"Pilgrim's" Progress
So I haven't beaten it yet, but considering it's a fairly straightforward brawler and unless it pulls some crazy shit and completely changes its rules in the last level or two, I feel pretty safe putting this up.
I am not a fan of "Scott Pilgrim." Oh, I don't hate it, but really the only things I like about it are that A) It's kinda got a "Wind Waker"-ish character design approach and that B) it's probably the only piece of media in the entire goddamn world that portrays a gay male character as NOT a gigantic flaming stereotype. Really, it's more that there's something about it that just feels... off, kind of like, with its manga look and liberal VIDJYA GAIM REFERINCIZ, it's less a work and more a product designed to appeal to 20-something Hot Topic regulars and spiteful nostalgics; the right combination of popular "geek culture" elements frankensteined into something guaranteed to make bank.
So with that said, it makes perfect sense that I bought the PSN/XBLA game made to promo the upcoming movie.
Honestly though, I kind of felt that the premise (a generic dude fights the 11-- that's 7 for the movie I guess-- exes of the girl he wants to date) would work better as a game than as a comic, which makes sense considering how much it's trying to ACT like one, so I felt validated that yes, it totally DOES work better as an actual video game. It's a fairly straightforward brawler in the "Castle Crashers," "X-Men" or "Final Fight" molds-- basically, an up-to-four-player coop beat-em-up in which you fight people in an area with a combination of team tactics and super moves until a big flashing arrow tells you to continue-- but the draw here lies in it basically being a gigantic nostalgia trip without ACTUALLY being directly connected to anything old enough to be nostalgic, mostly by way of the (admittedly) gorgeous 32-bit graphics and looping MIDI tunes.
The fighting itself is solid enough, though problems arise in terms of hit ranges (not entirely uncommon in this genre) and item throwing, which can more often than not literally come back to smack you in the face and nick off a chunk of your health. Still, it's pretty satisfying to get the right combination of items/people into a combo and air-juggle them into submission. Enemies tend to have some pretty cheap tactics as well, including rushing you from some far corner of the screen, locking you into unbreakable combos or randomly having ground defense attacks that can take away an entire tenth of your HP at once.
There's also some issues with the XP system, in that you start out incredibly WEAK and with only a chunk of your actual moveset, which gets unlocked based on level and not your own volition-- hey game, I think I'd prefer a knockdown recovery move BEFORE I get a Low Attack that does nothing against blocking targets thanks. And that's IGNORING the fact that it takes so goddamn long to level up in the first place-- really, most of these moves are standard fighting-game BASICS now, so they should really be part of the standard moveset with more advanced combos and such becoming available as you level up.
The video game references kinda bothered me too, since they're just so token and contribute nothing at all to the game itself-- in most cases its reserved to just, well, graffiti/posters on most of the levels, like little Triforces and such as if that ALONE was enough to carry the game (but oh wait, the fact that it references video games is actually listed AS A FEATURE in the game's little promo-blurb, so maybe they thought so). And some of them are just so trite it's kind of annoying, like this one surreal bit where you have to break yellow bricks with question marks on the sides to get coins and you can practically hear the developer going "HEY LOOK AT THAT, BREAKING BRICKS FOR COINS EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE GAMERS AREN'T WE JUST SO AWESOME AND CLEVAAAAR??????"
Overall though and despite my awkward relationship with the source material, "Scott Pilgrim The Movie The Game" is pretty fun-- the gameplay itself is solid, it looks great (though I think we as gamers need to get over losing our shit for pixel sprite art already), and Kim's yuri-healing move kinda amused me so there's that at least. Not to mention that if you're on PSN and looking for a good social beat-em-up in the absence of a "Castle Crashers" of its own and with plenty of secrets to find, it warrants at least a demo playthrough on that goodness alone.
I am not a fan of "Scott Pilgrim." Oh, I don't hate it, but really the only things I like about it are that A) It's kinda got a "Wind Waker"-ish character design approach and that B) it's probably the only piece of media in the entire goddamn world that portrays a gay male character as NOT a gigantic flaming stereotype. Really, it's more that there's something about it that just feels... off, kind of like, with its manga look and liberal VIDJYA GAIM REFERINCIZ, it's less a work and more a product designed to appeal to 20-something Hot Topic regulars and spiteful nostalgics; the right combination of popular "geek culture" elements frankensteined into something guaranteed to make bank.
So with that said, it makes perfect sense that I bought the PSN/XBLA game made to promo the upcoming movie.
Honestly though, I kind of felt that the premise (a generic dude fights the 11-- that's 7 for the movie I guess-- exes of the girl he wants to date) would work better as a game than as a comic, which makes sense considering how much it's trying to ACT like one, so I felt validated that yes, it totally DOES work better as an actual video game. It's a fairly straightforward brawler in the "Castle Crashers," "X-Men" or "Final Fight" molds-- basically, an up-to-four-player coop beat-em-up in which you fight people in an area with a combination of team tactics and super moves until a big flashing arrow tells you to continue-- but the draw here lies in it basically being a gigantic nostalgia trip without ACTUALLY being directly connected to anything old enough to be nostalgic, mostly by way of the (admittedly) gorgeous 32-bit graphics and looping MIDI tunes.
The fighting itself is solid enough, though problems arise in terms of hit ranges (not entirely uncommon in this genre) and item throwing, which can more often than not literally come back to smack you in the face and nick off a chunk of your health. Still, it's pretty satisfying to get the right combination of items/people into a combo and air-juggle them into submission. Enemies tend to have some pretty cheap tactics as well, including rushing you from some far corner of the screen, locking you into unbreakable combos or randomly having ground defense attacks that can take away an entire tenth of your HP at once.
There's also some issues with the XP system, in that you start out incredibly WEAK and with only a chunk of your actual moveset, which gets unlocked based on level and not your own volition-- hey game, I think I'd prefer a knockdown recovery move BEFORE I get a Low Attack that does nothing against blocking targets thanks. And that's IGNORING the fact that it takes so goddamn long to level up in the first place-- really, most of these moves are standard fighting-game BASICS now, so they should really be part of the standard moveset with more advanced combos and such becoming available as you level up.
The video game references kinda bothered me too, since they're just so token and contribute nothing at all to the game itself-- in most cases its reserved to just, well, graffiti/posters on most of the levels, like little Triforces and such as if that ALONE was enough to carry the game (but oh wait, the fact that it references video games is actually listed AS A FEATURE in the game's little promo-blurb, so maybe they thought so). And some of them are just so trite it's kind of annoying, like this one surreal bit where you have to break yellow bricks with question marks on the sides to get coins and you can practically hear the developer going "HEY LOOK AT THAT, BREAKING BRICKS FOR COINS EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE GAMERS AREN'T WE JUST SO AWESOME AND CLEVAAAAR??????"
Overall though and despite my awkward relationship with the source material, "Scott Pilgrim The Movie The Game" is pretty fun-- the gameplay itself is solid, it looks great (though I think we as gamers need to get over losing our shit for pixel sprite art already), and Kim's yuri-healing move kinda amused me so there's that at least. Not to mention that if you're on PSN and looking for a good social beat-em-up in the absence of a "Castle Crashers" of its own and with plenty of secrets to find, it warrants at least a demo playthrough on that goodness alone.