I have many fond memories of putting hours upon hours into beat ‘em-up games with friends, and even more solo. As a kid, I was lucky to be able to rent, buy and put quarters into some of the best titles the genre has ever received, during what was its heyday. The list is lengthy, but it includes Maximum Carnage, Turtles in Time, Power Rangers: The Movie, Final Fight, X-Men Arcade, Captain America and the Avengers, Separation Anxiety, The Death and Return of Superman and the TMNT games for NES. I probably forgot some, but I think of those ones most.
It’s great that, in today’s much more advanced gaming age, such titles are having a comeback, or the genre is at least. We’ve received some great games, like TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, as well as others that were mostly good. Going back a number of years, there was also an excellent Scott Pilgrim game from Ubisoft, which received a remaster not too, too long ago.
When Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game originally released on Xbox Live Arcade, I immediately purchased it. A friend did as well, and he told me that he’d play through it with me. That didn’t happen though, because he had another friend over and they beat it together, leaving me to go solo. I found the game surprisingly hard, though, and didn’t play it very long. That said, the plan was to return to it someday.
Fast forward to several years ago, at which point the game received its remaster, which was my chance to make good on this promise to myself. I read up on it, and discovered that it had a kind of roguelike (for lack of a better term) quality to it, where you’d earn coins by repeatedly playing the first couple stages, and would then use them to buy upgrades that would make beating the game much more manageable. That’s what I did, and I ended up really liking it, even though I don’t like roguelikes or their ilk.
When Tribute Games — the folks behind TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and the recently released and very solid Marvel: Cosmic Invasion — announced that they were working on another Scott Pilgrim game, I got excited. Now that it’s released, and I’m fresh off watching the credits roll, I can share whether or not the new title lives up to its predecessor and if it met my expectations.
The short answer to both of those questions is unfortunately no. That said, it’s still a pretty good game.
Entitled Scott Pilgrim EX, Tribute Games’ latest retro inspired brawler is pixelated fun for up to four players, be they local or online. You can create parties, share the code with friends and do it that way, or you can have a friend join you at home. We were provided two codes for the PlayStation 5 version, so that I could play through it with a friend, but I was unable to find anyone who could play or wanted to, which surprised me. Maybe that’s a sign of getting old though. Regardless, I was able to experience the cooperative side of this game as numerous random players joined my game during the 3-4 hours it took me to complete it.
Set in Toronto as per usual (though I’m definitely not complaining), Scott Pilgrim EX features a colourful and pixelated city that is under attack by three different gangs: the Vegans, the Demons and the Robots. It apparently takes place after the recent animated series (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), and begins with the titular protagonist’s bandmates disappearing. Thus, the obvious goal is to rescue them, so that Sex Bob-omb can play its big, upcoming, gig. Doing so will be easier said than done, though, as lots of enemies and a number of bosses stand in your way.
Unlike most of its kind, and what I remember of its predecessor, Scott Pilgrim EX is not level based. Instead, it features an interconnected version of Toronto, which you can walk or run through, screen by screen. As such, it has a basic map, with a lot of the areas being inaccessible at first. To unlock them, you’ll need to find keys, complete quests, do fetch based tasks, defeat bosses and learn different tunes. There are portals that can only be unlocked or opened by rescuing a bandmate, learning a brief piece of music from them (which you must repeat using the controller), and then using both to open sesame.
Things start in a bandmate’s rented house, but you’ll soon head to the neighbouring beach, travel to the inside of an iceberg, visit a familiar park, head downtown and more. The game’s world is based around the city of Toronto, and features versions of iconic stores, locales, and the like, but it doesn’t represent the city as well as the first game did. As someone who’s gone to Toronto for many concerts, Leafs games, Jays games and more, I didn’t feel it came out as much here as it did previously. Still, I appreciated the change of scenery from the usual (New York, for one) and collecting more dimes, nickels, loonies and toonies. I guess I just expected more originality and a better sense of Toronto from the map.
Those who pick up and play this one can expect a lot of going back and forth across this moderate sized map, with its interconnected regions. There will be numerous times where you’ll go to an objective, and be told to go back to other area(s) to get things. This artificially inflates the game’s length, and it isn’t that long to begin with.
It’s important to note that Scott Pilgrim EX is now quest based. Don’t think of it in an RPG sense, because it’s not like there are a lot of side quests. However, there are 12 quests, or main objectives, and some side challenges, like breaking a bunch of boxes, defeating a number of enemies or destroying a car Street Fighter II style, in a brief, time limited, period. Completing these will lead to chests full of money, and occasionally stat boosts. After all, this is once again a Scott Pilgrim game based on stats, levelling up and the like.
Each of the playable characters has his or her own specialty. I went with Scott because he was the most well rounded, and because I’m boring. When I wanted to change later on, I couldn’t because Scott was level 126 and the others were all the starting level (16).
