Review – Scott Pilgrim EX

Referencing video games is kind of the Scott Pilgrim series’ MO at this point. See: All of Ramona’s evil exes exploding into coins once Scott lands the final blow on each of them in the movie. The 2010 video game based off the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World movie took this as literally as possible by framing that specific idea around a beat-em-up format. There you’d use the coins gained from downed opponents and bosses to purchase food items to help you level up or regain health. With all of that mind, here’s Scott Pilgrim EX, where Toronto isn’t just the site of video game-related events being told through a video game adaptation, it’s actually IN a video game world where anything can happen. Are you still following me? 

There’s a real Sonic CD sensibility running throughout Scott Pilgrim EX and it’s deliberate. From the obvious zig zag line patterns and loops adorned throughout Toronto to Scott’s cyber counterpart Metal Scott stealing all of Sex Bob-Omb and scattering them through the past and future, the respect for the underrated Sega CD gem is clear. Nevermind the “beacons” that resemble Chaos Emeralds or Scott’s parents mentioning taking a cruise to Emerald Hill Zone and Casino Night Zone. G-Corp also quite resembles one of Dr. Robotnik’s labs. There’s a lot of blue hedgehog love here. 

Developed by quite frankly THE beat-em-up developer of our time, Tribute Games, Scott Pilgrim EX is a one-four player 2D pixel art brawler with its sensibilities being far more River City than Streets of Rage. You see, Toronto this time around is a map you run back and forth through to complete numbered main quests, side quests and shop ‘til you drop. Seriously, there’s more shops in this game than any video game I can recall in recent memory. And its selection of record stores, fashion boutiques and interdimensional video stores only serve to make Toronto seem like the most happening place rendered in 2D this winter. It all feels very EarthBound somehow, down to the inclusion of a drug store. 

 

 

It’s with the inclusion of these shops that Scott Pilgrim EX’s means of progression are revealed. Consider this: Scott Pilgrim EX is almost more RPG than beat-em-up. What do I mean by that? Well, if arcade beat-em-ups are down to pure skill and knowledge of your moveset, this style of beat-em-up starts you out weak and meager. Through purchasing health items, badges (equippable perks) and clothing items (armor), you’ll create a build that focuses on stats like Agility, Luck, or Strength. If you want to succeed on these mean pixel streets, I highly recommend focusing on your Strength though. This game is tough, even on Easy mode. 

Seven playable characters await your controller in Scott Pilgrim EX, each of them smartly representing a different archetype. Ramona is a hammer-wielding powerhouse. Roxy fulfills my desires to have more ninjas playable in beat-em-ups. I played as the title character who is classified as an All-Around fighter. Scott comes loaded with a moveset that feels ripped out of Street Fighter II, with plenty of kicks and punches that mirror Ryu. He even has a double jump that is just Ryu’s Tatsumaki Senpukyaku spin kick and it works wonders for clearing crowds. Speaking of, if you’re playing this in single-player, be prepared for the reality that you will be bombarded with minimal crowd control capabilities. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: This game can be quite frustrating even on its lowest difficulties. Co-op mitigates this but bafflingly the single-player mode doesn’t diminish the amount of onscreen enemies. You will very much be a one Scott army against an arsenal of, at times, 10+ enemies onscreen. 

 

 

This all begs the question: Is Scott Pilgrim EX a good time? Well… Sometimes. I have to admit, I don’t find that it’s built off an especially fun framework. Backtracking through a colorful and diverse map is only engaging the first handful of times even with a helpful pause menu map that highlights objective markers. The backtracking especially starts to wear thin when enemies respawn each time you leave and revisit an area. This has its own purpose, however, and that is to allow you to farm coins to be able to purchase necessary upgrades and health items, some that can even help you earn coins faster. So it’s a necessary evil. What’s not are the gauntlets of enemies that precede boss battles. You see, main quests always task you with arriving to an area, beating the brakes off either the Vegans, the Robots, or the Demons until you get to a Riff Rift that holds an enemy gauntlet and a boss. To get into these Rifts, you’ll need a Ocarina-esque button combination that plays the required instrument’s song. Problem is, to get that you’ll have to backtrack away from the area you need to go to. While the pre-release marketing has advertised “light backtracking” I would say that’s an understatement. In fact, I think I may have ran back and forth more than actually fighting but maybe that’s just how it felt. 

None of that matters when the core fighting often errs on the frustrating side. For one, you don’t have a dodge button. You have a block button. Blocking still takes damage. Health depletes rapidly when most enemies can stun you in one hit easily which locks you in for another five hits before you’re on the ground. The boss fight against Matthew Patel, which I won’t spoil, punishes you even if you block with an attack that has such an obnoxious hit radius that you can lose within one minute of the fight. Let’s just say, he brings some “friends” and those friends can duplicate, even triple, that attack. The problem is that the game relies heavily on your equips and Assists (Metered tag-in’s that you unlock as you progress in the quests) to determine whether you can survive or not. In most cases, without a clothing item or consumable that increased my Strength, the enemy gauntlet took me down before the boss could even spawn. 

 

 

Maybe I’ve just played too many beat-em-ups lately, but no matter how much the signature Bryan Lee O’Malley dialogue put a grin on my face (I love you Virtual Wallace), my reward was often just being happy I was done with a quest. I wanted to play to see more of the world, how time travel affected characters I already loved in interesting locales and how the kooky plot unfolded, but I did not want to PLAY more of the game’s brawling sections. For one, the sections that require even the slightest bit of platforming are awful. Jumping up to a raised platform has rarely been more frustrating when your jumps cause you to bounce off the platform you’re trying to land on.

Crucially, there’s also no feel of mastering the game or any satisfying feedback. Sure, hits feel fine but there’s no combo meters, no numbers going up, nothing driving me forward but charm. And even then, the original Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game just had more of THAT and worked better. You knew you had to fight the Evil Exes and you were curious about how their novel/movie fights would be translated in the game. For as frustrating as that game was, it nailed its presentation and setup. I can’t say EX succeeds in these same merits nearly as well. It has video game references in spades but the actual game built around those references is outshined not only by its predecessor, but by just about all of its contemporaries. By sheer virtue of being a River City-like, I’ll concede that Scott Pilgrim EX stands out from Absolum’s medieval roguelike setup, Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s tag-team mechanics and Rita’s Rewind’s on-rails arcade gameplay diversity. I don’t find that it’s better than any of those games though and really only justifies its existence by giving us a plot with some fun twists on amazing characters.

 

 

I am happy to report that Scott Pilgrim EX looks and performs great on Nintendo Switch 2 with no technical hiccups to beware of. Given that it is a fast-moving pixel art game, this is an achievement on Tribute Games’ part and fast load times only add to that. The game looks and sounds great, even if Anamanaguchi’s melodies aren’t nearly as sticky this time around and serve more for soundtracking each specific area rather than being songs you’re going to be humming. They definitely still rock out in some of the boss themes though and unexpectedly do a pretty remarkable job of emulating a Castlevania organ tune. 

Scott Pilgrim has returned to the video game world with a little more polish, a new Anamanaguchi soundtrack and a new story across space and time. But none of it exceeds his first journey across Toronto. For all of its ambitions, referential content and Ninja Baseball Bat Man-inspired enemies (all 1 of them), Scott Pilgrim EX is only a serviceable beat-em-up where its predecessor was in its time a welcome and sensible revival.

 

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