I love a good beat-em-up, but I especially love one with an interesting story and quests, uncoverable secrets, beautiful design, and of course when the character roster includes Ramona. It's totally not because I also have pink and blue hair at the moment, she is just that iconic. If you want to see our absolutely objective and not at all clouded by Ramona review of Scott Pilgrim EX, then keep reading!
Visuals
All jokes aside, the game is a beauty in visual design overall (not just Ramona and her cool additional skins), which is unsurprising consider it has a lot of source material to pull from. The aesthetic is just what you'd expect from a Scott Pilgrim game. As you explore each area of the semi-open world, you'll see the fun split design of the regular town as well as other areas like the Beaches, Casa Vania, fantasy-land, etc. I especially enjoy the Ice Age area of the Beaches after you've unlocked it.
The world is full but not visually cluttered. Everything added you can in most chances interact with it and it serves to add to the story, not just a big world with nothing to do in it.
Apart from the environmental design, I really enjoyed the NPC design, and I don't mean just the Bosses. Admittedly, they were extra cool as well, but the smaller original NPCs designed just for the game like Aerials, Demonas and Desdemonas, Vegan Degans, and much more. Kaptors, while cool in design, can disappear. If one more of them grabs me with their hook, I will riot. Overall, the combination of both original and familiar design is what makes it work.
Combat
One thing that I wish for when it comes to the Scott Pilgrim EX combat is more combos for each of the characters. However, that's just my old Tekken player competitiveness popping up. If you just want a fun story and some challenging combat without having to learn long attack chains, then this is the game for you. It also helps that there are many characters which you can play as, on top of the various builds you can set these characters with, which means there is going to be a perfect character for your playstyle. For me, those were Scott, Lucas, and Ramona, as I'm not big on Ranged characters.
When it comes to the enemies, the Bosses all have unique movesets that you have to learn if you want to come out on top. Sometimes it will take you a few tries of figuring out the best Badges and Assists, but not too many deaths that you get overly frustrated. Super Simon Lee for example was extra frustrating for me, while Baby G was extra easy.
Gameplay
As I mentioned above, the world is semi-open, which means that while you do have clear ideas on where to go, you can still explore a lot of the world on your own to uncover some secrets. Apart from the regular missions, there is a bunch of secret side quests which you can complete for Red Chests and Extra rewards, like finding the Secret Ninja, training with Mobile at Wallace's house (which also makes you better at combat), and more.
It's pretty linear, but you do have some freedom to explore. I would have enjoyed more variety in missions, maybe a few more secret puzzles like the Chess Piece ones in Casa Vania, but at the end of the day, this game is a beat-em-up. It gives you what it says it will and more.
Should I Play Scott Pilgrim EX?
Whether this is your first beat-em-up, your millionth, whether you're a fan of Scott Pilgrim or not, you will enjoy playing this game. In the era of the beat-em-up revival with games like Absolum and Marvel Cosmic Invasion, it's good to see more games release and show you how it's done. It's nothing groundbreaking, but not all of the games I play need to blow my mind. Sometimes it's good to just enjoy something and have fun while playing it.
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