https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/obzor-scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-the-game-bitemap-dlya-tekh-komu-ne-khvatilo-filma

Scott Pilgrim and his lovely little life

In Russia, Scott Pilgrim is known mainly thanks to the film by Edgar Wright. Young and awkward, Michael Cera plays Scott perfectly, who has fallen in love with the girl of his dreams and is now forced to fight the league of her evil super-exes.

At the same time, the game is based not on the film, but on the comic, which formed the basis of the film adaptation – however, in all three cases, rather different works turned out. A cross-cutting plot with the love of heroes and the battle with the league on the spot everywhere, but the accents are changing: so, in the film, many minor characters disappeared and the general narrative was simplified. It is difficult to reveal all the characters in a short time period of the film, and Wright focused only on the central characters – Scott and Ramona, while the original six-volume manages to tell about the past of the drummer of Scott’s group Sex Bob-omb Kim Pine, and about other no less interesting characters …

The game generally discards all “unnecessary”, leaving the naked action. After the introductory scene where Scott and Ramona meet, the player is sent to a Super Mario Bros.-style hub. 3, where, traveling on a stylized map of Toronto, you have to go through seven levels, facing all the evil exes (and Nega Scott, but we’ll talk about this separately).

Scott Pilgrim against the whole world

At first glance, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is nothing special in terms of mechanics. The controls are the most familiar to bitemaps: there are weak and strong hits, jump and block. Attacks can be combined with each other, collecting simple links, hitting in a jump, making grabs and using other techniques familiar to any fan of the genre. There is also an obvious pumping: defeating opponents, the player gains experience points and increases the level. First of all, this gives access to new techniques such as sweeping, parrying, or powerful throw.

It is worth noting that there is no training in the game in any form: it immediately throws the gamer into the thick of things, forcing them to deal with their rules in the course of the passage. Because of this, you can easily miss several important things: for example, in addition to health, the player has a separate parameter indicated by a light next to the portrait (Heat), which is spent on restoring health in case of defeat. But it can also be used for super attacks or summoning Knives Chow, another heroine of the comic, and you can only find out about this by experimenting with all the buttons or reading in the built-in manual.

The same goes for shopping in stores: at first it is difficult to distinguish them from static backgrounds, while various purchases can greatly simplify life. Some items fill the scales of health and glow, others can be taken with you and replenished in case of death, others give a lot of experience. Finally, some of them increase secondary parameters – damage done and natural defense, which the game does not report at all, even in the built-in help menu. At the same time, pumping parameters greatly affects the feeling of the game: if you do not improve attack and defense, then already the third level can be hard. The mechanics, by the way, are almost entirely borrowed from the River City Ransom for the NES – the cult bitemap that inspired more than a dozen followers. By the way, some techniques like Grand Slam or Acro Circus are borrowed from it.

All characters also differ from each other not only externally, but also by their movset. The differences, however, cannot be called radical, but it is still better to take them into account when passing through. In addition, all the heroes have separate pumping: breaking into a later level as a beginner is not a good idea.

Scott Pilgrim and Endless Sorrow

The complexity of the title arises from a strange balance: the game can be played alone or in a company of up to four people (including via the Internet), but the number of opponents and their health does not change. Therefore, loners will have, to put it mildly, hard times: situations are not uncommon when a player may find himself on the same screen with a dozen opponents who are not particularly waiting for their turn to attack. At the same time, unlike old-school games of the genre, here the user continues to receive damage even in the state of a stanlock, which lasts for a long time. In addition, the block works only in one direction, and opponents usually do not hesitate to attack from two. With an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances and poor pumping, you can lose up to half of your health at a time.

The game as a whole has certain problems with the balance: willy-nilly, the player, even at the easiest level, will almost certainly face a situation in which he will have to grind money to buy improvements, remembering which ones help the most. There is a little trick: if you pay off Scott’s debt in the video rental, then you can borrow films that greatly increase the characteristics for a modest fee. True, the amount of debt is such that you won’t get off with a couple of level passes.

In addition to the banal simplification of the passage through mutual assistance, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game also becomes easier with the ability to raise fallen allies for a small fee. In this case, the passage is not limited by the number of “continua”, of which there are only three at the start, and it is not so easy to get new ones.

Scott Pilgrim takes over his mind

And if mechanically the game raises certain questions, then it is simply impossible to find fault with the style. Of course, there are no graphic improvements in comparison with the 2010 version – precisely because, in general, there is nothing to improve. Large yet stylish pixel art renders in fair 1080p, hero and foe animations are still great, and Anamanaguchi’s background chiptune sounds as fresh as it did ten years ago. Only the strange mixing of the sound causes questions: from time to time the sounds of blows are almost inaudible and sound as if from under a dense layer of cotton wool. With music, this occasion happens occasionally, but more often it is due to plot events (for example, a muted soundtrack plays when the fight takes place outside the nightclub, and the music supposedly sounds inside).

The visual is cleanly taken from the comic book author Brian Lee O’Malley, adjusted for pixel art. Nevertheless, all characters are recognizable at first sight by anyone who has read at least one volume. Moreover, for fans of the comic book, a kind of fan service is enough: familiar characters and situations flicker against the background every now and then. Remember how in the movie, Scott’s gay friend Wallace takes the guy away from one of the heroines? If you look closely at the background in the battle with the first boss, events take place in the game as well. At the same time, as in the comic book, there are enough other references here: subspace tunnels (a kind of quick transitions between parts of the level) are often stylized as counterparts from Super Mario Bros., heroes leave levels in the style of other video games (for example, Kim flies away on a star like Kirby, and Scott teleports in a green beam like Megamen), and one of the bosses – Todd Ingram – attacks with “vegan” force in the manner of Tetsuo from the cult anime “Akira”.

Whether you like the game or not depends a lot on whether you like the story of Scott Pilgrim and the classic bitemaps. If the answer to both questions is yes, and even there is a friend who is ready to spend a couple of hours muzzling enemies, then Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is a great recommendation. But if neither the seven evil exes, nor the adventures of Kunio-kun from River City find a response in you, it’s better to skip the title.

P. S. By the way, it is also worth playing for different characters because each of them has its own ending. Why Scott’s ending is so different from the canon, fans argue even after ten years.