Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game - Complete Edition

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is one most people know of, though not everyone may know about its finer details. It’s fair to call it a franchise, too; six graphic novels originally released from 2004 to 2010, an animated short, a movie (which I reviewed), and an anime series released on Netflix (which I haven’t seen). It’s got enough of a following to get revived every couple years in some way, shape or form. Every iteration tells the story in a slightly different manner.

Alongside the movie came an associated beat’em-up video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released to the PlayStation Network on August 10th, 2010 in North America and the next day in PAL regions, then to Xbox Live Arcade two weeks later. While the game is well-known, its claim to fame – or, should I say, to infamy – was its delisting from both digital platforms on December 30th, 2014 due to the license expiring at Universal. Thus, despite its association to a popular franchise, the beat’em-up could not be played at all, and would remain in that state for several years.

…until time came to celebrate the movie’s tenth anniversary in 2020, and efforts were made from both O’Malley and the film’s director Edgar Wright to rescue the game from purgatory, while we’re at it. Talks with Ubisoft led to interest, and so in September that year Ubisoft announced a remaster for release to several more digital platforms (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One and Stadia – lol, that last one is dead already). Even better, a deal was made with Limited Run Games, which specializes in creating and distributing physical formats of games, usually indie and/or only available digitally. The remaster, both on digital and physical formats, was released in January 2021.

I found the Nintendo Switch physical edition at a convention and practically threw my cash at the seller. I knew of this game’s tumultuous history, and I wanted to own a copy. Alongside the cartridge came a free shiny trading card, an alternate box art, an old-school SNES-style instruction booklet small enough to fit in the box, and a “concert ticket” for The Clash at Demonhead with opening act Sex Bob-Omb at Leo’s Place. Feelies, we have feelies, there’s something so nice about those.

Now that this is all out of the way, I can talk about the game!

Brawl Across Toronto

"Hey, are you a 1-Up? 'cause you give me a new life."
Note: Playthroughs I'using for screenshots can be seen
here, here and here.

It can get quite messy on the battlefield when the whole
party's here to help.

For the sake of the new format, a chunk of the story has been omitted. Some details, such as Scott Pilgrim dating Knives Chau, are glossed over, and we skip directly to him getting into a relationship with Ramona Flowers. Apparently, the Pac-Man line was successful this time. Anyway, seven evil exes, yadda yadda, time for Sex Bob-Omb to head out for a gig at the local bar.

We can play as Scott, or as the other members of his band: His ex, Kim Pine, or his friend, Stephen Stills. The fourth character is Ramona herself. The Complete Edition includes every DLC from the original run on digital platforms, thus adding extra characters Knives Chau and Wallace Wells. There’s a seventh one to unlock. Toronto is represented by a world map, and… well, I don’t recall the city being an island; did we end up in Montreal through a subspace highway?

Toronto is less city-like than I remember it.

"Demon hipster chicks"? Dude, that's just succubi.

The game is split into seven stages, each of which is made of two areas. Through the map, you can replay a finished stage, choosing to start at the halfway point; the most useful example of that is the shopping district, midway into Stage 1. Most stages end in a battle against an evil ex: Matthew Patel, Lucas Lee, Todd Ingram, Roxy Richter, Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, and finally Gideon Graves. With a slight difference: The sixth stage is not a fight against an evil ex, but against Scott’s evil half, Nega-Scott.

Paparazzis: A blight on everything! So glad to be beating
up a few of them here!

Controls: The D-pad or control stick to move. Double-tapping left or right makes the character run, while double-tapping up or down makes them sidestep. A to defend, B to jump, X for a weak attack and Y for a strong one. Shoulder buttons: R to unleash a very strong move, which costs Gut Points. Finally, L to call in an assist, which is Knives Chau for most characters; she’ll deal light damage on all enemies and heal your character.

The game includes a level-up system; whenever a character goes up a level, their Hit and Gut Points are restored, and they learn a new move. Each character also has four stats: Defense, which lowers the damage you take; Speed, which sets your speed walking, moving and attacking; Strength, your base attack power; and Willpower, which increases both your HP and Gut Points, while making your super attack stronger. All four stats begin at 1, and do NOT increase when leveling up.

