Scott Pilgrim EX is a game about the past. It’s a beat ‘em up revival based on a 2010 video game adaptation (which released alongside the film of the same name that year) of a graphic novel (which itself ran from 2004-2010). Put simply, Scott Pilgrim as a series is now old enough to drink, and it’s one that was already steeped in both nostalgia and dealing with the passage of time. It’s fitting then, that Scott Pilgrim EX also deals with time travel while being a damn good modern beat ‘em up in the midst of the genre’s own resurrection.
The story here is pretty simple: the setting is Toronto, 20XX. Scott’s band Sex Bob-omb is practicing for their latest show when Metal Scott, who looks like he stepped out of Mega Man X, bandnaps Sex Bob-omb and their instruments (except for Scott, naturally). Major bummer, dude. Your job is to save the band, recover their instruments, make it to the big show on time, and maybe save the city in the process. To do so, you’ll have to go through the three gangs that have taken over the city – the Vegans, the Robots, and the Demons – traverse time and space, and take down the mysterious forces manipulating all of this from the shadows. It’s standard beat ‘em up stuff, but it does lead to some extremely funny conversations in which your co-op partner, in complete seriousness, will ask “Do you want to fight the Vegans?” The answer, by the way, is always yes.
What makes the conceit interesting is the playable cast developer Tribute Games has assembled here. You’ve got Scott and Ramona, of course, but you’re also joined by former villains like Robot-01, as well as several of the Evil Exes, specifically Roxie, Matthew, Lucas, and Gideon. Everyone’s a little different: Scott’s your all-arounder, Ramona’s big hammer makes her a mid-range monster, Lucas is a big beefy boy who plays exactly how you’d think, Gideon is all about pressure and big damage, Matthew is a puppet character (in a beat ‘em up! So cool!), Robot’s a zoner, Roxie is a ninja. If you’ve ever played a fighting game, you’re probably feeling right at home.
What’s cool is how different everyone plays. The whole gang has light and heavy attack strings – the former excels in combos, while the latter is great for stunning Vegans, Robots, and Demons alike – but they’ve also got several metered and un-metered special attacks that really separate them, whether that’s Gideon’s spinning sword parry, Romona’s subspace sucker punch, or Robot’s grenades. Scott Pilgrim EX is one of the few beat ‘em ups that lets you block attacks, and there are several advanced techniques like quick stepping, several kinds of wakeups, and using a metered super to avoid an attack, which doesn’t cost your Guts Points as it normally would. You’ve also got equippable assist attacks (which also cost GP) that can be as simple as calling a couple guys in to rock out and restore your health, breaking out Ramona’s cat Gideon who flies around the screen and cause problems, or my favorite, bringing out Sex Bob-omb superfan Young Neil to stampede across the screen. Many a boss has met their demise at the hands of Young Neil, let me tell you.
The result is a pretty complex beat ‘em up that rewards you for messing around with its systems. Is it as deep as something like Streets of Rage 4? No. But there’s a lot here, and all of it feels good. I cannot overstate how important feel is for a beat ‘em up, and you’ll recognize it immediately when one just doesn’t have the juice. Scott Pilgrim EX feels good. The original Scott Pilgrim didn’t feel bad, but it was a much slower, simpler game; you had fewer options, and getting hit meant standing there for a moment and realizing someone had just punched you in the face. EX is much faster with far more freeform, and it’s better for it. I wouldn’t quite put it up there with Tribute’s own Shredder’s Revenge, which is one of my favorite beat ‘em ups of the last 15 years, but it’s close.
The other neat thing is that EX is kind of an RPG. Defeated Vegans, Demons, and Robots will drop coins you can spend in shops to buy equipment that boosts stats and badges that offer special effects – two of my favorites are Big Nickel, which boosts the amount of money you pick up, and the Wallace plushy, which gives you GP when you land hits, perfect for making sure Young Neil (I seriously cannot overstate how good he is) is ready when you need him.
Enemies will sometimes drop permanent stat upgrades, too, which you can also buy from shops in the form of things like food and video tapes. Be warned, however: not all things are equal. If you’re playing co-op, one of you buying a piece of equipment unlocks it for both of you, but if you want a stat-boosting video tape, that only buffs the person who bought it. I learned that the hard way when my co-op partner, who had much more money than I did, bought them all and I struggled to keep up afterwards. Thankfully, you can drop coins (and health) for your teammates if they’re low on funds, need a boost, or have been KO’d (though this is difficult to do in the heat of battle; I almost wish I would just lovingly tussle their hair, as God intended). And if you’re worried about dying, grab some walking around food to heal on the go. You never know when you might need it.
All these systems work together quite well, but Scott Pilgrim EX’s biggest accomplishment might be its world. This isn’t a “choose a stage and play it” style beat ‘em up. Toronto is an interconnected world that you travel around, whether you’re taking a portal to the Ice Age on the beach, checking out the distillery district, or just walking down the street of the shopping area. It feels like a place, and I enjoyed learning its ins and outs as we explored it. And you’ll never get lost, because you’re always told where to go next if you just want to get on with it. And if you don’t, there’s always something for you to do. Toronto is full of side missions, whether that means breaking a bunch of barrels, finding all the coins in an area within a time limit, or whatever else you stumble across.
So much of what you find calls back to days past. Checkpoints look like they’re straight out of Sonic. There are legally distinct Scorpion-Kung Lao matchups, complete with spear and hat, and legally distinct piranha plants. The place you’ll fight most Demons is called Casa Vania, and the nearby store is Cold Topic. One of the movies you can rent from No-Account Video is called Army of Bones. The tagline: “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.”
Several of the storylines – such as the one where Kim is kidnapped by Simon Lee because he couldn’t have her in high school, or the one where Matty travels back in time where big band sound was all the rage so he could live his dream, or the one where you help fix Young Neil’s broken Game Goose – reinforce the idea that time has moved on in Toronto… and here, too. The stuff Scott Pilgrim references was much newer when the original graphic novel debuted in 2004. At the time, Mario was 19. Now, he’s over 40 years old. Time’s passed. Several of the Evil Exes are helping Scott and Ramona out instead of fighting them. Even the genre Scott Pilgrim occupies is the product of arcades, once an institution, now largely long gone.
This is a sequel to a game that was released 16 years ago. The developer, ironically named Tribute Games, is probably best known for making the Turtles in Time sequel everyone always wanted and never got. Scott Pilgrim EX doesn’t directly grapple with a lot of this – it’s mostly small moments and asides – but, in the last 16 years, the series has transformed from something that references older art into older art that is referenced. It must be a strange thing to realize that what you made is emblematic of a moment in time, and how that moment has passed. To go from the new kid on the block riffing on the classics to the subject of your own retro revival. It’s something I thought about often during my time with Scott Pilgrim EX, and while it doesn’t go out of its way to draw attention to this concept, it’s hard to argue that it isn’t grappling with it, at least a little. And that makes it more interesting.
