4cr Preview – Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

“If your face had a face I’d kick it in the balls.”

This referenced quote comes from 4cr alum Benny when I said I had no extra Scott Pilgrim swag for him. What he failed to realize is that instead of being peeved about me having cool swag, his energy should’ve been more appropriately spent being super jealous of me for playing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – the game.

Right of the bat I’m gonna tell you what you need to know: this game is River City Ransom on modern hardware reimagined by the kids who grew up playing it.

I got my hands on time with Scott Pilgrim vs . The World at the Universal-sponsored, Iam8bit-hosted Scott Pilgrim’s Super Fun Party (yes, the party had a name). The party itself had its own ups, downs, and interesting tidbits (music, free liquor, nearby rioting, and drug-laced-lollipop-consuming hipsters), but it was the Scott Pilgrim game that drew the 4cr crew and other seemingly like-minded nerds to the event.

The level they had on display for the demo jumped between locations, but it appeared to take place chronologically during the events of the first book since it culminated with a fight against Matthew, Ramona Flower’s first evil ex-boyfriend. I wound up playing the game with a guy named Mike and our team consisted of Scott (him) and Wallace (me). In our playthrough I didn’t notice any big differences from either of our character’s play styles aside from which moves they used to finish combos, though I’m sure there were several other minor technical differences I was just too tired to catch.

We started out on a snowy Toronto street which followed the typical brawler progression of moving right and beating people up. The first noticeable homage in the game to a specific title came when after having knocked down the first random thug, I was able to walk up to his body and pick him up over my head, at which point he became a weapon. Obviously, after he served his usefulness I turned him into a pile of bouncing coins and while I’m sure there were references to other classic brawlers in the demo, these first two and all the others I noticed seemed to focus primarily on the historically awesome River City Ransom.

So other Mike and I fought our way down the Toronto street using snowballs, trashcans, bats, and bad guys for weapons, leveling up along the way and unlocking new skills that I wasn’t quite able to execute. The coins we collected from dead enemies could’ve be spent in a shop later on in the level, but since it was a party environment and there was a couch of drunk people around us waiting for their turns, we didn’t really take the time to explore our options or figure out which items were the best deals.

At one point we passed through an unassuming doorway and came out into subspace, which I can only think to describe as Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road rendered by a SNES with tons of glitches and random ASCII characters floating in the air. It was pretty neat looking, but an overall straightforward area. Lastly, we exited subspace and found ourselves in front of a stage fighting Matthew and his demon servants which, unlike most brawler bosses, required some amount of strategy to defeat. Rather than just figuring out Matthew’s fighting pattern, Mike and I started the match by wailing on him until he summoned some succubi-like minions to protect himself and attack us. After a minute of figuring out that we needed to throw beer cans and bar stools at his living shield, he lowered his defenses and we were able to finish him off before being treated to a nice cut scene of Scott locking eyes with Ramona through a heart-shaped hole in the wall. It wasn’t too complex of a battle, but the little bit of thought required to win it helped make it seem a bit more refined than the simpler bosses of this game’s ancestors.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game borrows/steals/pays a heavy homage to the classic titles of the late 80′s and early 90′s that inspired the comic in the first place. However, this game has made heavy refinements to the formula so that it has a retro-vibe without feeling anachronistic in terms of difficulty and complexity of its mechanics. Experience points, beautiful animation, and heavy allusions to its predecessors are all aspects of this game that make me highly excited about trying the final product. There’s also the fact that the comic it’s based on is pretty effing rad as well.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World releases on August 10th on the Playstation Network.