Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game [PS3]

Aug 242010

Always nice when this graces your PS3 background. Always.

This is always a welcome sight on PS3's background. Always.

Scott Pilgrim. You aren’t a nerd if you haven’t heard anything at all about Scott Pilgrim recently. Rarely in nerd life does such a thing like this happen. In fact, the last time I can remember an IP taking off somewhat like Scott Pilgrim has, was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise media deluge, though this is on a much smaller scale. Specifically, a comic turned cartoon turned movie turned sweet ass arcade games (yeah, I know the movie came out after the game, shut up). But oh, the TMNT arcade games; how great was it to be a child of the 80′s, cramped at an arcade cabinet with 3 other players going through quarters, level after level, through that game? Or through X-Men: The Arcade Game?¬† Or River City Ransom at home?¬† The beat ‘em up genre is one of the greats but can Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game even begin to compare to its button mashing forerunners?

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Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game – from here on, SPVTWTG – is a little different than its beat ‘em brethren; it’s a game that came into existence under three different creative forces that all have video games themselves as their key inspiration for their own work.¬† If the word “meta” springs to mind, you aren’t alone.¬† Gaming as whole has become so mainstream that as it has aged the past 30 years, self-referential works are finally starting become a sort of norm.¬† In this game’s instance, the creative forces chosen – Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic, Paul Robertson’s art direction, Anamanaguchi’s soundtrack – are all so highly talented within their own respective creative media formats, it’s easy to understand why so many nerds collectively wet themselves when this game was announced.

LEVEL 1: Somewhere in Toronto…

We don’t need to get too into the story of the Scott Pilgrim series, here.¬† Suffice to say, if you haven’t read it, shame on you.¬† Do you want to borrow it?¬† If you live in nearby, give me a call.¬† Don’t know where “nearby” is?¬† Then you don’t live nearby.

Drenched in the best.

Key to this game’s world is the comic series by Bryan Lee O’ Malley.¬† The Scott Pilgrim series, while drenched in video game references, isn’t about video games but simply references them for humor and as a means for our hero, Scott, to work out his problems, namely, the 7 evil ex’s that darken the doorstep of Ramona Flower’s love life and his own demons.¬† The game follows the comics as opposed to the movie but does a spectacular job of providing Scott Pilgrim fans with all the brilliant in jokes and storyline plot points¬†that we’ve come love all without cramming it down newbies’ or series haters throats, allowing them to enjoy the gameplay without distraction.¬† There’s never any dialogue and word boxes are only filled with simple emoticons allowing all story elements to play out in game or through small cut scenes that’ll eat up 10 seconds of your time.

LEVEL 2: A MECHA FETUS draws near!

Word boxes or dialogue would’ve sucked ass anyway as they would’ve mucked up the visuals of Paul Robertson and some of his cohorts in depravity from the MECHA FETUS VISUBLOG (So NSFW, it’s NSFL sometimes).

It has to be said that I think nobody else could’ve pulled off the visuals of this game or do justice to the IP like Paul Roberston.¬† The man understands what makes sprites beautiful, fluid, and still relevant to video games and – as douchey as this is going to sound – art.¬† If you haven’t seen any of his movies, a quick search of his name on youtube will yield mind warping magnificence of such short films as Kings of Power 4 Billion % and Pirate Baby’s Battle Cabana Street Fight.¬† Ah screw it, here’s part 1 of Kings of Power:

Now imagine if you will, a time before SPVTWTG was announced and just wishing that guy would get to make a game.¬† His understanding of pixel art needed to be applied to a game and this one delivers a fully realized and ideal look for Scott Pilgrim with just enough of Robertson’s own influence injected into O’ Malley’s characters.¬† Non-player characters like Hollie and Lisa Miller hang around in the background gyrating, boobs-a-bouncin’ in a Robertson-eque pervy, but not too pervy, way.¬† Level 3′s boss, Todd Ingram goes Tetsuo from Akira with one of his attacks – a visual favorite of Robertson’s – and it doesn’t feel out of place at all even though Todd doesn’t do it in the comics or the movie. And I won’t touch on the perfectly welcome visual viscera added to the last boss.

