Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: Complete Edition | NSW/PS4/XBO/PC | OUT NOW

I thought this was a brawler not an RPG?

At the end of the day there is always room for more variety within each genre, but it sounds like this isn't the flavour of side-scrolling beat 'em up that would appeal to me.

OrangeRKN wrote:I think character level keeping pace with stage level is pretty much the definition of balance in an RPG

This isn't an RPG though

It's a 4 player brawler with stats loosely stapled to it's forehead. The first time I played this I got stuck on the 3rd or so level because the stat boosting is so hidden away

The whole point of RPGs is that you can make interesting builds and choices.

Games who just have stat boosting to try and give a false sense of progression are making the game worse.

Because like you say, if the stats just keep up with the level you're on, what the strawberry float is the point in having them in the first place? It's just another hoop to jump through in order to progress while at the same time making the levels you've already played less balanced and less fun.

And as a brawler it just makes it a massive pain in the ass if you want to replay it with friends. Not to mention it essentially forces you to play with one character through the entire game instead of being able to experiment.

It's another one of those situations like Bloodborne where all the RPG elements do is gate your progress rather than allowing you to have a specific playstyle or express yourself.

The fighting itself is fun but all the gooseberry fool around it is just bad game design.

Jenuall wrote:I thought this was a brawler not an RPG?

At the end of the day there is always room for more variety within each genre, but it sounds like this isn't the flavour of side-scrolling beat 'em up that would appeal to me.

We're talking about the balance of RPG mechanics. In a beat 'em up without them the remaining "balance" considerations are the balance between playable characters and the difficulty curve. Scott Pilgrim still has those obviously but when you introduce stat progression that adds an additional consideration to the difficulty curve. To balance an RPG you need the stat progression to keep the player on that smooth curve. If they drop below it they will feel "underlevelled" and have to grind back up, while if they rise above the curve they will feel "overlevelled" and coast. I reckon (and it will be interesting when I replay this to see if I still agree) that Scott Pilgrim starts off with you below the curve, but once you grind up onto it you can reasonably comfortably stay on it without dropping back below or rising above, providing you make a reasonable effort to keep up with buying items for stat boosts - which is where part of the extra depth of the approach comes in as you are managing that progression.

As you say there is room for various subgenres of beat 'em up (and this isn't exactly a new one, I think a lot of the Kunio-kun series is like this*, not just the recent River City Girls), but even if you're an arcade purist I reckon it's hard to not enjoy this game if you play it in co-op with a couple of friends, especially if you like the source material.

* In fact the band "Crash and the Boys" in Scott Pilgrim is a direct reference to a Kunio-kun series game so the Scott Pilgrim game being of this genre makes a lot of sense!

Fade wrote:Because like you say, if the stats just keep up with the level you're on, what the strawberry float is the point in having them in the first place? It's just another hoop to jump through in order to progress while at the same time making the levels you've already played less balanced and less fun.

Finding the shops and choosing where to spend your money and what stat boosts to buy adds another layer of management to the game. Like I posted above it gives the player some responsibility for maintaining their position on the difficult curve and not dropping below it. I can understand you not liking that approach but that is a core part of RPG design, not an objective flaw.

I think we're giving too much focus to the progression from the stats perspective though, for me a large part of the subgenre's appeal is in the skill progression. Unlocking new moves as the game progresses keeps the combat fresh and rewarding. I can't recall too well how in-depth Scott Pilgrim goes with it, but in River City Girls the number of moves you would unlock made the combat feel better than when I played Streets of Rage 4 shortly afterwards (I can't find a move list for Streets of Rage 4 to actually compare against though!).

Fade wrote:And as a brawler it just makes it a massive pain in the ass if you want to replay it with friends. Not to mention it essentially forces you to play with one character through the entire game instead of being able to experiment.

It's awkward if you want to play inconsistently in multiplayer and I agree it stops you from freely switching between characters mid-game, but generally the answer here is just start a new save (or if you're playing on your own, play as a new character for a fresh run through the game). If you want to replay the game why wouldn't you start over?

OrangeRKN wrote:

deathofcows wrote:And I say that mainly because I bought River City Girls in the hope of some of that some bubblegum pop culture cool, but Man the enemies take too many hits in that game! It's such a shame because the game looks and sounds great (though the map and writing are a bit crap) but the game feels like a bit of a slog at times because of how robust the enemies are

I absolutely love River City Girls and it's better than Scott Pilgrim for my money! You can quite quickly buy a ground attack that will maybe address your main complaint if you are tempted to give it another go. The visuals and sound are fantastic, I still listen to the soundtrack. I have to disagree on the writing though - I found it genuinely funny. Misako and Kyoko are great leads and the voice acting for the whole cast is really top notch.

