Scott PIlgrim - the iconic beat-em-up revival; the omgzlol gamer reference bonanza; the lost-to-time-for-nostalgia-fomo-profit prodigal son, - is not good!
On single player, anyway.
This is a sucky beat-em-up, but unlike most bad beat-em-ups, I don't think it's because of a lack of developer experience. Most of the time, the weak links in this genre are bad because developers had no interest in designing meaningful mechanics or enemies. It's games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Altered Beast, Double Dragon and Simpsons that give the medium its unduly reputation as a junkfood button-masher.
Contrarily, Ubi Montreal and select staff had previous beat-em-up experience on GBA Revenge of the Sith: A solid and surprisingly inventive translation of Star Wars' world and rules into a fun, campy run. Being a handheld game, it bears genre modifications catered towards a single-player oriented run. Enemies populate in small numbers and die quickly, but can be individually aggressive and defensive. In turn, Anakin and Obi-Wan's movesets harken moreso to 3D action games, with lots of combination-specific force utilities to apply to different scenarios. There's also more passive differences like stat growth and diminished attack hitboxes. Some of these changes aren't ideal to what people look for in arcade brawlers - and that's fine. But applied to this game's structure and pacing, it fits, bringing few design roadbumps in the way. By all accounts, it's good - and by GBA licensed terms, it's kinda insane.
I bring this up because Scott Pilgrim totally re-uses this game design model - which is fine for its aesthetic elements. Scott PIlgrim has good production, faithfully re-creating the comic's spirit with Paul Robertson's obnoxious-but-fitting pixel chibi style. The trouble is in the 'game'. Scott Pilgrim isn't targeted as a 1-P handheld; it's a 4-P console thing. This leads to a myriad of incompatible mechanics, some being minute oversights while others are total flubs. Everyone has a huge unlockable move pool that amounts to little because enemies block everything and button-mashing is always more optimal damage output. And out of those huge movepools, there's somehow almost no crowd control - fine in RotS's 2-4 enemy waves, but not in 5-10 waves here. Any time you're surrounded on both sides, you're toast. Enemy design overall is too tanky to deal with. If you want to make it through without excess grinding, you gotta block constantly, which just feels like a terrible return on investment in beatemups. It's a killjoy to sit your ass down for 10 seconds, wait for the enemy to whiff often enough, then retaliate with a combo that can't even kill them.
Ironically, bosses were the one consistently good part, since they're usually 1-on-1 and have very readable patterns supported by fun gimmicks. Scott's overwrought, tacky design language is at its most creative here, and the fights actually got me kinda tense. This is clearly where their RotS experience paid off the most - doubly-ironic considering that RotS's bosses use a separate, close-quarters-locked combat structure.
Oh and River City Ransom's RPG shop progression is here in a linear game with dedicated stage setpieces and it feels extremely bad to engage with. Grinding gets old quick and too much important tech is locked behind it. It's fine in RPG's where things are low-key and optimized around contextually-repeated steps, but not in a game where levels have designated point-A-to-point-B design with tons of stage gimmicks between.
But the worst part? Menu-ing through the shops is really awkward and has tons of automated pauses. A single transaction takes like, 10x longer than it should. How.
I'm sure all these points would be mitigated when played with a group, though that introduces a bigger critique: A beat-em-up shouldn't use co-op as a mean's end to balance problems. Friends or not doesn't change the fact that everyone magically has a 3-page Tekken movelist they'll scarcely use, and it certainly doesn't fix enemies dealing 25 damage off of basic combos. I get it's probably too hard to make 1 campaign that suits solo AND co-op evenly - but hey, the good classics figured out how to do it 2 decades ago.
I don't imagine myself replaying this soon - if anything, I'm more curious about re-visitng RotS. What I am looking forward to, though, is when Jenny plays this a million bajillion years from now and gives it 4 stars.
On single player, anyway.
This is a sucky beat-em-up, but unlike most bad beat-em-ups, I don't think it's because of a lack of developer experience. Most of the time, the weak links in this genre are bad because developers had no interest in designing meaningful mechanics or enemies. It's games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Altered Beast, Double Dragon and Simpsons that give the medium its unduly reputation as a junkfood button-masher.
Contrarily, Ubi Montreal and select staff had previous beat-em-up experience on GBA Revenge of the Sith: A solid and surprisingly inventive translation of Star Wars' world and rules into a fun, campy run. Being a handheld game, it bears genre modifications catered towards a single-player oriented run. Enemies populate in small numbers and die quickly, but can be individually aggressive and defensive. In turn, Anakin and Obi-Wan's movesets harken moreso to 3D action games, with lots of combination-specific force utilities to apply to different scenarios. There's also more passive differences like stat growth and diminished attack hitboxes. Some of these changes aren't ideal to what people look for in arcade brawlers - and that's fine. But applied to this game's structure and pacing, it fits, bringing few design roadbumps in the way. By all accounts, it's good - and by GBA licensed terms, it's kinda insane.
I bring this up because Scott Pilgrim totally re-uses this game design model - which is fine for its aesthetic elements. Scott PIlgrim has good production, faithfully re-creating the comic's spirit with Paul Robertson's obnoxious-but-fitting pixel chibi style. The trouble is in the 'game'. Scott Pilgrim isn't targeted as a 1-P handheld; it's a 4-P console thing. This leads to a myriad of incompatible mechanics, some being minute oversights while others are total flubs. Everyone has a huge unlockable move pool that amounts to little because enemies block everything and button-mashing is always more optimal damage output. And out of those huge movepools, there's somehow almost no crowd control - fine in RotS's 2-4 enemy waves, but not in 5-10 waves here. Any time you're surrounded on both sides, you're toast. Enemy design overall is too tanky to deal with. If you want to make it through without excess grinding, you gotta block constantly, which just feels like a terrible return on investment in beatemups. It's a killjoy to sit your ass down for 10 seconds, wait for the enemy to whiff often enough, then retaliate with a combo that can't even kill them.
Ironically, bosses were the one consistently good part, since they're usually 1-on-1 and have very readable patterns supported by fun gimmicks. Scott's overwrought, tacky design language is at its most creative here, and the fights actually got me kinda tense. This is clearly where their RotS experience paid off the most - doubly-ironic considering that RotS's bosses use a separate, close-quarters-locked combat structure.
Oh and River City Ransom's RPG shop progression is here in a linear game with dedicated stage setpieces and it feels extremely bad to engage with. Grinding gets old quick and too much important tech is locked behind it. It's fine in RPG's where things are low-key and optimized around contextually-repeated steps, but not in a game where levels have designated point-A-to-point-B design with tons of stage gimmicks between.
But the worst part? Menu-ing through the shops is really awkward and has tons of automated pauses. A single transaction takes like, 10x longer than it should. How.
I'm sure all these points would be mitigated when played with a group, though that introduces a bigger critique: A beat-em-up shouldn't use co-op as a mean's end to balance problems. Friends or not doesn't change the fact that everyone magically has a 3-page Tekken movelist they'll scarcely use, and it certainly doesn't fix enemies dealing 25 damage off of basic combos. I get it's probably too hard to make 1 campaign that suits solo AND co-op evenly - but hey, the good classics figured out how to do it 2 decades ago.
I don't imagine myself replaying this soon - if anything, I'm more curious about re-visitng RotS. What I am looking forward to, though, is when Jenny plays this a million bajillion years from now and gives it 4 stars.
Pangburn
1 year ago