Ah yes, Lucas Lee. He will either make dumb action flicks
his entire life, or he'll get a big role in a superhero film that
he'll forever be known for afterwards.

    Really? You're not even gonna try the poutine? Eh,
you're right. It's only done right in the province next door.

How do you increase them? You can buy food, drinks and accessories at shops. Items heal your HP and/or GP or increase your stats or experience. Snack items can be taken to-go; if you lose your last HP with a to-go item in inventory, you’ll be revived without losing a life. However, most food items can only be consumed at purchase. Any of your four stats can be increased that way, and there are hidden shops with expensive items that will further boost them; for the record, all your stats can only be increased up to 100, which will make you a very powerful character.

Six (Seven?) Characters Vs. The World

Here, just like in every single Scott Pilgrim continuity,
Knives keps proving she's the best character.

As I mentioned, the four base characters are Scott, Ramona, Kim and Stephen Stills. The original DLC adds Knives Chau and Wallace Wells, and Wallace is available from the start – however, to access Knives, you need to log onto the game with your Ubisoft Connect account. Following that, there is a seventh character you can unlock – Nega-Scott, the evil half, which can only be accessed after beating the game with the starting four characters.

Makes sense that there would be four available from the start, too, seeing as you can play this game and go through the stages with up to three friends. In fact, several additional controls are added to the base game when in multiplayer; you can share coins among friends, a special move is achieved if all players use a taunt at the same time, and when one is downed, another can crouch by and button-mash to awaken them.

The number of enemies doesn't seem to change based on
the number of players, and some screens have a LOT
of enemies punching around.

Some endings in this game make more sense when you take
into account that in other continuities, the true way to defeat
Nega-Scott is not to fight him, but to make peace with him.

Beyond unlocking Nega-Scott, there’s another incentive to beating the game with every character; the ending, achieved after defeating Gideon Graves, will differ. Scott’s ending is, ironically, the least canon-accurate, as he ends up in a quadrouple (…that’s a word, right?) dating Kim, Knives and Envy (his ex), at the same time, after Ramona has ditched him; he looks happy, but he actually isn’t. Beating the game with Kim sees her hook up with Knives Chau, a weird choice if all you've seen is the movie, but fans of the graphic novel will know it’s not far-fetched. Stephen Stills’ ending just has Sex Bob-Omb rocking out at a concert, which… just feels normal. Special shout-out to Knives and Wallace’s endings, while Nega-Scott’s shows what happens when the bad guy wins.

Awwwwww- the near-perfect ending.

What about Ramona? She might be the actual main character here. Defeating Scott’s dark half leads her to accepting his flaws and his baggage, and loving him for who he is – therefore, in that ending, they end up together, as they do in other versions of the story. (Of course, most Scott Pilgrim fans know the story of how the original plan from Bryan Lee O’Malley was for Scott to get back with Knives instead, but when that ending was poorly received during test screenings, both the film and the final book of the series – which hadn’t been released yet – went with the fan-preferred ending.)

Confronting The League

And, of course, what would this game be without its boss battles? The Evil Exes are a major draw to the series, so it’s great to see them in action in a proper game. Matthew Patel summons his demon hipster chicks for protection and attack. Lucas Lee’s moveset is all about the skateboard, either running over the player or whacking them with the damn thing, not to mention his mooks interrupting the fight.

Jesus, dude. No wonder THAT didn't make it to the film.

Before Todd Ingram, we fight Envy Adams and Lynette Guycott in tandem, with the two taking turns until both are defeated. (For bonus points, the game shows a plot point from the comics, but absent from the movie, where Envy finds out that Todd is cheating on her with Lynette.) The vegan is no slouch either, as the fight involves telekinesis, a power blast of vegetables, and even electric moves on his part – he’s the first boss that can prove challenging, especially if you haven’t picked up on food and items boosting your base stats.

