Scott Pilgrim EX review: So good it’ll punch the highlights out of your hair

On days like today, it’s important to remember that for six years, one of the best modern beat ‘em ups was locked away from players.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game was originally released as a digital-only Xbox 360 and PS3 game back in 2010, but was delisted in December 2014 and became impossible to buy from that point on.

For six long years players campaigned to get Ubisoft to resurrect the game and finally, in January 2021, it returned on modern platforms as Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game – Complete Edition. All was well with the world, happy ending, roll credits.

Turns out that wasn’t the end of the story, however. Those Scott Pilgrim fans weren’t aiming high enough – they were too busy petitioning for the return of an old game that they didn’t consider the possibility of an entirely new one. That’s why, when it was announced last year that an all-new Scott Pilgrim game was on the way, it came as a complete surprise to many, who hadn’t even realised that was on the table.

That all-new game, Scott Pilgrim EX, is now here, and fans will doubtless be pleased to hear that developer Tribute Games has created something that’s even better than its predecessor.

On paper, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Tribute Games was founded in Montreal a year after the release of the original Scott Pilgrim game, with a leadership team composed of former Ubisoft Montreal developers who worked on that very title. In a sense, then, Scott Pilgrim EX is a homecoming of sorts for the studio, and even though Ubisoft isn’t involved in publishing this one it’s still very much a sequel.

Tribute is also the studio behind two of the best recent 2D beat ‘em ups – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Marvel Cosmic Invasion – so any concerns that it was going to drop the ball with the IP that spawned the company in the first place should probably have been dismissed in hindsight.

I’m not going to get into plot details too much, but the game is an all-new story written by Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley and while it takes place after the events of the Scott Pilgrim Takes Off animated series, it doesn’t really have anything to do with it. You don’t need to have seen it to understand what’s going on here – in reality, you don’t need to have engaged with any previous Scott Pilgrim media to still enjoy this game – but obviously the more familiar you are with the characters the more you’ll get out of it.

This extends to knowledge of video games as a whole, particularly (but not exclusively) the 8-bit and 16-bit era. Scott Pilgrim EX is absolutely rammed with references to classic games, and they’re not always as in-your-face as the Mario-style question blocks in the first game.

The Vegan Police headquarters bears more than a passing resemblance to the police station in Resident Evil 2. One bonus area has you fighting rotund enemies in a bathhouse that looks just like E Honda’s stage in Street Fighter 2. One of the new enemies is Metal Scott – a clear reference to Metal Sonic, right down to his spin attack – and he’s eventually accompanied by a robot dog, much like Mega Man’s pal Rush.

Whether it’s Castlevania, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Streets of Rage, Super Mario Bros 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, River City Ransom, the NES, Ocarina of Time or the countless puns on Toronto shop names, this is a game that doesn’t need you to get any of its references to enjoy it, but is even more entertaining if you do.

“Whether it’s Castlevania, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Streets of Rage, Super Mario Bros 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, River City Ransom, the NES, Ocarina of Time or the countless puns on Toronto shop names, this is a game that doesn’t need you to get any of its references to enjoy it, but is even more entertaining if you do.”

Tribute’s previous work on Shredder’s Revenge also shines through here, because it’s the Konami-era Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat ‘em ups that easily get more nods than any other video game series.

One section features a house fire that looks exactly like April’s apartment in the first level of the original TMNT arcade game. Another is set on a moving train that looks very familiar to the one in Turtles in Time’s wild west stage. One of the boss fights also has a similar pattern to Super Shredder at the end of Turtles in Time, accompanied by music that goes heavy on the SNES-style synth hit used liberally by Konami in that game.

Speaking of the music, Anamanaguchi returns for an all-new soundtrack, as it did for the first game. The New York-based chiptune rock band is incapable of producing anything other than bangers, and Scott Pilgrim EX is no exception. The second that soundtrack is available on Spotify, it’ll be going into heavy rotation in the Scullion household.

The presentation may be immaculate, then, but the proof is always in the playing and in that respect the game is no slouch. Combat is similar to the first game, and while the seven playable characters all have similar movesets their animations are so unique to their characters that they still feel different to play even if they aren’t massively so at their core. Hitting enemies feels solid and satisfying, and the multitude of weapons available to swing or throw means fights are rarely boring.

It’s certainly not an easy game. Even on the Normal difficulty level the boss fights can be gruelling affairs, and you can expect frequent deaths until you not only figure out the strategies to take them out, but manage to execute those strategies while still dealing with the other standard enemies getting in your way. The difficulty can be dropped to Easy or Super Easy at any point, so you’ll never actually find yourself getting stuck, but you’d never do that. Would you?

It should also be noted that while the game can absolutely be played through in its entirety as a solo affair, the fact that it also supports local and online co-op for up to four players suggests you’re going to have an easier time of it if you can find some other willing participants to join your band and fight your way through Toronto.

The game’s new semi-open world structure will also divide players. Rather than the linear seven-stage setup of its predecessor, Scott Pilgrim EX instead has players running around a section of Toronto consisting of around 40 main screens. There’s a shipping area, a movie studio, a distillery district, the suburbs and so on, as well as portals which send Scott to the past or the future as the story demands.

It’s far more like NES game River City Ransom in this sense, that the player has to travel to certain locations to continue the story, but is free to travel wherever they like between these story beats. Some may have preferred the more linear nature of the first game, and the backtracking required here certainly lends to the argument that it’s a way to extend the length of the game by reusing assets, but others will find it a welcome change of pace, and the numerous hidden areas which are found with keys and bombs result in more exploration than before.

It’s the length that will ultimately determine whether Scott Pilgrim EX is the game for you. Experienced players will hit the credits in under five hours on their first playthrough, and subsequent playthroughs in New Game+ mode may be even quicker. As suggested by its achievement list, however, this is a game that welcomes multiple playthroughs and wants you to see the endings for every character. If this is something you’re willing to take on, you’re then looking at well over 20 hours.

It’s certainly a prospect I’m looking forward to. The key to Scott Pilgrim EX is that – like any good beat ‘em up – an adventure that’s short but satisfying is one that’s worth experiencing again, and as such the thought of playing through it a second, third or fourth time doesn’t feel like it’s going to be a chore. If anything, I’m looking at my level 211 Scott and my level 16 Ramona and thinking it’s her time to shine next.