Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game is based off of the popular Scott Pilgrim graphic novels (see previous post #1 and #2 if you don’t know what I am talking about). The story is your typical boy meets girl, boy lesbians girl, boy must defeat girl’s seven evil exes. In the book it is up to Scott to defeat the exes since he is the one dating Ramona. However, in the game you can play as Scott, Ramona, Kim, and Stephen. It’s possible to play the single player game as a character other than Scott but doing so completely destroys the story. Why would Stephen, the lead singer in Scott’s band, go and single handedly defeat Ramona’s exes. There’s nothing in it for him, nothing for him to gain. Same thing with Kim, drummer and Scott’s ex.

In order to make the game playable I made up stories that take the place of “defeat Ramona’s exes” in case I find myself playing as someone other than Scott. Let’s face it, without a story holding the game together it’s impossible to keep interested in this beat’em up game.

Ramona Flowers vs. the World: The Game
One would think that after an appropriate amount of time Ramona’s exes would have gotten over her. Instead they constantly send her friend requests on Facebook, are sending her Tweets, and have from time-to-time shown up at her work. She’s fed up with it. It’s time for Ramona to teach her exes what the meaning of “we’re through” is even if she has to beat it in to them. After beating all seven of the exes, Ramona enjoys to solitude. It might be a little lonely, not being the center of attention, so maybe she’ll get a cat. And one cat turns in to three or four and before you know, Ramona because that “cat lady” who lives above your apartment. Ramona will wonder why she can’t get another boyfriend, but you’ll know why. It’s the all of her cats and the smell that comes with them.

Kim Pine vs. the World: The Game
Kim comes from a broken home. He father left before her first birthday, and her mother refuses to talk about it. Her mom has dated other men, searching for a replacement father figure. But every time she got comfortable with them they left. After Kim’s mother passed away in a car crash one snowy night after being dumped again, Kim was forced to live on the streets and support herself. She learned to fight to protect herself from the scary hobos of Montreal. Life turned around and eventually was taken in to foster care (or the canadian equivalent) and started life over again. At last she had a family, but her anger towards men remained. Her violent outburst can not be contained and all of her friends are worried about her rage issues but are too afraid to say anything. Only after Kim’s seventh violent outbreak do her friends sit her down and tell her how worried they all are about her. There are tears and a lot of hugs. Too ashamed to face her friends after that, Kim retreats to the Chic-Choc Mountains where she manages the local tavern and is able to beat up the occasional drunk without anybody noticing.

Stephen Stills vs. the World: The Game
In what may be the least expected plot twist (and the least cared about) in the Scott Pilgrim books was that Stephen Stills is gay. He finally came out to Scott 10 pages before the end of Volume 5. Nobody saw that coming. The reason for that was because it took 5 volumes for Stephen to accept who he is. At first he was like “Oh dude no, I can’t be gay. I’ll date a girl or something to prove.” But that, naturally, doesn’t work out. His confusion turns to self-hatred and he becomes incredibly homophobic. To prove his manliness, he sets out to beat up the seven toughest people around, who just happen to be Ramona’s exes. As he defeats each ex, he learns a little about himself. Upon defeating Ramona’s final ex, he earns the power of acceptance and is finally able to admit to himself and his friends that he likes dudes. Stephen and his boyfriend go on to open a bed and breakfast in Saint-Georges.

Next time, I’ll explore the story’s of the two hidden characters in the game.

Read my thoughts on Vol. 1 – 3.

* * * Also, potential spoiler alerts I guess. * * *

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
The volume is pretty good. We learn, much to Scott’s surprise, that Ramona dated a girl who is one of her seven evil exes. In addition to fighting her, Scott must also fend off attacks from a mysterious ninja-like figure. Ohhh, Mystery. Not much happens in this book I feel. It feels as if this book is just filler for the series as we get closed to the end. Scott get’s a job, busts out the L word and moves in with Ramona. I guess that’s considered “getting it together”, hence the titled.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe
Mayhaps the darkest volume in the Scott Pilgrim saga. Something’s up with Ramona, and I’m beginning to think she’s not all that great. She’s started to open up but is still too damn mysterious at this point in the story. Anyway, in this volume Scott fight’s some robots and a pair of twins. The twins are the evil exes, the robots are just there to be robotic-like. I did find it funny that in this book we would often find Scott fighting robots in the background while other people carry on normal conversations as if nothing odd is happening. It was funny at first, but it drew the relationships to the forefront of the story which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view. I do like that Kim Pine get’s more story time here. There are even hints that perhaps Kim and Scott will end up together.

Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour
First off: It’s not. His finest hour, that is. If you have been follow Scott Pilgrim’s adventures from the beginning you would know this book probably contains the Scott vs. Gideon fight. Until now very little had been known about the mysterious 7th evil ex and how they all banded together to form the league of evil exes. The story picks up after the cliffhanger in Vs. The Universe and Scott is trying to live his life without Ramona. He’s not doing a very good job at it. One thing leads to another and the epic battle commences. What I did not like about this book is the sense of finality that it gave. You know how the finale of a TV show tries to wrap up all the lose ends in the final episode? It’s kinda like that where we are constantly encountering characters who tell Scott what their plans are for the future and how they don’t involve him. If this were a TV series you could easily follow any of these characters and start a spin-off feature them. It’s annoying because everybody ends up conveniently happy, unlike real life. Another issue I had was Gideon wasn’t nearly as cool of an evil ex as the first six. As it turns out, he’s just crazy. Almost James Bond villain crazy. I just wanted something more logical than Gideon having a hard time getting over the girls that dump him. Lastly, while the previous books had their fair share of video game references, this volume felt sorely lacking in that department. There were some, it’s a trademark of the series after all, but they did not stand out as much as Ramona quoting Monkey Island or Scott noticing a Save Point.

To sum up, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour isn’t. It’s a conclusion to the series and is overall too convenient of an ending and lacks the charm of the previous books. It’s sad that Scott Pilgrim ends on such a flat note.

Second Opinions:
Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

The upcoming movie is suppose to have a different ending from the books, so maybe the movie will give me the closer I am looking for.

Have you heard of this little known comic series called Scott Pilgrim? Not many people have, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t. I hear they might make a movie about it at some point. Again, these are just rumors.

Well, anyway, with the comic series having finally wrapped up. I thought I would re-read them all. Being forced to wait a year in between books makes it difficult for me to remember certain characters and plot events and whatnot.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
The Scott Pilgrim series is apparently about this 23 year old guy who starts dating a 17 year old high school student. Wait, check that. Scott Pilgrim is apparently about this 23 year old who starts dating a 17 year old high school student but then starts cheating on her by totally sleeping with this girl he meets at a party. I know that the above statement is not what Scott Pilgrim is about, but if someone just randomly picked up this book and started reading without having a friend tell them what it was about or without reading the back cover, then this is what I would think the plot is about. It’s not until near the end up the book that seven evil ex-boyfriends is mention. I find it odd that the book opens with Scott’s relationship with Knives (the high school student). To me that suggests that she plays an important role in the story. That, or the entire first half of this book is just filler. Couldn’t we have just started with Scott met Ramona (the party girl)? That would have made more sense.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Wold
Now that we’ve got the introduction to the series under our belt, Vol 2 can just jump right in to the meat and potato of the series, so to speak. In my mind this book is still trying to find the proper balance between drama/action/comedy. While the drama and comedy are there, the action is a bit of a let down. Vol 2 does contain my favorite fight scene in the whole series when Knives attacks Ramona in the library. I think the outfit Knives is wearing and Ramona’s ability to kick-ass come as a nice surprise to the reader. The Scott vs. Evil Ex battle in this book is an incredible let down. Halfway through the ex gets killed in a pretty pathetic skateboarding accident making him the most forgettable of the ex’s. The rest of the book is about Scott’s band and his need for a haircut.

Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness
Vol 3 is my favorite book in the series. I think it is the most well balanced. Todd, evil ex number #3, who was shown in the final pages of Vol 2, is a vegan and just happens to be dating Scott’s ex, Envy. I liked that, unlike the previous books, Scott and Todd have multiple confrontations instead of just one fight that was over way too quickly. I actually felt that defeating the evil ex’s was the main plot instead of just a convenient hook used to draw the reader in to Scott and his friend’s relationship drama. The relationship drama is extra heavy in this volume due to the inclusion of Envy, the girl who broke Scott’s heart prior to the start of the series. Her and Ramona have a pretty cool fight involving a rather large hammer. There’s now a duality in the series with Scott fighting Ramona’s exes and Ramona fighting two of Scott’s exes thus far. We could look deep into this a suggest that what Bryan Lee O’Malley is trying to say that in every relationship a person can not help but at some point have to confront the exes of the other person in either a symbolic, physical, or hypothetical fashion. Or, we could just see it as an excuse for Ramona to kick-ass and establish her as a strong female character.

Anyway, I’ll post tomorrow about the remaining three volumes.