You may or may not have heard of a really fancy-shmancy film that came out last week titled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. This film just so happens to be based off of a really great comic by the same name. Someone at Ubisoft had the amazing idea to create a video game from this comic/movie, and if you have ever played any old-school beat-em-up of yore, you will feel right at home in this ninja kicking, hammer smashing brawler.
Let me first start off by showing you the person who has made all the sprites for this game. He is a genius by the name of Paul Robertson. Four years ago you may have been witness to one of his creations: Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006. This work of art is a reflection of video games and anime at the same time. Woa! I do recall as a youth of 22 years that upon viewing this video I was wishing wholly and intently that it actually a game. My wishes were shattered when I found out it was only a video. Scott Pilgrim, however, brings us as close as humanly possible to the Cabana Battle Street Fight as we can get as of today.So, Scott Pilgrim, how does all of that work? Currently available only on PSN, it works like any other brawler works: you walk either left or right and you punch, kick, block, and jump your way to victory. R1 will arrange for a 360 degree attack, knocking foes back, and L1 will summon Knives Chau to come and do a special move that’s different for each playable character. Unlike older brawlers of this type, however, your characters will actually level up as you thwomp hipster Canadians into oblivion. Each level-up gives you extra moves you can perform in the game in addition to the standard stat buffs. Also increasing stat buffs are food and items found from shops along the way that are bought with Canadian funny-money you get from beating foes.
As mentioned above, this game looks great. The guy who creates these sprites is an artisan of the craft, instilling outrageous and memorable animations to all the characters involved. Luckily, these over-the-top motions fit extremely well with the subject matter, so even though one character pulls out a mallet from nowhere, you don’t question it at all; they are supposed to have that mallet, damnit.
Soundwise, the game supports a ton of 16-bit-sounding, chip-tuney tracks that put you right into the heart of 2D sidescrolling action. The sound effects for the various attacks all sound very meaty and full of weight. It’s great.
Downsides for the title are minimal, but notable. Through my EXTENSIVE PLAY TESTING, I’ve determined that the game is not easy. This determination comes from the fact that I die a lot. Since I am really good at all games ever, obviously the game is just too hard, right? Not necessarily, but it definitely proves challenging. I think that I’m simply feeling the dichotomy between it being a brawler and it having RPG elements. I feel like my skill set should already be maxed out – hearkening back to olden times – instead of gradually becoming stronger. This is truly a character flaw of myself rather than the game (you simply need to level up a little bit to make it easier), so I should not exactly place this under the “downsides,” category, but here it is! There’s nothing we can do about it now. Other than that particular self-realized nuance, while the music in this game is great, it does get somewhat repetitive after playing through the abnormally long levels.
And that brings us to the abnormally long levels! Honestly, the more the merrier. “Abnormally long” is not only the opening to for a “that’s what she said” joke, it’s also praise in the case of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Just know that there may be the occasion when you think “why is this level not ending? Oh well, BOOM SMASH!”
If you want a happy fun time brawler that is based off of a really fun comic and a really fun movie, then by all means Scott Pilgrim is the place to be. From what I understand, it’s currently $9.99 on PSN and will soon be on Xbox Live within the next week or so. If you don’t want to check this game out, you should probably just punch yourself in the face.
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