A 2010 downloadable game by Ubisoft Montreal and Chengdu for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade based off the comic book series of the same name, it was made in conjunction with the movie adaptation of the series and released onto PlayStation Network the film was due out in theaters; the Xbox LIVE Arcade version of the game came out a week later.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is a side-scrolling brawler that was made in retro-style to harken back to the 8-bit and 16-bit era of video gaming. The game's plot is the same as the series it was based on; the story follows a slacker who falls head-over-heels when he meets an out of town delivery girl, Ramona V. Flowers, and he must battle with her seven evil exes in order to continue dating her. Players can play as Scott Pilgrim, Kim Pine, Stephen Stills, and Ramona Flowers as they battle their way across countless goons in a video game version of Toronto and ultimately take down Ramona's seven evil exes. Like the classic beat 'em up River City Ransom, the game features RPG Elements that allows Scott and his friends to earn money to purchase various items from various stores all throughout Toronto, and gain new abilities and level-up as they beat up enemies.
Both the series' author Bryan Lee O'Malley and the film's director Edgar Wright were heavily involved in the creation of the game. The sprites were made by famed sprite-artist and animator Paul Robertson with music provided by Anamanaguchi, a chiptune punk band. There are a few changes from the comic to help fit the game.
On November 20th, 2010, the PlayStation Network version of the game received its first add-on pack to coincide with the film's DVD and Blu-ray release; the Xbox 360 version later received the add-on pack on December of the same year. The first add-on pack adds Knives Chau as a playable character, a Dodgeball Mode that is exactly what its name suggests, a Battle Royale Mode that allows players to battle each other, a drop-in and drop-out multiplayer function, and other bug fixes for $2.
In 2012, originally planned to coincide with the full-color re-release of the comic books, the game was getting its second add-on pack that features Wallace Wells as a playable character and online multi-player, was slated for August 19th, 2012, but was pushed back for a 2013 release; it finally came out late in March 2013 and was available for $5 on both systems.
Alas, on December 30th, 2014, the game was delisted from both PSN and XBLA, the leading explanation being due to the licenses expiring (though nothing concrete on that front has emerged), and became a notorious example of a game lost to history in game preservation circles. Fans have rallied to try and get the game back, a sentiment Bryan Lee O'Malley shared; on August 10th, 2016, he expressed a strong desire on Twitter
to see the game re-released, saying "Give me time."
Four years later, fans' prayers were answered, as on August 13th, 2020, he said that Ubisoft has reached out to him, and on September 10th, 2020, the Ubiforward event confirmed a re-release of the game as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game - Complete Edition. Complete Edition was made available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Amazon Luna, Google Stadia, and PC through Ubisoft Connect, Epic Game Store, and Humble Bundle on January 14th, 2021, and includes the Knives Chau and Wallace Wells DLC. It was eventually added to Steam on January 6th, 2023.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game provides examples of:
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- 11th-Hour Superpower: The Power of Love sword appears stuck in a cloud for you to pick up right before the fight with Gideon's One-Winged Angel second form.
- Absurdly-Long Limousine: For Clash At Demonhead; and it's modeled after K.I.T.T..
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Near the beginning of Level 4, Roxy's sword is able to actually cut parts of a Toronto Streetcar in the game; she does it twice.
- Actually a Doombot: The battle with "regular" Gideon Graves ends with him turning out to be a robot fought in a hologram area. The real Gideon was the one running the simulation, and he... immediately surrenders Dr. Wily-style, then goes down in one hit.
- Adaptational Badass: Scott takes down Gideon's One-Winged Angel form in the comic in a single headbutt. Here, it's a fairly difficult boss.
- Adaptational Curves: Thanks to Paul Robertson, many of the female cast are noticeably more curvy (and bouncy) than they are in the original comic book.
- Adaptation Distillation: In the comic, the Twins send several robots after Scott to fight. Here it's Robot 01, and their super fighting robot giant mecha.
