Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (PSN/XBL)

[rmoxon]

Suprised I couldnt find a thread for this, its great.

An old school scrolling beat em up based on the comics and I suppose to a much lesser extent the film that is based on the said comics and out over here in a few week.

You don't really have to be a fan of the comics to enjoy this though (it doesnt really have much in the way of story or cutscenes in truth), it plays really well, the 16bit style graphics are really nice and it just has this constant air of fun about it, Oh yeah and then there is the soundtrack. The music in this has to be heard to be belived, it is without a doubt the coolest soundtrack to a game I have ever heard and I think anyone who has an intrest in this will probabaly think much the same as me.

The gameplay obviously isnt that deep but it is increadabley challenging and you relaly have to think when attacking enemies, its certainly no button masher. The first level alone took me about 4 attempts, much to my embaressment. The upgrade system is pretty good, though it has to be said that the game encourages you to grind alot, which means that if you dont want to replay levels you have completed then you might not want to play the game.

I'm yet to even try multiplayer, which I would imagine is better still. Overall this is just brilliant, it has come out just at the right time too, there dosent seem to have been a really good game released in ages and this has really put a smile on my face.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I love the soundtrack, i want it bad. People of the younger generation will hate it though, someone i know who is in that age group found the music repetitive and the game monotonous. ><

*boo~hiss

I love it myself, but then the game is aimed directly at my 8 & 16bit heart.

[briareos_kerensky]

I wanted to play more of it before starting a thread.
Nothing to say about graphics and music, they are great, however I find that there's excessive emphasis on levels and more than anything else grinding and item boosting are required to get through the droves of ganging enemies with often unfair attacks when playing alone.
I think that movement controls are to blame, walking around feels stiff and not on par with most enemies. As you reach level 3 some of the bigger enemies have longer reach and better speed than your character, which would be fine if they were the only enemy on screen but instead you have to dodge other dudes.

I had fun playing with it but sometimes it gets frustrating.

[Spatial]

I said it before in the headlines thread and I'll say it again here, this game could have be amazing online and they missed a real trick by not including it.

But it is filled with Paul Robinson awesomeness, so I can forgive it to some degree.

[saturn-gamer]

The game is great but some of the mechanics I find to be questionable. The balance is off, its much more frustrating when playing alone. The game doesn't adjust like old TMNT games did for example. Also, the experience system is a curse. You just start off without any skills and will likely be annihilated in the first level thus forcing you to restart and grind money/exp a handful times. This is just a way to increase the overall length of the game and is certainly not like classic beat em ups used to be. A genre this game tries to honor. If I could finish it in one sitting after an hour or so, it would also be fine with me.

This EXP system is likely the reason there is no drop-in co-op gameplay at all.

The gameplay is kind of lacking too. The regular movement speed is a bit slow, and your reach is too short. You can't panic button out of enemy juggles too as far as I can tell. Ubi should've hired some Technos guys perhaps. Even with these issues (and the lack of online play I left out), its still highly recommended. Its at least very challenging.

[Nisa]

I played a fair bit of this last night and I'm loving it. Like others have said it's kind of frustrating to begin with due to your character being pretty underpowered but once you grind a bit and level up it becomes a lot more fun. I got Scott and Kim up to level 12 and boosted their stats (power,defence and speed etc) by buying books and CDs in the shops which wasn't too much hassle tbh. Boosting stats will nullify a lot of complaints about the controls such as slow moving characters and lengthy stun times as these are improved the higher your stats are. You can also speed up your character significantly by defeating 5 enemies without taking a hit which again becomes much easier to pull off once your character has been improved a bit.

The thing that impresses me most about the game is the presentation.The graphics and the music are both superb. You don't have to be a fan of the comic books to enjoy the game but those that are will love the many references to events in the comic books (Calling in Knives to give Kim some health by snogging her for example). Much like the comics, there's plenty of references to video games here as well. Mario style ? blocks, the Street Fighter K.O. voice over when you beat one of the bosses and even 16-bit era cheat codes such as the down,R,up,L,Y,B Capcom code and MK blood code are in there.