Graphically speaking, SPVTWTG exudes loads of character, so much so that I wouldn’t mind the Scott Pilgrim story simply told with Robertson’s art direction entirely.¬† Of course, playing through works just as well too especially when you add…

LEVEL 3: Anamanaguchi levels up.

It’s okay if you hadn’t heard of Anamanaguchi.¬† The chiptune genre is the new poster child for niche musical tastes.¬† If you like video game music,¬† you owe it to yourself to track some of it down and 8-bit peoples is a good place to start.¬† By the definition of the genre, Anamanaguchi aren’t strict chiptune artists as they employ the use of guitars, bass and drums, in addition to using NES and Gameboy soundboards to produce their signature chiptune sound but the end result winds up being something akin to an NES game soundtrack on the sweetest steroid super meth crack imaginable.

I’m mostly familiar with their first album, Power Supply ($6 on iTunes, free with that link), and if SPVTWTG is any indication, they’re only getting better.¬† Much like Robertson’s visuals begged to be played, Anamanaguchi’s tracks demanded to be pumped through the speakers of every new level you beat in any game they could be put in.¬† A band that exists to celebrate video game music was the perfect accompaniment to this production.¬† All the arrangements feel like close relatives with their same tonal quality but are appropriately different when needed.¬† Level 1′s poppy, affable tune introduces you the comically fun mayhem you’re about to delve into.¬† Level 4 delivers a classic oriental sound to reflect the fact your jump over ninjas and hibachis for the better part of it and level 3′s music gets more dramatic, more epically urgent like the stakes in its comic volume counterpart that’s so kick ass, you need to hear it:

Here’s a fact: if you wash your dishes to that song, you’ll get them done faster because you’ll break all of them…and then hipsters attack you. The soundtrack is currently available on iTunes as well.

LEVEL 4: Game On…despite itself, sometimes…

Of course, our previous levels don’t amount to 8 bit shit without gameplay and here’s where the kinks in the code make their appearance.¬† Firstly, know that the game ultimately plays great.¬† If you’re judging that by the way that Scott, Ramona, Kim and Stephen Stills (all of your playable characters…maybe) handle, they’re brilliant.¬† They have a limited move pool when you first start off but as they level up, you gradually gain access to new, more powerful and useful attacks.¬† There is a slight issue with the Scott and Stills’ walking speed but it isn’t anything slower than something like Streets of Rage 2. What I think people are feeling is the extreme difference between walking and the dash you can accomplish by double tapping the control pad or hard tapping the analog stick; Ramona and Kim move about a bit quicker when strolling.¬† And when you have your full move list, everything you can do is pretty staggering.

Not only do you wind up with a variety of punching and kicking (hammering, if you’re Ramona) moves, you’ve got your special attack that drains your guts meter and the ability to call an assist in Knives Chau, Scott’s highschooler girlfriend which also taps the guts meter. She winds up being pretty useful early on with her help varying depending on which character you pick, e.g. Scott gets a kiss blown toward him as in volume 1′s iconic scene displaying the world “love” that deals damage to all enemies on screen while Kim gets…um…Kim essentially trades guts points for health points in a sexy way. Tragically, if you haven’t read the books, you don’t know how awesome he is but you can unlock Knives’ dad, Mr. Chau as an assist character as well which I have yet to do.

But leading into the gripes portion, when your character of choice reaches level 4, I believe, they gain access to a much needed ability to counterattack by hitting the block button at just the right moment.¬† Seriously, especially early on, that should’ve been a default ability or at least the first thing you get leveling up which brings up something I’ve heard echoed around the internet: this game is unbalanced.