The bigger they are...

Then, there’s Roxy Richter, and she’s damn fast. Appropriate for a ninja. After that, it’s the two guys that were barely in the film: Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, who are much closer to their graphic novel counterparts. They first send a Scott-sized robot for the player to fight; then, they attack on a giant mecha (we just need to destroy its hands). After which, another dungeon, and then we fight the two at the same time. Interesting detail, they can pull the same trick we can use in multiplayer; one twin can crouch near his brother to wake him up.

Gideon just HAD to go full Final Fantasy boss
for the climactic showdown, huh.

Finally, it’s the Chaos Theater. After a grueling sequence on an elevator that goes on for too long, we finally get to the main room, where we fight a large Gideon Graves, who’s so shameless he even attacks as a one-winged angel. Four-eyed Sephiroth wannabe freak, I swear. When defeated, he sucks Scott into himself, where we fight a version of him that’s a huge body on top of the heads of the other six exes. (…dude, what the fuck.) I hate that fight, this form has some very cheap tricks, like hitting exactly where you respawn or making your (already small) platform crumble away; I don't have fun against it. Once it’s defeated, we chase Gideon through his lab, where we fight robots and clones of his own ex-girlfriends. (…I know this is Gideon Graves we’re talking about, and he does even worse in the comics, but still: Dude, what the fuck.) Topped by a proper 1-on-1, where Gideon is still tough but manageable. That form turns out to be a hologram piloted by the real Gideon, who goes down in a single punch. There! Game beaten! (Nice Mega Man 2 nod!)

Even without all the theatrics and grandiose weirdness,
Gideon is no slouch.

Come to think of it, this franchise could indeed make
for a sweet fighting game.

You can also randomly encounter a bonus boss in the overworld: Mr. Chau, Knives’ father, who will replace her as your assist once you defeat him. I would also feel like I’m missing something if I don’t mention the two secret shops to look for through the game, or the Sound Test accessible through a cheat code.

Still not had your fill? Jump into the bonus modes, like a Boss Rush against all of the game’s bosses; Survival Horror, fighting against hordes of zombies; Battle Royale, a multiplayer-only mode that’s a proper fighting game; and Dodgeball, which involves knocking enemies out using only the ball on the field.

Final words

Phew! That was more than I thought. Anyway, this game’s great! No wonder so many people wanted to rescue it from limbo. This is an enjoyable beat’em-up featuring a franchise perfectly suited for it, with plenty of nods to the comic series and a good amount of references to other famous video games.

Come on, Ramona, wake up! Scott needs you!
Also we're waiting on you to progress forwards!

This game could be considered somewhat short, that is, if you could easily finish every stage in that order, beating each of them once; but difficulty (and enemy HP) scales up far too quickly for a player to keep up normally, hence why items you can purchase – both foods and others – will increase your character’s stats. The beat’em-up’s RPG-style leveling-up system not increasing your character’s stats is an odd twist from what you’d usually expect; however, it does lead to new moves learned at every level, creating an impression of getting stronger as the story progresses.

Key scenes from the comics (and even the film!) are remade within the new context, and all the characters look great – we can thank Paul Robertson for the masterful sprite art. And the music, which is just as great? That’s the work of Anamanaguchi, a chiptune punk rock band.

There's even zombies? What's this, Shaun of the Dead?

Honestly, not a lot of negative here; Level 7, with its elevator intro, three boss battles, and a second dungeon sequence, is way too long (and I still dislike Gideon’s second form). And as I said, the game would be short, but it takes a moment to learn and it encourages being finished with at least four characters, so that’s some added length there. Also, it’s a bit of a shame that you need a Ubisoft Connect account to unlock both a character and online multiplayer, seeing as those two were big selling points of this Complete Edition.

I’m told the game is much more worth owning on Switch than on Steam. But no matter, it’s a good one to have. As for me, I love having a physical edition courtesy of Limited Run games, and I doubt I’ll ever trade it away!

The next review… hm… I don’t know! It depends what will be ready first! I’m cooking up several at the same time.