My only major gripe with the game is the lack of online play. I'm guessing they probably rushed it out the door to release it at the same time as the movie. I just hope Ubisoft can patch in online multiplayer at a later date but I somehow doubt that's going to happen.

[KusoGaki]

Quite enjoying it so far but as mentioned there are some things about the actual system that are not so great, considering the game has so many references to River City Ransom it's a shame they didn't make it as solid as that game.

Quite often i find that the grab doesn't have as much priority as it should, still can't figure out how to counter (despite mashing O like a maniac when getting attacked), and i'm really not sure why the characters don't have voices.

The voice thing probably bugs me the most, at least in RCR they had subtitles when people had something to say.

->Open Spoiler<-

I think the hidden shop like in RCR is too early in the game as well, bought the bionic arm and now my character feels pretty overpowered.

[Riskbreaker]

Really enjoying it so far. Having just finished reading all the books is contributing to that. The first stage was a bit of a pig at first, but even without upgrades, subsequent runs were easier knowing the limits of the engine. I think players are being caught out by the shops providing items that boost stats without details of their effects, on the first run I thought they were just health items. It wasn't till I purchased a book that boosted str by 10, it twigged they would be necessary.

Love the music and graphics, don't know why but I wasn't expecting the graphics to be as colourful and big as they are. I think the youtube clips convinced me it would look like a gameboy advance game scaled up. But it completely nails the style of the comics.

Anyone know how to trigger the special combo's you can use when your character is boosted? I've had a couple of moments where Kim has started a fast combo that continues as long as you tap the attack button finishing with her hitting them with drumsticks. Not figured out what starts it though.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Just punching starts that special combo mashup, it only happens when you are flashing.

[crocky-chocky]

It looks so, so nice. More HD games need to be animated in the pixel-by-pixel style of the NES days...and by Paul Robinson. Love how the guitars kick in when you approach the shopping district on the first level, too.

The one thing that disappoints me is how bog-standard the move set is. The videogame nods in the comics had me expecting a more way-out set of moves in a Darkstalkers stylee. Giant Tetsuo mutant arms, Lazer Beams and all that jazz. There's the striker moves, but they don't occur often enough. Just feels a bit...plain.

Good stuff though, and worth buying just for how darned lovely it looks, really.

[Nisa]

Quite often i find that the grab doesn't have as much priority as it should, still can't figure out how to counter (despite mashing O like a maniac when getting attacked), and i'm really not sure why the characters don't have voices..

To counter you must block first and then hit circle. There's actually no way of getting out of an enemy's combo afaik although you do earn the ability to do a quick recovery if you're juggled by them. By the time you have the majority of unlockable moves and upgrade the speed stat to a decent level you should be able to avoid most attacks with ease. I would imagine playing the game in multiplayer would make this much less of a problem.

Another more worrying problem is the number of crashes I've experienced when playing. I've had the game freeze up on me twice and at one point on stage 4 I couldn't progress after killing all the enemies on screen. Quite a few other people have had similar problems which means the game definitely requires a patch.

[Lebowski]

dose anyone know if the xbox version will have any online multiplayer? if it doesn't it will be the first game of this type in a long while on the live service to be released without it.

just read all the books again and it really is paying them heaps of fan service, loved the vegan parody of the winners dont do drugs logo at the start of the game, this had me sold on this before i even played a single level.

[Spatial]

No, there's no online for the XBLA version either.

[saturn-gamer]

Yeah I had about 2 crashes so far.

To counter you have to tap block at the right moment of impact. Its kind of useless, as the risk is becoming the victim of a damaging flurry.

It seems that jump kicks are good openers (never really get defended against), followed by an uppercut and then low sweeps.

[briareos_kerensky]

Just completed the game with Kim.
Does someone know if there are character-dependent endings? Although I don't see myself playing through it once again.
The audiovisual style is undeniable and the multiple comic and videogame references are fun to spot, but the difficulty curve is completely wrong: the more you progress, the easier the game becomes. The level system is at fault there, the first levels are frustrating due to short reach and low movement rate and controls become good around the last two chapters, with some moves (like the slide and multi-slap) become overpowered.

Luckily enough I haven't experienced any crash, though controls went crazy during the Frying Tengu level with the character moving randomly until I used the analog stick (usually playing with the d-pad).