This was a 4/5 game when it came out in 2010, but this "remaster" is little more than a lazy re-release of an old game with no attempt at cleaning it up.
As a big fan of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, I loved this game back in 2010. I maxed every character, got all the achievements, and saw all the endings. My wife (then girlfriend) and I put a lot of time into the game and I have nothing but fond memories. So when Ubisoft announced a remaster, I was stoked. Unfortunately, they did the bare minimum just to get the old game to run on new consoles and called it a day.
After playing other modern beat 'em ups I've enjoyed like TMNT Shredder's Revenge and River City Girls, Scott Pilgrim hasn't aged quite as well as I remembered. Enemies have seemingly endless block with no way to break it and they'll often fly from off screen and stun lock you with no warning. Even on "easy" difficulty, it's an exercise in frustration especially if you're playing alone. Playing solo means no one to revive you when you go down, so you've only got 3 lives to get through a level - and you'll have to start from the beginning if you fail. Why are we still using this old "lives" systems when we're not playing it on a machine built to eat quarters?
Aged gameplay aside, the game's online multiplayer is busted. If you manage to get through the game's cumbersome party creation and can get a group together without error codes, you get to enjoy latency issues, random hitching, and progress-blocking bugs. For a game that's better with friends, you'd think they'd put a bit more effort into making that part of the game actually work.
I was playing the game with a monthly game club and we all sort of felt like it was a slog to get through until we found an exploit that allowed you to easily max your stats. Once you do that, the game is a dream. You can run through the level quickly, tearing through enemies, and rarely going down. It's just straight fun. Sadly, "just use an exploit and make sure you don't play the game alone" shouldn't be a requirement to have fun with a video game.
It's disappointing that Ubisoft didn't put as much love into remastering this game as the original devs put into making it. The slapping soundtrack by Anamanaguchi, the beautiful pixel visuals, the scene cards drawn by the comic's creator Bryan Lee O'Malley, the references to other games, and the absolute reverence they show to the source material is phenomenal. It just sucks that this game is kind of a bummer to play in 2022.
+ Incredible adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comics
+ Banging soundtrack Anamanaguchi
+ Fantastic visuals and overall presentatio
+ Some fun hiding under an uphill climb
- Terrible, broken online
- Rough combat issues like stun-locking and infinite blocking enemies
- Too punishing even on "Easy" difficulty
As a big fan of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, I loved this game back in 2010. I maxed every character, got all the achievements, and saw all the endings. My wife (then girlfriend) and I put a lot of time into the game and I have nothing but fond memories. So when Ubisoft announced a remaster, I was stoked. Unfortunately, they did the bare minimum just to get the old game to run on new consoles and called it a day.
After playing other modern beat 'em ups I've enjoyed like TMNT Shredder's Revenge and River City Girls, Scott Pilgrim hasn't aged quite as well as I remembered. Enemies have seemingly endless block with no way to break it and they'll often fly from off screen and stun lock you with no warning. Even on "easy" difficulty, it's an exercise in frustration especially if you're playing alone. Playing solo means no one to revive you when you go down, so you've only got 3 lives to get through a level - and you'll have to start from the beginning if you fail. Why are we still using this old "lives" systems when we're not playing it on a machine built to eat quarters?
Aged gameplay aside, the game's online multiplayer is busted. If you manage to get through the game's cumbersome party creation and can get a group together without error codes, you get to enjoy latency issues, random hitching, and progress-blocking bugs. For a game that's better with friends, you'd think they'd put a bit more effort into making that part of the game actually work.
I was playing the game with a monthly game club and we all sort of felt like it was a slog to get through until we found an exploit that allowed you to easily max your stats. Once you do that, the game is a dream. You can run through the level quickly, tearing through enemies, and rarely going down. It's just straight fun. Sadly, "just use an exploit and make sure you don't play the game alone" shouldn't be a requirement to have fun with a video game.
It's disappointing that Ubisoft didn't put as much love into remastering this game as the original devs put into making it. The slapping soundtrack by Anamanaguchi, the beautiful pixel visuals, the scene cards drawn by the comic's creator Bryan Lee O'Malley, the references to other games, and the absolute reverence they show to the source material is phenomenal. It just sucks that this game is kind of a bummer to play in 2022.
+ Incredible adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comics
+ Banging soundtrack Anamanaguchi
+ Fantastic visuals and overall presentatio
+ Some fun hiding under an uphill climb
- Terrible, broken online
- Rough combat issues like stun-locking and infinite blocking enemies
- Too punishing even on "Easy" difficulty
2 Comments
@FallenGrace I'm with you. I adored this game. Honestly the online co-op being busted is the biggest issue. I tried playing this online with friends multiple times and it never went well. So my wife and I ended up just playing local which was still fun but very frustrating how little work was put into this.
FallenGrace
1 year ago