As you play through the game, the characters will level up, although you won’t receive notifications. There are also many homes, buildings, stores and restaurants to go into, including Chomper’s Drug Mart (aka. Shopper’s Drug Mart), Cold Topic (Hot Topic), and versions of Sneaky Dee’s and Honest Ed’s. Don’t expect interiors for a lot of these though, as you’ll just be greeted with shop menus. The descriptions will sometimes be vague, and sometimes not, but buying food items will tell you their boosts for the next time.
Buying food can replenish your HP and your WP (which is used to pull of special attacks and call in various assists from other characters, which can damage enemies, make you temporarily invincible, heal you or more), and can sometimes give stat boosts. Meanwhile, purchasing clothing items and accessories can provide long term stat boosts so long as they’re equipped. Some can also give you perks, like 50% more health from snacks, some damage not counting and teammates receiving health when you do. Be warned though, as you can only equip four or five clothing items and a couple accessories.
Each of the characters (Scott, Rowena, Robot-01, Roxie, Matthew, Lucas and Gideon) has a light attack and a heavy attack, and can also do aerial attacks. However, they all play differently thanks to special abilities, like Robot’s grenades, Ramona’s subspace sucker punch and Gideon’s spinning sword parry. Also, based on their weapons and specific skills, each one is good for different things, be it combos, mid-range attacks or being a heavy.
It’s helpful to play with friends and have a good party, because the game can be challenging solo, and the controls aren’t always the best. However, it is possible to beat solo, especially if you adjust the difficulty, which spans from very easy to very hard. You can change it at any time. I did that when people dropped out of my game, and I was dying at a couple of bosses. The final boss was also a forgettable pain in the ass, so dropping it helped.
Although I couldn’t find a friend to play with, using my second provided code, multiple people joined and played with me throughout most of the campaign. There was one period, though, where I was mostly alone. It was kind of a relief because you need all players to agree on things, like going into a store, going to a different area of the city map, etc. There were occasions where people wouldn’t move, and I’d have to kick them, or they’d get frustrated at others and leave.
Generally speaking, though, the people I played with were very helpful and good to play with. I enjoyed that they made the game more manageable on normal, and that they weren’t too greedy with the dropped money, health, and stat boosts. There was a bit of lag in my character’s movement at one point, when a specific fourth player joined, but only then.
Sometimes we would drop coins or health for each other, although that’s something I discovered by trial and error. It wasn’t done too much though.
The only real problem with the cross-play co-op is that things get really chaotic on screen. It was easy to lose track of where I was, and what I was doing, with three other players and lots of enemies on screen.
There were, however, noticeable bugs. For instance, we all had to quit out (and only I returned, because it was my save file) after one heavy enemy refused to die or disappear, preventing further progress. I also had one hard crash just before a boss, and lost a bit of progress. I noticed that, at times when I died or experienced such bugs, the checkpoint(s) would sometimes send me further back than they should have, forcing repeated boss battle(s).
There are weapons (boomerangs, volleyballs, rocks, swords, sledgehammers and more) littered across the ground, and some are dropped by enemies. You can pick these up and use them, to increase damage and even your range. Furthermore, some challenges require you to kill foes with just a volleyball. Anyway, I noticed that — for a large portion of the game — I was unable to pick these up and use them. I’d press the button, Scott would scoop the weapon up and then he’d juggle it and drop it. That would happen a ton, and then it would magically work for a bit before screwing up again.
I also probably should have used the map more, but I mostly relied on the markers at the sides of each area to tell me which screen to go to next, or the ones that pointed to certain stores or buildings. However, that wasn’t foolproof, because I got frustrated at one point when those markers kept leading me in circles.
Presentation-wise, Scott Pilgrim EX is what you’d expect. It’s very colourful, stylized and pixelated; designed to look retro and resemble the graphic novels’ art style. It looks good, and runs pretty well outside of the aforementioned glitches and issues with so much happening on screen. The music is also very fitting, and chip-tune styled. Also fitting is the writing, which is good for the type of game this is, as well as some of the fan service segments and encounters you’ll experience. I won’t spoil anything though.
Is Scott Pilgrim EX the best modern beat ‘em-up? No. It’s not as good as some that came before it, in recent years. However, it is fun and a good game to play with friends. I can’t say that it’s better than the first game, or that it’s anywhere close to as repayable as Shredder’s Revenge, Rita’s Rewind or Marvel: Cosmic Invasion, but I enjoyed it for the most part and am glad it exists.
Overall, this is a solid, enjoyable and true to source retro brawler. Fans should enjoy it, as should newcomers with interest in such things. It could have been better, though.
This review is based on the PS5 version of the game, which we were provided with.