Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a difficult, yet satisfyingly fun and wild trip down retro memory lane.
You play as either Scott Pilgrim (duh), his girlfriend Ramona Flowers, his friends Kim Pine and Stephen Stills in either single-player or addictive multiplayer with up to 4 players punching, kicking, throwing, slashing and stabbing through the streets of Canada and other various areas of the Scott Pilgrim universe so that Scottie can win the heart of Ramona.....by going through and defeating her seven ex-boyfriends. Now before I go on, let me remind you: Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a VERY difficult game to beat on your first try seeing as how RPG elements are what makes this game a bit of a challenge. You start off with a measly weak and strong attack, but once you go through the game beating enemies (or struggling against them), you will continue to level up until 16 increasing your stats (strength, defense, speed, etc) while increasing your HP and XP, getting stronger while making the enemies that gave you a hard time at first look like big overgrown chumps. In time you will earn other abilities such as quick evades, the Super Mario Bros. stomp, ground-and-pound, among other things. Each character plays differently from the other and beating the game with all four will unlock a 5th character in Nega-Scott while the recent DLC includes a 6th character in Knives Chau.
Defeating enemies also earns you money that can and should be used to collect various food items to replenish your health, upgrades to make your attacks stronger and increase your stats to turn your character from a chump to a champ, especially in a certain area of the game which can be of GREAT help around the run.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World is one MASSIVE trip down nostalgia lane and it doesn't hide the fact with the amount of references from various games during the NES, GEN and SNES eras. From MegaMan 2 to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4, this game is filled with references. Hell, even the graphical design of the game is made in a way to represent the glory days of gaming with the classic 8-bit and 16-bit style. Makes one who grew up during that timeframe feel young again.
Speaking of which, the soundtrack of the game is one of the best to come from any game in a long time. Performed by Anamanaguchi, every track that you hear from the intro to the epic final boss fight will catch your attention, guaranteed. Luckily there is an unlockable sound test to please those who love this amazing soundtrack for an addictive downloadable game.
They are some things that would make people disappointed.......and no, the lack of online is NOT it. The task of constantly grinding on some occasion for money and increasing your stats gets rather annoying and repetitive in the long run. It is helpful, yes, though the task in doing so will ruin what is already a good game. If anything this game plays a lot better (or should be played) with characters at the highest or reasonable stats to give beginners a fighting chance. But if you can get past the grinding and numerous deaths (which you WILL experience your first time through), you will see how great of a game you have in your hands. Also, having to go through the game with different characters that are all weak at the beginning to go through the pain of beating it again is also an eyeturner.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
You don't need to read the books or watch the movie to fully understand or appreciate what Scott Pilgrim vs The World is all about. This game is a great homage to the retro era of gaming with an awesome soundtrack to go with it and is addictive as hell. Some elements could've used work such as the leveling though those are mandatory to play once you start getting stronger and stronger. Oh yes and if this game gets you interested in the Scott Pilgrim franchise, congratulations.