Like Scott Pilgrim though the game really is balanced for multiplayer. If you can play River City Girls in co-op with a friend I think you'll also find it a better experience.

I'm actually half way through it, and have done all that in Co-Op! So I am trying to play it in the best light, promise!

And I do love the presentation and style. I think I basically bought the game just because of its eShop screenshots, the illustration style and Kyoko's cross-earrings. It's all cool enough for me to still want to finish it! And I don't disagree on the voice acting - I think it's top-tier - but the writing and jokes in the dialogue interludes just feel a little lame to me. And yeah the music is great (though maybe nothing for me is as good as , which is one of my main reasons to get Scott Pilgrim!)

But despite plenty of upgrade moves I still find the enemies in RCG (and their numbers) too resistant to the point of feeling like a chore at times. I can't quite remember off the top of my head, but even with combos and those rainbow moves and the stomping I feel like the enemies go down and up like 4 or 5 times before submitting. Which feels like a lot!

The best bit so far for me was the boss battle with Hibari because it actually felt hard to learn to co-ordinate to avoid her arrow thing. Also we had to learn a new thing to beat her (that attacking from both sides takes off a crazy amount of life) which felt like a relief tbh (because even her lifebar is hella long) - but beating her was satisfying.

Anyway I'll try again (though it's becoming harder and harder to persuade by co-op co-partners) and hopefully will finish it eventually!

OrangeRKN wrote:

Fade wrote:Because like you say, if the stats just keep up with the level you're on, what the strawberry float is the point in having them in the first place? It's just another hoop to jump through in order to progress while at the same time making the levels you've already played less balanced and less fun.

Finding the shops and choosing where to spend your money and what stat boosts to buy adds another layer of management to the game. Like I posted above it gives the player some responsibility for maintaining their position on the difficult curve and not dropping below it. I can understand you not liking that approach but that is a core part of RPG design, not an objective flaw.

I think we're giving too much focus to the progression from the stats perspective though, for me a large part of the subgenre's appeal is in the skill progression. Unlocking new moves as the game progresses keeps the combat fresh and rewarding. I can't recall too well how in-depth Scott Pilgrim goes with it, but in River City Girls the number of moves you would unlock made the combat feel better than when I played Streets of Rage 4 shortly afterwards (I can't find a move list for Streets of Rage 4 to actually compare against though!).

Right but I don't understand how that's meant to be fun. It's just a cheap way to elongate the game "oh no you can't do enough damage? Replay this level a few times to grind some upgrades".

It focuses the gameplay too much on decisions you've made before the fight rather than the fight itself. I don't understand why you would want that in a brawler.

You can't just say "Oh well it makes you manage your points" like that's automaticly a positive thing. The way you word it makes it sound like the materia system from FF7 when it's literally just 4 bars that have no effect on your playstyle. Also this isn't an RPG, you can't keep applying the same rules to it as Dark Souls or Skyrim, those games encourage vastly diffet playstyles depending on what you put your points into, this game does not. The stat implementation in this game is objectively bad because it ignores the entire point of RPGs.

If I remember correctly each character has two unique moves they can unlock, so they're basically just forcing you to grind to unlock moves that are in other brawlers from the start. Other than that they just gatekeep all of the universal stuff for a few levels for some reason, I guess again to give a false sense of progression.

Surely you can see the stats system in this game is just a vehicle to pad the playtime out? It doesn't offer you any interesting choices or encourage you to play in different ways. It's literally just there to make people play the same levels over and over.

But maybe OR just instinctively finds its combination of Stats and Attacks fun? Whatever it may boil down to when broken down in analysis!

Might pick up the LRG PS4 special edition for this. And the vinyl. And the trading cards...bah

deathofcows wrote:But maybe OR just instinctively finds its combination of Stats and Attacks fun? Whatever it may boil down to when broken down in analysis!

People can enjoy whatever they want.

I'm just pointing out how it achieves nothing from a design perspective other than to make you replay the same levels. Which I don't think most people would consider a good thing unless they have an abundance of free time.

When you compare it to other games that do RPG mechanics well it fails in almost every area.

deathofcows wrote:I'm actually half way through it, and have done all that in Co-Op! So I am trying to play it in the best light, promise!