- Adaptational Villainy: Nega-Scott. In both other forms of media Scott Pilgrim inhabits, Nega-Scott is an aspect of Scott Scott has to learn to accept of himself note . In this game? Just another boss to be punched out without explanation as to why. The ending of his campaign says it rather plainly that he's a plain villain, taking over the world and sending the heroes to the salt mines.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Todd Ingram has a "Type B" sequence.
- Affectionate Parody: The reversible cover art for the limited physical editions of Complete Edition by Limited Run Games features an alternate cover art illustrated by Bryan Lee O'Malley that mimics the Japanese Mega Drive cover art of the first three Sonic the Hedgehog games with Scott and Ramona mimicking Sonic's iconic pose from the cover art of Sonic Adventure for the re-release's box art and clamshell case respectively.
- All There in the Manual: Nothing to prevent enjoying the game, but there are some things that are only explained if you read the series.
- All There in the Script: The names of the enemies are brought up in the credits after beating the game.
- Ass Kicks You: Kim's and Knives' strong dash attack has them throwing out her tushy to hit people. It's pretty funny to watch when you could actually use that attack to destroy a car as well as cement blocks.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The higher your strength gets, the harder you throw items. It gets very easy to have a rebounding item hit you in the face.
- Background Boss: The Twins' Super Robot Fighter.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Finish the game with Nega-Scott for this ending type.
- Bandit Mook: In Roxy's level, there are enemies with masks who can body check your character, causing them to drop a bit of cash.
- Bait-and-Switch: Kim's ending has her walking suggestively towards Scott, causing him to get nervous about what she could want. She then walks past him and off into the sunset with Knives much to Scott and Steven's confusion.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: In Gideon's mind.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- The credits give special thanks to "Gong Bao Ji Ding".
- Mrs. Chau, when called in as Knives' striker or as a secret striker once any character obtains Mr. Chau, will call an enemy a grass mud horse.
- The credits give special thanks to "Gong Bao Ji Ding"
- Bishounen Line: Gideon's final form is simply his normal holographic human body with the pixel katana.
- Bloody Murder: In 'Subspace Highway?', right before you fight Gideon's second form, Gigadeon, blood droplets will rain down upon your group as you make your way through. Also, this appears to be one of said boss form's attacks, in the form of blood-red skulls. Given the creatures that appear near the end of this area, the droplets could be interpreted as bloody tears.
- Blue with Shock: In Knives' ending, after beating the final boss, she jumps into Scott's arms and kisses him, and suddenly they are getting married in front of all of Scott's friends. Knives looks lovely in her gown. Scott is very confused... so much so that his face is turning blue and his eyes are very wide open.
- Body Horror: Two instances:
- Todd Ingram from Stage 3 has an attack where he uses his arm to transform into an array of different vegetables similar to a certain scene in AKIRA with great power; using it causes him to get exhausted.
- The second one is Gigadeon Graves from Stage 7, whose whole body is covered in veins that connect to his external heart. The lower half of his body consists of the heads of the previously defeated Evil Exes that spit out electrical spheres.
- Bootstrapped Theme: "Another Winter" is quickly approaching this, "Rock Club" being a close second due to the raw awesome tonnage invoked.
- Boss Remix: Nega-Scott's battle theme is a more malevolent version of the main menu music.
- Boss Rush: Unlockable with a cheat code.
- Cast from Hit Points: Summoning with Guts points uses Hit Points instead when Guts runs out.
- Classic Cheat Code: Lots. Some unlock the Power of Love, Survival Horror mode, Boss Rush mode, Blood, coins change to animals, unlocking the sound screen, and there's probably more.
- Competitive Balance:
- Scott: Jack of All Stats
- Ramona: Fragile Speedster
- Stephen: Mighty Glacier, albeit more agile than most examples
- Kim: Lightning Bruiser
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Played straight on Level 4. Or pretty much the entire game when you're fighting mooks of every flavor.
