Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game Review

I’m a huge Scott Pilgrim fan and brawlers are my absolute favorite classic genre, so Ubisoft had the chance to exponentially disappoint or thrill me. Fortunately, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is everything I would have wanted for a game based on the franchise, and it stands on its own as a great beat ‘em up.

Up to four players can team up as Scott Pilgrim, Stephen Stills, Ramona Flowers, or Kim Pine to take on Ramona’s seven evil exes and legions of hipsters, ninjas, and Halloween party revelers. Enemy personality is important in this genre, and Pilgrim’s foes have it in spades. Emo dudes regain health if you let them fix their hair, Todd Ingram abuses his telekinetic vegan powers to great effect, and loads more excellent moments (that I will not spoil here) permeate the entire experience.

Combat is tight and easy to grasp, and useful new moves unlock as characters gain experience like ground attacks and air recoveries. In a nod to River City Ransom, you gain permanent stat boosts by purchasing things like a Clash at Demonhead record or a burrito at Sneaky Dee’s. In fact, gamers will find a treasure trove of classic game references throughout the entire story mode.

Scott Pilgrim also contains loads of Easter eggs and secrets to keep you coming back. Players can unlock two more playable characters, find hidden shops, discover secret powerful moves, and more. There are also several secret codes you can type in at the title screen to unlock new game modes and fun modifiers like changing all of the coins enemies drop into cute forest animals.

While the game is great fun as a single-player experience, it truly shines when you team up with friends. Whether you’re working together to figure out a boss pattern or hogging all the Canadian coins, multiplayer is a blast. The only problem? There is absolutely no online play. How was that feature left out in this day and age? I would have gladly paid an extra $5 over the $10 asking price for this feature. Picturing my friends list full of people playing this awesome game and not being able to team up just hurts.