As a lifelong genre aficionado, I am downright giddy at the resurgence of the side-scrolling brawler, which wouldn’t be happening without the likes of Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game kicking things off many moons ago. But time is a flat circle, so new Castle Crashers DLC is coming and we’re getting another Scott Pilgrim game—the cleverly titled Scott Pilgrim EX. Better yet, it’s coming from Tribute Games, the crew who most recently gave us the satisfying TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge.
Scott Pilgrim EX looks to be a successor to the original game, with an all-new story overseen by original comic author Bryan Lee O’Malley (also in charge of Netflix’s recent Scott Pilgrim Takes Off series) and sprite by returning artist Paul Robertson, who has been busy with anarchic (and slightly NSFW) cartoon silliness like Jimmy & Baby here on Youtube. Tribute was founded by devs from the 2010 Scott Pilgrim game too, so the gang’s all here, and firing on all cylinders if the reveal trailer below is any indication.
Yep, that’s Scott Pilgrim alright, down to the soundtrack from chiptune-rock outfit Anamanaguchi. It also appears to be doubling down on the River City Ransom inspirations, with an explorable town (Toronto, specifically), light RPG elements and enemies that you beat until they go BARF and drop their spare change on the ground to fuel your endless hunger for upgrades. The enemies are also playfully riffing off the enemies from the original, with gangs of militant vegans, demons and robots causing a ruckus.
As someone who has mixed feelings on the original Scott Pilgrim brawler, I’m hoping that Tribute have learned some lessons over the years. The first game had notably wonky balance, a flaw that it partially inherited from NES classic River City Ransom: RPG elements bogged down the action potentially breaking it either in your or the enemy’s favor depending on whether you were min-maxing your character builds right. It looked and sounded a treat, but could be a bit of a slog to play.
But that was fifteen years ago, and Tribute have proven that they know what makes a good, fast arcade brawler tick with Shredder’s Revenge. The music and art are every bit as on point as ever, and it’s interesting that the trailer only shows two-player action. The original supported up to four, but it made for a very messy experience, so perhaps it’s an indication of further restraint and lessons learnt.
While Scott & Ramona are the only playable characters shown, others have been confirmed, and I’ve got my fingers crossed for a good range of movesets to differentiate them. There’s a lot of potential here, and while there’s been a good number of brawlers released in recent years, the number of genuinely great ones has been somewhat smaller.
Scott Pilgrim EX won’t be out until next year, but you can wishlist it on Steam here. Those hankering for an arcade brawling fix from the studio won’t have to wait quite that long, though, as Tribute are also working on Marvel Cosmic Invasion, a faster, scrappier looking arcade beat-em-up due later this year.
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