- Credits Medley: The game's credits theme features a medley of the game's levels and boss themes.
- Cute Little Fangs: Butas, the fat ninja chicks in Level 4, have them if you squint hard enough.
- Dark Reprise:
- Appropriately, Nega-Scott's is a dark version of the main theme.
- Also, we could say that "Leave The Past Behind" is a sad version of "Another Winter", since both use the same structure and have the same intro. Besides, they are the only songs in the game to have a chiptune version.
- Death by Adaptation: Envy and Lynette do a Mutual Kill after their boss fight.
- Degraded Boss: Robot-01 becomes a regular enemy in the final level, after Gideon's one winged angel form.
- The Bouncer duo in stage 3, who are a recurring Mini Boss all across the stage, which take three fights to finally knock out, appear as Fake Ultimate Mook enemies in later stages, with especially the Caucasian of the two appearing more as "just another bad guy".
- Decoy Protagonist: While it is possible to play as Scott throughout the entire game, to get the comic accurate ending/the true ending... you have to play as Ramona. Playing as Scott will instead give you a different, non-canon ending (See Downer Ending below for more details).
- Dogpile Of Doom: If a regular enemy knocks you down, there's a chance they'll jump on top of you, causing dozens of the same type to pile on top of the player character. Button Mashing is required to send them flying in all directions, instantly knocking them all out
- Downer Ending:
- Scott's ending has Ramona gone, and him supposedly dating Kim, Knives, and Envy all at once. There is an ambiguous ending regarding his being happy. This is nowhere in the ending montage or the comics, though.
- Nega-Scott's ending has him taking over the world and sending all the main characters to the salt mines.
- Downloadable Content:
- Tying in with the movie's release on DVD and Blu-ray, Knives Chau as a playable character, two new game modes, drop-in co-op and it fixes the bugs. For $2.00.
- Seemingly coinciding with the re-release of the comic books in color, a $5 DLC pack added Wallace Wells and online multi-player.
- Dragons Up the Yin Yang: The Katayanagi Twins' combo moves are accompanied by random taijutsu.
- Dual Boss:
- The Katayanagi Twins.
- Lynette and Envy, although you mostly fight Lynette until Envy decides to cut in.
- Effortless Amazonian Lift: Kim carries everything one-handed over her head. Even the mooks.
- Emoticon: This is how the characters are shown "communicating," given how there is little actual dialogue in the game. Small speech bubbles will appear over them with a display such as "!_!"
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: True to the old-school beat-em-ups it's based on, almost everything can hurt you. Trash cans can be thrown at you, dogs will bite you, and most people you meet are trying to beat you up.
- Evil Twin: Nega-Scott is a more Black-and-White Morality version in the game. He doesn't seem to represent anything but evil, has an Evil Laugh, apparently animates zombies, and takes over the world in his ending. You also get Nega-Knives as your striker.
- Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: Such as "Evil Ex Crossover! Take down Clash at Demonhead!"
- Fan Disservice: In the secret final level some backgrounds show naked girls in fluid tanks. Then you remember what Gideon did to his ex-girlfriends and ...
- Fat Bastard: Williams, Butas, Harleys, and Donnies, and they can repel fast attacks using their prodigious girth. They can also attack with a belly thrust and will slam down on you if you're on the ground.
- Fictional Counterpart: As the original Comic Book tended to use actual Toronto-based locations for concert venues and shops, they were changed in-game. For example:
- "Second Cup" becomes "Delicious Cup".
- "Sneaky Dee's" becomes "Dee's Tex-Mex".
- "Lee's Palace" becomes "Leo's Place".
- You can buy a Smashing Turnips CD at Shock Wave Record.
- Speedy the Porcupine is a video game sold in Wallace's Mystery Shop. It also raises your speed stat a significant amount. There's also a Never Ending Fantasy game.
