Scott Pilgrim vs the World (The game)

I watched the movie around the time it came out at a friend's house, and I thought it was fantastic. Although, it was a fail at the box office, and it didn't do that great, Universal stated that they were proud of the movie, even though it was considered a failure. Here is the quote, "(Universal was) proud of this film and our relationship with the visionary and creative filmmaker Edgar Wright.... Edgar has created a truly unique film that is both envelope pushing and genre bending and when examined down the road will be identified as an important piece of filmmaking." (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2010830,00.html)

There reasons for the movie "failing" actually make sense. I read somewhere that made full sense of why. They stated "People under 30 don't get it" and "People over 30 don't get it", among other reasons (http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Box-Office-Bob-omb-5-Reasons-Scott-Pilgrim-Vs-The-World-Failed-To-Find-An-Audience-20168.html). While I sort of agree that I personally missed out on a couple references, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. It makes logical sense why it wasn't that great of a success, but it's a shame, because it has a lot in the movie that just made it fantastic. Hopefully we might see more from Edgar Wright like this. Even though it "failed", as stated, Universal was proud of it. So that brings me hope to see more.

Now I'm a little late on this, but I have reasons. I'm mostly now saying just how much fun the video game is. The game came out around the same time as the movie (same month), but when that was happening, my ps3 was in the corner gathering dust. It actually has been doing that until recently when I picked it back up to take to a friends house to play for the weekend. I downloaded Kill Team (another fun game on consoles), and figured I would download the Scott Pilgrim vs the World game. Mainly because we just watched the movie again the weekend before.

The game is FANTASTIC for a couch game. It has no online co-op, only same console "couch co-op" with up to four players. Right off the bat, I fall in love with the game based on music and visuals. I absolutely LOVE the art and music style they went. The art has the old school pixely graphics and sounds, but with a twist. The graphics are all in HD. The colors all look fantastic, it's what I've wanted  every old school game to look like. It's all that nostalgia look, with the "now" hd look with it. On top of that, animations are all nice and smooth, and all the effects look fantastic.

The music itself is absolutely fantastic. I just cannot stop listening to it on my computer or in my car while driving. I feel like the 10 dollars itself is just worth the soundtrack in the game. It has all the old school drums and sound effects, but put together like the best of everything. It's like the artist knew exactly what I loved about old school music, put in some new, and made a collaboration of some of the best game music I have ever heard. Each of the zone's music are unique, and great.

Each and every song is different and gives you a nice feeling for the zone you are in. One of my favorite songs from the soundtrack is called "Bollywood". I'll give a link here from youtube. It just sounds like grade A old school boss music (spoiler, it's boss music). From old school generic NES music, to the revamped Japanese influenced music with NES sounds, all the music and sound effects in the game are fantastic.

There are little RPG elements splashed in as well, which is a very fun and interesting addition to the game. On top of being different characters (you all pretty much use the same moves, but they are all presented graphically different based on your character), you have 4 stats you can level up by spending money on food items in various stores. You receive money from killing people in the game, and they turn into coins. Don't worry if you end up picking all the coins up, in the stores you can press circle to give money to whoever you are standing next to. That way if someone accidentally picks up most of the money, you can all share.

The way you spend your money in stores depends on the item you are buying. There are "snacks" that work as one time uses when you die to bring you back to life depending on the "snack" you had. Otherwise, you just spend money on items to replenish health, gut points, and increase stats. There are 4 stats to level up, Strength, Defense, Willpower, and Speed (or something along those lines). Strength increases your melee damage with normal hits, increases damage from throws, and increases your chance to critical. Defense increase your amount of health points, increases your resistance to damage, and makes it harder to be knocked down. Willpower increases your gut points and the effectiveness of your special attacks (R1). Speed increases your movement and attack speed.

The stat system brings up plenty of possibilities the play the 4 (5 with dlc) characters. The "call down" (L1) that brings Knives Chau down all have different effects, and costs gut points to use. From proclaiming her love to Scott, dealing damage and knocking down all enemies, to appearing with a giant tea cup for Ramona giving everyone "rage", there is a lot of strategy that can be used with them.

Another great thing about the game, is how it deals with death. You have your HP, when it reaches 0, you are alive until you are knocked down (a benefit of high toughness). When you are knocked down, you eat your snack if you have one and get back up. Otherwise it takes your gut points, up to 50 and turns it into health. Once you run out of both health and gut points, you have a countdown of 9 seconds until you actually die. A friend can come over and revive you within those 9 seconds, but it isn't easy when a bunch of enemies are on screen trying to kill you. Should you lose all your lives, you appear as a ghost and can "steal" someone else's extra life.

The difficulty is there, and it can be challenging, even for a full group (it adds more mobs on the screen the more people playing). The game really seems to have been made to play with at least two people though. Trying to play the game solo on even the easiest difficulty can be hair pulling hard. If anything just for the cheap shots, and unbreakable combos from bosses/enemies. Using a life on a boss, only to get locked into a combo and constantly being knocked down the second you get back in the game calls for some balance issues... but it's okay with 2-4 people. The bosses become much easier with at least 2 people playing. This can be a problem though, since it's only local multiplayer.

Overall, the game is fantastic. From the soundtrack to the graphics to the light rpg elements, the game is definitely worth the $10 asking price, and the DLC is pretty cool. It adds some new game modes for multiplayer, and adds in Knives Chau as a playable character. If you don't at least try the game, you're missing out on a lot of couch co-op fun. Which feels hard to come by these days with every multiplayer game focusing on lobbies and online multiplayer and leaving out the basics. Oh, and before you play the game, I'd recommend you look at the "How to play" to give you info on extra moves and little tidbits of information like playing as a band to destroy everything on screen.