you on your way. The enemies are quite varied – ranging from your average thugs, to men in dinosaur costumes, ninjas and robots. The game can be quite tough at times – especially if you don’t boost your stats much – and you’ll find yourself getting punched, bundled, set on fire, stabbed and shot – but it’s all good fun! There’s usually a trick to defeating them, and once you get a bit stronger you’ll be taking them down in no time.
The bosses are perhaps my favourite part of the game – each one instantly recognisable from the film, and all with their own fighting style and special attacks – such as Matthew’s fireballs and demon-girl attacks, and Todd’s psychic-vegetable based abilities. They can be quite challenging, each offering a different experience – and it’s incredibly satisfying to hear the “K.O.!” once you land the final blow.
As you get the knack of things and grow stronger things become easier – but it can be quite challenging. Whilst many beat-em-ups would work as coin-op style games with a lot of lives and continues, you are limited to 3 lives per level – and if you lose all of them you’ll have to start the stage from the beginning. Most of the stages are quite long – which is good in gameplay terms - but be warned if you hate having to replay stages! That said, if you want it’s fairly easy to grind a little earlier on and buy lots of stat boosters, so you can progress through the game a lot more easily. If you want a real challenge, you could even try beating the game with no stat-boosts at all!
Of course, one of the best things about SPvsTW:TG are all of the gaming references – and there are loads of them. You’ll see triforces on crates, Mario blocks in the sub-space highway stages, special moves reminiscent of Street Fighter and Streets of Rage, Megaman E-Tank items available to buy, Castlevania style Medusa heads - you even get to play Guitar Hero with Todd before your battle to the death. There are so many references – no matter where you are you’ll probably be able to see something.
You don’t need to have read the books or seen the film to enjoy the game - it’s a really solid arcade-style beat-em-up that just shows how retro style games can stand the test of time. For less than a tenner I think Scott Pilgrim is a very worthy addition to any gamer’s library. And oh, if you haven’t seen the movie – you probably should.
- Leon (Rating: Scott Pilgrim Fan)