- "Second Cup
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Alberta enemies from the last stage can be seen being cloned/created one screen before facing them proper.
- Flunky Boss: If playing with multiple players, almost all of the bosses become this. But even in single player mode, Matthew Patel and Lucas Lee play this trope in two different ways. Matthew takes cover in the middle of the fight to Summon Backup Dancers, whereas Lucas and his mooks fight together.
- Flying Dutchman: Gideon's fate.
- Foot Popping: Knives with Kim.
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- Game-Breaking Bug: The game was rushed out the door to match the movie, and the game is sometimes prone to crashing. Stage 3 is a good example, as sometimes you may start getting hit by invisible enemies and thrown weapons coming from out of nowhere, and you can lose your lives pretty fast (which is unnecessary considering the mook overkill contained in this stage).
- On PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, defeating Todd in any of the corners of his boss arena with the resolution too high will instantly crash the game during his death animation.
- Giant Hands of Doom: Super Fighting Robot. It's easy to win, though.
- Golden Ending: Finishing the game with Ramona shows the most canonical ending, at least as close to it to the then-upcoming final volume of the book, but reminiscent to the movie.
- Goofy Print Underwear: When the Chaos Theatre collapses in the end, the "white flag" is actually a pair of spotted boxer shorts tied to a pole.
- Groupie Brigade: Early in Stage 3, a throng of Clash at Demonhead fans appears as a stage hazard, trampling your character if they stand at the middle part of the screen.
- Guide Dang It!: Nobody is sure how to summon Mr. Chau onto the world map to fight him in the first place. The best guess anyone has is defeat Todd Ingram after unlocking Level 7.
- Hammerspace: Ramona's Subspace Bag. Holding down the Heavy Attack button for two seconds and releasing allows her to generate a random hold item for 20 Gut Points, but since no other character has a Level 1 move, this technique's existence isn't immediately apparent.
- Heal Thyself: Kim can heal herself for 15 Hit Points by summoning Knives for a kiss. Combination Cardiovascular Love and Hearts Are Health is emitted from the kiss.
- Homage: The Katayanagi Twins are playing a piano when you reach the end of their dark lair. Remind you of anything?
- Humongous Mecha: The Twins first fight in one of these. It attacks from the background with missiles and lasers, and uses its giant hands when up close.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Recovering HP from buying food is just the norm in Scott Pilgrim's version of Toronto.
- Kick Chick: Envy Addams exclusively attacks with kicks.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: One early attack you unlock allows you to do this. You can also throw objects at fallen enemies. There's a trophy for killing someone with the latter.
- Left the Background Music On:
- The Dragon's Den music is very eerie in comparison with the other stages' themes. But then, when you reach the Twins' Lair, you see them playing on an organ, and the BGM stops just as they stop playing it.
- If one were to use the cheat code to get to the Sound Test area, it's revealed that it's Joseph's bedroom, and he's been broadcasting all the background music in the game (note there's an antenna right where it is) except for places like the Katayanagi lair and Chaos Theater.
- Long Song, Short Scene: Downplayed with the Dragon's Den music from the second half of stage 5. The song is slightly muffled for the majority of the level because the Katayanagi twins have been playing it on their organ in the last room of the level. When you enter said room, you can hear the same song, but unmuffled, for only a few seconds before the Boss Subtitles cutscene plays and the boss battle begins. However, the unmuffled version can be heard in full via the Sound Test.
- Marathon Level: Level 7, of course. 3 major boss fights, several lesser fights, and if you lose all of your lives, you have to start from the very beginning.
- Mirror Boss: Nega-Scott subverts this, in that he has many moves that Scott can't use. Particularly his
fireballs. ...at least until you unlock Nega-Scott for your own use — though he can't launch fireballs nearly as rapidly. - Money Is Experience Points: Money can be used to buy food that gives experience points and upgrade stats, as well as pay off Scott's debt.