SPVTWTG starts off pretty challenging, even on the easiest setting and it feels good.¬† I died often and I deserved every single death; but by the time you get to Lucas Lee in level 2, you need to be able to counter attack with some kind of consistency.¬† I think I only managed to make it to level 4 with luck and the fact that the game saves your leveling progress after you die.¬† After I got to level 4 and I was having a good, challenging time with it, I made the mistake of buying an item called “The Bionic Arm” in Wallace Wells’ secret shop that’s hidden level 1 and effectively became what I call “God Pilgrim”.¬† I took out Roxy Richter, level 4′s boss, in about 3 minutes and that’s only because I was fucking around and not getting down to it.¬† Level 5′s Katayanagi Twins?¬† They punched me into a wall and when my limp yet mighty body bounced off said wall and hit them, THEY DIED.¬† I beat twin bosses when my fuck up hit them back.¬† In retrospect, I don’t think I would’ve have bought the bionic arm had I known what it was going to do to me.¬† But that’s another gripe, you don’t know what items do to you until after you buy them.¬† I guess that could be construed as good thing, though; you could say you can customize your level of difficulty whenever you want in game, with that one item.¬† Thankfully, the game stepped up the challenge a bit afterward so I didn’t feel like a total taint after I beat it with Scott.

Also, I suspect this game would have been a blast had I had somebody to play with but you know this whole thing called being an adult?¬† You’ve got shit you’ve got to do and a lot of the time, you just don’t have time to go over to a friend’s house to play video games any more.¬† That’s right you little fuckers; as an adult, it’s true that you get some amount of disposable income for games only to wind up playing with yourself…in multiple ways.¬† Digression aside, I love local multiplayer, I would have loved to review this aspect of the game, I waited this long on my review to try and get some multiplayer in so that I could review it.¬† It just wasn’t able to come together so I’ve decided to use my forced unfamiliarity with this mode as fuel for my main gripe about it: Online multiplayer needs to be a standard.¬† Especially with simple shit like this, there’s no excuse for not including drop in and play, online multiplayer anymore.

Seriously, I would've of loved for this to happen for me.

I’ve also heard rumblings about severe glitches putting a damper on folk’s enjoyment with what otherwise would be a sublime gaming experience.¬† I’ve only had one such instance thus far and that was when I cleared an area of its ninja infestation right before my fight with Roxy Richter and the screen refused to scroll over.¬† Kind of a bummer as I had to restart the game but I wasn’t looking forward to getting my ass kicked at that particular moment anyway.¬† Oh, and quite annoyingly often, the menus are horrendously slow and unresponsive.

But fuck all that noise.¬† Y’know what?¬† There’s just too much good let it bog this game down.

LEVEL 5: The Final Boss(ness) of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game

Not content with just making a well controlled beat ‘em up, developers Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Chengdu continued the meta-ness of this whole package with sweet little tidbits like extra play modes, sound checks and various other in game effects like turning the money enemies drop into woodland creatures all with…wait for it…cheat codes!¬† In a most welcome throwback to the days of old, get your ass to gamefaqs and marvel at the nice chunk codes that need to be entered at the title screen to achieve all sorts of cool shit.¬† Want to start the game with Scott Pilgrim’s sword, The Power of Love?¬† There’s a code for that.¬† Feel like fighting through waves of zombies instead of going through the levels?¬† DUR DUR DURRR.¬† …I wasn’t making fun you; enter Down, Up, Right, Down, Up, Right, Down, Up, Right, Right, Right at the title screen to unlock zombie attack mode.

The fact is, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game is the ultimate fan service.¬† Most definitely, it’s the ultimate fan service for fans of the graphic novels; hands down, this is for you guys.¬† But also, it’s fan service for people who just love the shit out of video games.¬† I’m not talking about people who like to just play games here and there, though as a good game, they’ll like this beat ‘em up too but more importantly, this is a game for people who truly love video games and the culture they helped establish.¬† It’s a celebration of everything that modern gaming owes its existence to and it manages to feel just as relevant any other modern game around.

I made this last paragraph so I’d stop waxing this game’s pole.¬† It’s on PlayStation Network as of this writing for $10 and will soon be available on Xbox Live Arcade August 25th.¬† All that’s left to say is that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game is epically approved and epically recommended.