Scott Pilgrim EX Review – Take me Back

No, don’t worry, no seven evil exes this time around. But the same cast and energy in a brand new brawling adventure. Scott Pilgrim EX is an action-adventure beat-em-up that steps up the experience compared to the original games, but keeps the vibes exactly the same. The same old Toronto, now looking better than ever, but also torn apart by time and reality, which seem to be all over the place. Sounds like your cup of tea? Then let the review help make up your mind.

Scott Pilgrim EX is now available worldwide on Steam (PC) and PS5/PS4. We at Gameffine had the opportunity to dive in earlier and give you a detailed report of what’s happening. Here’s our official Scott Pilgrim EX review at Gameffine.

Riff apart the Time and Space.

Instead of chasing weird evil exes, you’re teaming up with Ramona and a lot more characters to take down a brand new threat. Keeping it spoiler-free, a few young villains with a familiar face have popped up around Toronto and have also ripped apart dimensions in multiple parts of the city while doing so. This has enabled the vegans, the robots, and the demons. All powered by the very familiar G Corp.

This is where you step in to save the world once again, by all means necessary. With upto 4 protagonists at a time, you’ll also be supported by various casts you defeat or by rescuing your own band with a weird name that I’d prefer to skip writing in this review.  Baffling pixel art, enchanting music, and a lot of fighting, that’s your start to the game. Tutorials are also pretty much skippable, giving you freedom right from the get-go. But soon after you figure out what’s happening, you realise that your band being kidnapped is only a method to trick you into observing a bigger problem.

Since time and space have broken rifts to other times, the world may just go haywire and stop existing once and for all. Who caused this? What’s their true purpose? What danger awaits you in the end? Jump in the game and find out.

Hold B for Signature Move?

Scott Pilgrim EX is a beautifully orchestrated retro video game that does true justice to the franchise and how pixel art games should be. Refined art style that is just retro enough and also feels fresh as per 2026 standards is absolutely spot on. But what stood out to me was the wide variety of moves available to me right from the first chapter. And mind you, these moves are exclusive to each character, amongst all 7 playable characters. While all of them are mostly quite fun to play with, they make Scott look weaker. If that is a good thing or bad, I leave that upto you to decide.

The grab mechanics are extremely fluid; you have an auto-run feature, which is much welcomed in the era of not-so-clicky d-pad buttons, making it extremely difficult to trigger run and combine moves. The move list itself is insanely optimised and easy to perform, which makes it accessible to literally anyone who wants to pick up and play the game. This is the perfect approach given the co-op preferred focus of the game. The level designs are nostalgic and extremely well done, and are honestly big enough for four heroes wiping the floor with the enemies.

But this may be a problem for veteran beat-em-up players, as the move list you start with at chapter 1 remains exactly the same until the end. You unlock no new moves, nor do you get the opportunity to do a lot of follow-up or chain attacks. Each time you grab an enemy, you can land 3 punches at max and will immediately throw them off. Even simple punches have to be linked to a grab or a finisher to get good damage done during heavy quantity of enemies. This, unfortunately, becomes very repetitive, but is saved by the fact that there is always an abundance of weapons and throwables.

This feels like the developers played it too safe as not to trigger the OG fans of the series who want a sequel to their beloved experience. And while they have done it extremely well and are deserving of praise, games like TMNT Shredders revenge or River City Girls 2 are doing far better work in terms of the direct combat experience.

But the added experience of support moves changes the difficulty dynamically. Basic support moves like crowd storming or basic teleport seem to be the right choices for support moves, giving brief relief. But moves that give strength boosts or defence boosts are extremely broken. I was able to knock out the bosses within 5-6 seconds of triggering strength boosts, landing critical hits on max stats. This resulted in multiple boss fights feeling underwhelming. This feature is both good and bad at the same time..

The seven varieties of characters are well worked and truly feel unique instead of just being a skin with added new moves. They move, dodge, and attack differently, which gives you the opportunity of performing multiple play-throughs, capitalizing on the well-worked New Game + mode. Many beat-em-ups are recently skipping on providing the New Game + experience, but luckily, we have one here that does not disappoint.

Wrapping everything up, it is safe to say that developers nailed it in bringing a fresh and authentic Scott Pilgrim experience, but played it a little too safe.

Toronto Baby

You may have noticed that we barely talked about the story or narrative; that’s simply because there’s nothing to talk about at all. It’s so forgettable that I am extremely happy to have forgotten it at the time of writing. Even though the game is not being published by Ubisoft anymore, the quests continue to give you the classic run-and-fetch experience.

But the art style and OSTs stole my heart and kept me hooked through the entire journey. Sometimes at the shopping sections, I would idle and just listen to the OSTs blasting a lofi felt retro music which is nothing short of a masterpiece. Retro games are fueled with emotions, and most of them are made possible by creative artstyle and music that stays; and once again, it is safe to say that Scott Pilgrim EX does both of it extremely well.

The three different factions of enemies allowed the devs to make distinct maps and characters that would blend in the city of Toronto, and it all works out perfectly without the maps looking like a mess. The audio style, SFX, is all well executed, being nostalgic and new at the same time.

Real Talk

Scott Pilgrim EX is an explosive beat-em-up with upto seven unique characters to go on an adventure with – either solo or with up to 4 people. This fresh take on the original franchise is a refreshing experience and is an absolute joy for any retro fan at first glance. The non-stop action and fighting will keep you hooked throughout your journey, and the OSTs are an instant hit. The story itself might be very forgettable, and is barely 5-6 hours long. At the outrageous price tag of ₹2,000, we highly recommend waiting for a sale at this time.