Scott Pilgrim Vs the World Review

A TALE OF 

 ONE YOUNG MANS 

EPIC FIGHT   

FOR TRUE LOVE?

Ramona's seven evil X's

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World is a game available for download on XBLA or PSN, it's based off the hit movie and book series by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Scott Pilgrim is your average young love story? The story goes that Scott Pilgrim is a average joe kinda guy who lives and performs in a band with his friend Stephen Stills and his x-girlfriend Kim Pine, one day he meets the mysterious girl Ramona Flowers and his life is changed forever. All sounds pretty normal to me, yawn..... Oh but wait it turns out Ramona has 7 evil X's that vow to stop her from ever again dating, Scott must fight and defeat them to keep dating Ramona, okay okay I admit the story is a little silly but if you accept it for what it is then you will enjoy yourself, the books are well written and comical, the movie was very well made and worth watching and the game is no exception.                                                              

 (character select screen reference to Super Mario bros 2)

At a glance it looks like any old 2D arcade game but beneath its surface this game has so much more to offer, with its charming 8-bit graphics style presented in glorious HD and complimented by the music of New York's Indie Chip-tune band Anamanaguchi their impressive tracks make for one of the best 8-bit soundtracks I have ever heard. Scott Pilgrim Vs the World borrows from pretty much every old school Brawler/Platformer it can possibly find, with game-play similar to that of  Double Dragon, Golden Axe,    Streets of Rage and Final Fight.      
In addition to the Game-play there are also many visual gags and puns in the game that make reference to retro gaming, games such as Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Megaman, Sonic the Hedgehog, King of Fighters, Guitar Hero ( i know this one isn't retro ) and many more.

Scott smashing some coin blocks in subspace 

Guitar Battle with Todd Ingram, Evil X number three.

All that aside the game itself plays pretty damn well, its fast paced, there are loads of enemies,The character animation in the game is also very smooth and every sprite type has it own unique moves and taunts, some have different and creative death animations which are always fun and comical, they remind me of Metal Slug games. It looks great, the soundtrack is catchy and it's got four player co-op, now its local co-op only, and a lot of people I know bitched about this, why cant we play it online? well to be quite frank I don't give a damn, I actually think it's a good thing, local only play encourages friends to meet up and actually be social rather than yelling at each other through headsets in a dimly lit room.... just saying, that seems to be a trend these days. Because of this I feel the game developers knew this and this decision was clearly on purpose in an attempt to further the old school gaming vibe they are trying to achieve.

Game Over-world

The game is split into 7 stages each with its own evil-X to defeat as the stage boss, each stage is linked by an overworld, a reference to Mario bros 3. Each stage is unique in its own way, from level design, to enemies and obviously the boss.
Ramona's X's are seriously the weirdest bunch of people anyone could possibly date, but they make for fun bosses with their individual fighting styles. From Matthew Patel who fights with Fire balls and Demon lackies, to Todd Ingram whose Guitar blasts break down walls and his Super attack similar to that of K9999 from King of Fighters.  

Todd performing his ultimate vegan attack.

As you progress through the game your character will level up to a maximum of 16, every time you level up you unlock new moves and gain stat boosts, you can also use the various in-game shops to buy items which affect your players status, as there are four players to complete and multiple difficulties as well as an unlockable character this adds to the games re-play value.


Now one thing I do think I should mention is this game does glitch, it has a horrible habit of freezing during a boss fight forcing you to re-do the whole stage again, now this is a real pain especially when your on the later stages because some of them get pretty hard on your first play-through. But the game is fun and addictive enough that you will go back and try again, so its not the end of the world.



All in all Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is wonderful homage to retro gaming and a fast and fun game for you and a few friends to sit down an play in remembrance of a simpler time in gaming when it wasn't all about your gamer-score or your K/D spread.


THE SCORE:  7.5/10   
+ 8-Bit style looks great in HD      
+ Ingenious soundtrack
+ Solid gameplay

- Short
- Less fun alone
- Prone to glitching

My Review of Super Metroid for SNES

While traversing an elaborate cave system filled with a multitude of bizarre and dangerous creatures who all want nothing more than seeing you dead, using your rockets you decide to clear a path through to your objective, a space pirate headquarter's, you storm in guns blazing taking out the first foe with a rocket blast, before his corpse can even reach the ground you take out a further two foes with one clean shot from your plasma beam, straight through both their skulls, but more keep showing up... you decide this calls for a swift retreat so you shrink down to your morph ball and make a quick escape through a nearby tunnel, you fall down a large chasm and now your waist deep in molten rock, searching the belly of a great cavern for your next upgrade... all in a days work for the galaxies greatest bounty hunter. Welcome to the world of Samus Aran.
                                ( North American box art )

For those of you that haven't guessed by now ( or read the title... ), the game i'm describing is Metroid, but more specifically Super Metroid which is quite possibly the best of the entire Metroid franchise has to offer, maybe even the best SNES game? Well in this review i go over why I believe this from both a technical and professional point of view but also my own personal thoughts.