- Money Spider: Dogs, owls and wolverines all drop money for some reason. Subverted through robots, which (in keeping with the comic) don't explode into money.
- Multiple Endings: Different endings depending on what character you are playing as. Amusingly, of the original four playable characters, only Scott's is not compatible with the other endings. Kim ends with her getting together with Knives much to Scott and Steven's confusion, Steven Stills' ending is the Sex Bob-Ombs rocking out loud, and Ramona's ending is Ramona and Scott finally getting together (same as the comics). Meanwhile, Scott's ending is getting together with Envy, Kim, and Knives but not Ramona.
- Mythology Gag: One of the reversible covers for the physical Complete Edition is a recreation of one of the film's posters.
- Ninja Log: Utilized by Roxanne.
- No Animals Were Harmed: "No Pixels Were Harmed During The Making of This Video Game."
- No Ending: The Wallace Wells ending is basically the Stephen Stills ending with Wallace sitting in a chair as confetti falls around him, with no ending text whatsoever.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: Envy has a MIDI version.
- Number of the Beast: When you beat Gideon at the end, he drops $66.6(0) worth of coins.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: Subspace Highways have Kill Screen-esque glitch effects, especially at the beginning and end.
- One-Hit Kill: Mr. Chau to any non-boss enemy, even going as far as to not display any damage numbers when he hits them. Also, any Bottomless Pit to any enemy, though you are denied the cash as a result.
- One-Man Army: Obvious, given the genre of the game, but it's also the name of one of the trophies.
- One-Winged Angel: The fight with Gideon. First, Gideon grows to twice his size for the first part of the battle, and when the fight goes into Subspace, Gideon plays the trope for all it's worth — He's bigger than the screen, the Gideon parts of him are frankly demonic-looking, and from the waist down his body consists of the faces of the other six exes. Also, in the first part of the battle, one of Gideon's attacks has him turning into a literal One Winged Angel.
- Palette Swap:
- The Katayanagi Twins, despite their full portraits retaining their different hairstyles and clothes from the comics.
- In the online DLC pack, Wallace is a head swap of Stephen who shares almost the exact same moveset as him, but with rainbow effects.
- Parabolic Power Curve: Much like River City Ransom, high strength means you can throw stuff and people harder and faster... but due to how the game works, you will get hit by the baseball bat you threw after it bounced off the side of the screen and it will hurt if you don't dodge.
- Patchwork Map: The overworld invokes this, as it represents the first area being snowy by showing a patch of snow only over that region and cutting off away from it. The dead zone representing the Graveyard also sticks out quite a bit.
- Please Wake Up: If you're playing multi-player and one of the characters is KO'd, another player has to go and revive them with a desperate expression before a timer runs out. If they fail to do so, said character loses a life. The Katayanagi Twins do this as well if you knock just one down.
- The Power of Friendship:
- This is actually the name of one of the trophies you are awarded in the game when you fulfill a certain condition during multiplayer mode.
- Also the Team Taunt, which requires more than one player and does massive damage to all enemies.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The game retains only the bare bones of the comic's plot. This is probably for the best, however, considering The Problem with Licensed Games.
- Promoted to Playable: Knives Chau goes from an assist character to fully playable through a DLC add-on. Similarly, Wallace Wells goes from an NPC shopkeeper to another playable character in his DLC pack.
- Rare Random Drop: Mr. Chau is a rare random boss. He may appear on the map randomly so you can fight him,
but it is believed there is a specific way of getting him to show up. - Red Eyes, Take Warning: Roxanne's eyes flash red on the third slash of her sword combo.
- Retraux: Deliberately made in a 16-bit style to invoke this, as well as to play off the game theme of the comics.
- RPG Elements: A crucial element of the gameplay; if you don't regularly increase your stats by buying food, you won't get very far.
- Secret Shop: There's two in the game:
- Wallace has a not-so-incredibly secret shop in the first stage. It's marked with a star in the underpass near the end of the level.
