OrangeRKN wrote:They're different styles of beat 'em up. If you want to replay the game you start a new save (or play through as different characters who you haven't levelled). I don't think the balance of levelling is perfect as I remember grinding a little back on PS3, but stat/skill progression adds a lot to the genre for me - it's great to have some control over your character build and to balance the stats to your preference (which also adds another layer of management to the gameplay and more to explore with shops and the like), to have a wider pool of skills that keep things fresh as you unlock more, and to have that general RPG power curve of being able to smash through groups of what were once singularly difficult enemies.
Streets of Rage 4 is great but personally I find its pure arcade gameplay focus also means it holds less interest in its simplicity.
Both games also have incredibly good visuals and soundtracks so comparing them there is not easy!
Here's the thing though, Scott Pilgrim makes you unlock things that SOR gives you from the beginning. It's not a more complex game, it just gates it's content.
Action games that try and add "depth" by shoving in RPG elements without proper consideration are the worst. It turns the game from you get getting better and learning to banging your head against a brick wall until you made the numbers go high enough.
I'm not saying it can't work if implemented with careful balancing so the stats don't have an overbearing impact, but unfortunately in this game they are pretty overbearing. I still remember playing the first few levels, you knock enemies over and wait for them to get up a ridiculous amount of times because you do so little damage, it feels really bad.
And it's not like you have to make difficult decisions like in most RPGs, you can just grind and max out everything if you really want to.
I don't know why so many people give retro style games a free pass with this kind of thing, if you played any modern action game and had to go back to past levels to grind so you could beat a boss I can't imagine people going "ooh such depth"
In short, SOR: Learn the game, get better, do better
Scott Pilgrim: Make numbers go up, you win
It doesn't add depth at all, it in fact makes the game way more shallow because you can just brute force everything.
Perfect example of this is Pokémon, the leveling breaks the game and either makes battles ridiculously hard or a joke, single player content is often just "I have bigger level, lol I win" where as multiplayer battles where everyone is the same level are ridiculously tactical and require a lot of interesting strategies.