And I do love the presentation and style. I think I basically bought the game just because of its eShop screenshots, the illustration style and Kyoko's cross-earrings. It's all cool enough for me to still want to finish it! And I don't disagree on the voice acting - I think it's top-tier - but the writing and jokes in the dialogue interludes just feel a little lame to me.

Fair enough, I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you of playing it wrong! I can see why you might call the writing lame, to me it's very endearing in its school age whimsy that's taken so seriously by those involved. It's very kid's TV in a way?

absolutely not, stop asking this wrote:Might pick up the LRG PS4 special edition for this. And the vinyl. And the trading cards...bah

I ordered the standard Switch physical, still comes with full colour manual and a concert ticket which is neat. The extra merch they have for this is insane. The soundtrack was very tempting as part of the special edition but the other stuff was too much tat territory for me!

Fade wrote:I'm just pointing out how it achieves nothing from a design perspective other than to make you replay the same levels. Which I don't think most people would consider a good thing unless they have an abundance of free time.

When you compare it to other games that do RPG mechanics well it fails in almost every area.

I think the secret shops summarise my feelings well. I enjoy going through a level to search out the secret shops and them selling stat boosts gives a reason to do so. Finding them is fun while the stat boosts are mechanically rewarding. Going back to a stage at a higher level takes the pressure off getting through it to make for easier exploration to find secrets and accelerates the process, plus I genuinely find it fun and satisfying to tear through what were once challenging opponents when you get that much stronger. Absolutely it's an illusion of progression of the player compared to finding it easier because you've got better at the game (and I find game design like that great too!) but I'm happy with that illusion!

That fair enough. I just personally think games that have to rely on 'rewards' and numbers increasing rather than varied interactions with the game itself are at their heart badly designed.

Because at the end of the day, anything can be made 'enjoyable' if there is a reward (numerical or otherwise) at the end, that's why slot machines exist.

I think Destiny 2 was the nail in the coffin that made me take note of these kinds of systems in games. It made me really aware I was just completing a task for another go on the virtual slot machine rather than because I enjoyed the interactions themselves.

I found this site earlier that points out the strategies companies use to keep people engaged outside of direct interactions with the game, found it quite interesting https://www.darkpattern.games/
Most of the stuff I'm talking about is under psychological dark patterns

Finally jumped back on this, beat Lucas Lee, not sure if I missed picking up the skateboard or not, was too busy picking up coins Looking up about it, I need to save up enough to pay off Scott’s video debts so I can get cheap constant stat buffs, on.h another 280 needed!

Think I’ll probably just play this through a couple of times, with Scott and Ramona, I’m really liking it but not sure if I want to play it through with the 5 or 6 characters available

Don’t think there’s anything wrong with grinding when the game is so fun, anyway I’ve been enjoying this a lot.

I’ve really started to enjoy this more as I’ve got further into it, I have found there’s a few minor annoyances on the Lucas Lee level though, I kind of got stuck at one point as the 3 enemies attacks lined up nicely timing wise that I just couldn’t do anything! I’ve actually found the bosses to be the easier part of the levels which I’m quite glad about considering how easily you can go from full health to next to nothing. Just up to level 5 anyway and need about 120 more to open up the stat buff shop, might just breeze through the first level a couple more times to get them unlocked and a few bought.

Do the levels actually differ much for the different characters? As I mentioned above, definitely going to play it through with Scott and Ramona but quite tempted to play it with the rest later in the year if they offer something different.

The levels are exactly the same, it's just the characters who play different. You can play it in co-op after all!

Finally got enough money to clear the debts for Scott, now to repeat level 1 another couple of times so I can get a few upgrades!

Edit, bought the one that upgrades all your stats by 10, this is so much more fun when your stats are better

Edit 2, Scott’s run is complete the game really does come alive when you have most of the moves, max stats etc, with the other games I’ve got on the go at the moment I’m not going to rush into a second playthrough as while I didn’t mind the grind with Scott I’m not exactly in a rush to repeat it!

Played a fair amount of this online with a friend. Mostly it's still good however it is pretty buggy and prone to crashing online which is a real disappointment. We're close to the end but struggling on the final boss battles so will probably need to grind a bit to buy some of the stat upgrade items.

Started this on Switch last night, played through the first level a couple of times and bought the Bionic Arm from Wallace’s secret shop. Game looks fantastic and I love the soundtrack, perfect portable game.