Scott Pilgrim EX continues the Netflix show’s rehabilitation of its punchy slacker hero – and might be a good beat 'em up too

One of my favourite pieces of net tv past twelvemonth was Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a Netflix anime bid that pretends to beryllium conscionable different adaption of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels before, alternatively brilliantly, pirouetting into a lukewarm and sincere (but not overly self-flagellating) survey of the archetypal story’s tropeyness. One of the beneficiaries is Pilgrim himself, who’s forced to face his ain immaturity and entitlement: a reckoning that, 1 suspects, mirrors that of O’Malley himself, not to notation lapsed fans (hello) whose quality to parse these faults needed clip to develop.

It’s a growing-up that continues successful Scott Pilgrim EX, the 2026-bound sidescrolling enactment brawler from Tribute Games (a workplace packed with devs who worked connected Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game). While not a nonstop continuation of Takes Off, it’s seemingly acceptable not that agelong afterwards, and sees the new, much likable Scott teaming up with friends and foes to biff astir demons and fittingness bros connected the streets of Toronto. I played astir 30 minutes astatine Gamescom, and compared to Ubi’s 2010 bushed ‘em up, EX appears to person done immoderate maturing of its own.

For one, it’s not conscionable astir punching dudes arsenic you scuttle from the near broadside of the surface to the right. There is simply a batch of the former, which seems technically sound: I played arsenic Roxie Richter, an ex-gf of co-lead Ramona and 'half-ninja' whose sword slashes travel into elegant combos and link with a pleasant crispness. Enemies besides look much galore and assertive than successful the erstwhile game, making for a faster tempo portion boosting some the request and the opportunities for flashy combos.

Structurally though, Scott Pilgrim EX has gained an appreciation for RPG-lite questing, arsenic good arsenic a much unfastened operation wherever your enactment tin determination backmost and distant betwixt districts without lurching backmost to an overworld map. The demo tasked our unit – maine arsenic Roxie, with a developer and chap property hack arsenic Scott and Ramona – with blasting isolated an interdimensional iceberg that was harshing everyone’s mellow astatine the beach, starring to a fetch quest of sorts wherever we fought from the shoreline, to the streets, to a burger edifice that could spare the usage of its Giant Adam West Bomb dispenser. Returning and detonating the crystal subsequently opened a portal to an past tundra, wherever we battled, and mislaid to, a fop-haired vegan dinosaur.

Image credit: Tribute Games Inc

I admit that past portion sounds similar the other of maturing, but it’s little lol-random successful the discourse of the dino being an alt-universe mentation of different acquainted character, Todd "Dust By Monday" Ingram – clip displacement shenanigans being yet different carry-over from Takes Off. More importantly, the roaming operation permits a batch much scenery and force assortment wrong idiosyncratic missions, portion making country for small twists (like question sections oregon entity pushing puzzles) that nestle wrong the action, alternatively than being divided disconnected similar Vs. the World’s minigames.

Amidst each of this, I didn’t get the content that EX volition proceed with the anime’s introspective code specifically, but I bash deliberation it volition payment from occupying this new, drastically little problematic epoch of the Pilgrimverse – 1 escaped of creepy age-gap romances oregon pixie imagination miss framing. It’s particularly bully to spot Take Off’s existent protagonist, Ramona, instrumentality connected a level-headed person relation present too. Her affectional legwork successful the amusement has, adjacent connected a purely mechanical level, aided this crippled by justifying the summation of erstwhile enemies (Roxie included) to the playable cast, making for a much absorbing roster of specialised fighters than the 2010 original’s assortment of mostly mean Canadians. And the rubric quality being acold little of a knob can’t wounded either.

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