                                          ( Samus exiting her ship ready for her new mission )

Super Metroid is one of the most polished games the SNES library has to offer as far as visuals and sound go, It's up there with games the like of Super Castlevania 4 and Megaman X. The best way of describing what kind of game Super Metroid is would be a Platforming/Exploration game with Rpg elements. The game is split into four main areas each of the areas you visit on your adventure has its own individual style and artistic direction as well as its own unique soundtracks, yet the game world holds together as one cohesive design. The music blends in an out seamlessly as you venture from area to area, new enemy types are slowly introduced the more you progress, and mini-boss encounters and new equipment pickups add a unspoken sense of progression through your quest.

 (samus finding the morph ball)
There are numerous Beam types, Rocket and Super rockets, Bombs, the Speed Booster and many more upgrades are available to collect through your journey, most are required to advance to new areas but there are a decent amount of optional upgrades; such as the charge beam, that don't have to be collected or even found by the player. As well as the upgrades there are collectible rocket, power bomb and energy tanks. All these items are completely optional pickups and there are numerous of each scattered throughout each area of the game, these items aid you in your quest by adding more ammo capacity and more bars to your life energy. Whats great about this mechanic is that it allows the player to set themselves challenges within the game such as complete the game with no rocket pickups for example, adding to the games re-playability.                                                                                                                                                


( Below are samus in her Varia and Gravity suit, they add new features such as extreme temperature protection and damage resistance. )

                                                     









                                                                             

                                                                                         
                                     




  ( Samus Vs Crocomire, one of the games many mini-bosses )

I like to think of this mechanic as a Risk/Reward system which presents the player with a choice, do I simply run through this room bypassing whatever upgrades might be hiding, or do I check out that strange looking lava pit to then find out its open bottomed an the lava is an illusion or do I freeze that enemy that's flying around up there an climb on his back to see if I can get up through the ceiling.




Samus using the Wave Beam

Spazer Beam



Charge Beam


As I mentioned earlier the game is split into four main areas Brinstar, Maridia, Wrecked Ship and Norfair each with its own boss, the great thing about the bosses in Super Metroid is that they are all completely unique in their own right.
From Ridley the Dragon-esque creature who's responsible for the deaths of Samus' parents, Kraid a giant reptilian beast who requires Samus to climb up to his head to even damage him, Draygon who resembles a Crustacean and the Ghost creature Phantoon who fights using flame projectiles.





Fighting Phantoon aboard the Wrecked ship, whats odd about this boss fight is that you defeat him before you can explore the rest of the level so its in reverse to regular format.

Kraid is your first true boss fight in Super Metroid.





Theres a trick to killing Draygon, in that if you destroy the wall mounted guns they reveal exposed electrical wires, when Draygon picks you up simply grapple beam the wires to fry him, careful though it hurts you too.

Ridley is the fourth and final boss to open Mother Brains lair, an there is a reason for that, he deals huge damage and he's a hard as nails, there's no real strategy to beating him, just fire all your rockets cuz he takes around 100 to bring down.



When you defeat all the Bosses you can enter the final area of the game and face the Mother Brain who leads the Space Pirates, although there's a twist this time.





This Bizarre statue can be found at the beginning of the game, each time you defeat a boss their portion goes grey and there jewel ceases to shine until finally a path to the final area is revealed.



Mother brain looked like this in Metroid.

But in Super Metroid She's got a whole new get up, what i've taken to calling Mecha-brain, not the official title but i like it.





 I mean WTF?! what is this, and the music, simply horrifying.
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=AqaNrWcIRYY&list=PLF44182750EB9CD84

Listen to it.....

In conclusion Super Metroid is one superb piece of gaming history and should be played by anyone who considers themselves a gamer, whether its from you era or not, regardless of whether you hate Platformers, this game just has to be played, its a classic.

Samus using the grapple beam and fighting a might chozo statue mini-boss.

So lets get down to it, the score.

+ Great atmosphere and Environments that just keep on giving.
+ Gorgeous soundtrack.
+ Multitudes of enemies and bosses.
+ Insane amounts of collectibles.
+ Hugely Re-playable.
+ Tight and Concise controls, even by today's standards.

- Can be a little overwhelming for some newcomers to the series.

All in all Super metroid is a Triumph of gaming well worthy of a perfect score.
10/10