Love old school arcade beat 'em ups? Welcome to Scott Pilgrim.
Starting to sound familiar?
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World may as well have been titled "A Game Catered to Nick" because this game has everything I love. It happily borrows from River City Ransom in everything but name and then adds an amazing game soundtrack and an astounding amount of visual and audio references to old games. I was fighting ninjas in one level and all of a sudden, I plucked an eggplant out of the ground and beat them with it. That's right out of Super Mario Bros. 2, a game I remember getting for Christmas when it first came out. In the "ninja" level, each of the ninjas and their abilites are right out of another old favourite of mine, Bad Dudes. I could likely fill out an entire FAQ just on references.
To top it all off, I live in Toronto - where the game is based - and have visited a number of locales. Although, I don't remember giant Tiki statues or rolling metal balls featured in Castle Loma.
Fans of the comic will love all the references, not to mention a slew of characters you'll see hanging out in the background.
While the gameplay is simple, it's anything but easy. The enemy AI is relentless, even on easy or normal mode. I remember playing with a friend of mine. The enemy would stop attacking me while I went to heal him...and just seconds before he was up, they would dropkick me away, leaving him to die. The block button in this game is almost a necessity.
Hard as it might be, the game itself is a total blast. It's definitely meant to be played with more than one person. A lack of online multi-player is a bummer, but trust me. Having friends over and playing the game together makes this a party game that you'd play on the Wii. The friend I played with it had also grown up on all the same games as me, also loves the comic and also lives in Toronto. So we had to pause the game several times just to laugh at something we saw or heard.
I'll admit that I agree with Gamespot's score of 5.5. Despite it being a lot of fun, the gameplay is a simple beat 'em up. Fans who are looking for more in a game will likely be disappointed. But for a fun, cheap, downloadable game for fans of the comic, movie, old NES games and/or Toronto, I highly recommend it.