- Mobile has a more well-hidden shop in the sixth stage. About midway through the level, there's a house in the background framed by trees in the back of the stage. The space in-between the thicket is shaped like a star; walking between the trees takes you to the house. The shop itself is accessed by walking into the fireplace of the house once inside.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: To the point that you never see Gideon's eyes (even when you are inside his mind, where there's no apparent light that could be reflected).
- Scenery Porn: Nicely simple and detailed artwork. Then again, it is Stéphane Boutin.
- Secret Character: Nega-Scott, if you beat the game with all 4 characters. Knives Chau and Wallace Wells are available through separate DLC packs.
- Shared Life-Meter: Envy and Lynette.
- Shout-Out: Check out its own page.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Cutscenes after the first four stages have Scott and Ramona making out while Kim and Stephen Stills stand around.
- Sigil Spam: The 3G Heavy Industries logo (the inverted Triforce with the G's) is everywhere!
- Sound Test: And you'll be thankful. To unlock it, go to the Score Ranking menu on the world map and press L1/LB (x2), R1/RB (x2), L1/LB (x3), R1/RB (x3), L1/LB, R1/RB.
- Spiritual Successor: To the Game Boy Advance game based on the 2007 TMNT movie.
- Stealth Pun: The 6th level has almost no background characters, save for Stacey and every single non-playable gay guy. Combine this with the elf that gives you coins, and you've got yourself a fairy forest!
- Summon Backup Dancers: The Demon Hipster Chicks Patel can summon.
- Survival Horror: An unlockable game mode, where you fight endless hordes of zombies until you die or 30 real-time minutes pass.
- Sword Beam: The Power of Love's default attack comes with these.
- Taking the Fight Outside: The fight against Todd Ingram is taken outside the club that Stage 3 takes place in.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: If Gigadeon didn't slam his fists on the ground, leaving his heart unprotected, he would be undefeatable as his flavor text says. Then again, if you lose the Power of Love during the battle, it becomes like chipping away at a stone.
- Traintop Battle: The second part of the 4th level.
- Underwear Flag: After completing the game, the pre-credits ending cutscene depicts the Chaos Theatre collapsing into rubble, followed by a pair of spotted boxers tied to a pole rising out of the wreckage and being waved.
- Variable Mix: The first and sixth stages use chiptunes for their background music until the halfway point, after which an arrangement with real instruments is laid over it. The first stage's music also gets more muted when you're in the underpass.
- Victory Fakeout: You fight Gideon three times. All of them could conceivably pass for a final boss (particularly his One-Winged Angel second form).
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Todd Ingram. While Matthew Patel and Lucas Lee weren't too hard to deal with (except when Lucas gets ahold of a skateboard), Todd will murder you if you try the same tricks you used on them. It also doesn't help that he's the first boss you meet that's nigh-impossible to beat if you've been neglecting your stats: if you haven't been building your strength up, all you get is a nice bunch of 1's when you hit him.
- Wife Husbandry: Gideon isn't kidnapping girls to make them his girlfriend in the video game, he's growing them from test tubes and People Jars.
- Whip Sword: On Roxanne, the fourth Evil Ex.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: During the boss battle with Todd, you get into a bass battle reminiscent of Rock Band or Guitar Hero playing tables. Todd's is hopelessly complicated, while Scott's is mostly blank. When Scott finally does get a note, he decides to cut out the middle man and hits Todd with his bass!
- Zombie Apocalypse: There are a couple of Zombies in the park, but they're relatively easy; especially if you throw them into the convenient open graves. However, there's also "Survival Horror" mode (unlockable by code), where you are in one non-scroll screen, and more and more zombies keep coming out of the woodwork without any easy way to "kill" them. And when they fill the entire screen, that's when Nega-Scott's Dark Reprise starts playing. And they just keep coming. Until you survive for 30 minutes, real time.
