I got really into the hype surrounding Scott Pilgrim recently, for like, a few days. I read all the comics at once, played the game at the same time (not actually the same time) then braved the outlands of Dundee with Lynsey to go see it at cineworld.
The comic I really enjoyed, probably the most out of all 3 mediums. I liked the drawing style, simplicity in characters easily pleases me. All the characters in the story pretty much look the same but with different hair and clothes, so it could be mildly confusing at times when someone starts to wear different attire. But the way they are drawn makes them so expressive. Moods and emotions can be conveyed so effectively, and altered with the slightest variation of line. Some panels made me laugh because of the textual content - others just because they were drawn so funny. The rest a combination of both.
Although not spectacular and groundbreaking, the comics are certainly worth the read to fans of video games (and dare I say it, hipsters) but they've got pretty serious flaws. I'm not big on reading stories about hipster relationships, as they all just end up looking like trendy cool-geek knobs. The characters are often blatantly mean to their friends, and constantly seem to cheat on each other. Damn hipsters
The film was pretty good. I read all the comics before hand, and part of me wished that I hadn't. I knew everything that was about to come up, and since they were so fresh in my mind, I knew most of the jokes too. Only the things that were fresh to the movie stood out for me, although most of the gags had been adapted so well that they still made me chortle a bit.
There were frequent references to Zelda in the opening 10 minutes or so, which was pretty cool, since Zelda rocks.
Other nods to geekdom were a little bit more awkward, however, including the opening 8 bit rendition of the Universal theme which seems to go on for a little bit too long - why wasn't it animated? Some other references felt a bit forced, alienating one of the main audiences the film is targeting, gamers! But were they targeting gamers? Or just cool-hipster geeks? They also missed one of the best quotes, (from Monkey Island's insult sword fighting), which was present in the comic book, a line which any Lucas Arts or classic adventure game fan should recognise.
I also don't think Michael Cera brought the true lovable, forgetful Scott Pilgrim from the comic book to life. He did however bring himself to the role, so it works (but only if you like Michael Cera) and he's also Canadian, so good choice of actor I feel. I'm probably doing such a bad job since I'm comparing the film to the book so much, but for the first half of the movie, it's pretty much exactly the same, from dialog to location.
The game really has some of the nicest pixel graphics I've ever seen, as well as a good soundtrack by Anamanaguchi (they have an excellent album called Dawn Metropolis), and some fairly satisfying gameplay. A standard scrolling beat em up on the face of it, underneath it has some RPG-esque elements such as leveling up via EXP points (which unlocks new moves) and the gathering of money to buy upgrades for your stats.
The controls are rather dodgy at times, usually not a problem, but some levels require you to do a bit of platforming which the game just doesn't feel designed to accomodate. It's quite hard to distinguish between a long jump and a short jump, and characters often have low traction, so you'll be sliding about without meaning to. Mix that up with a few small platforms nestled between a generic spike pit, and you can imagine the false difficulty you're going to face.
More unfortunately are the frequent glitches, sometimes getting stuck in holes left with no option but exiting to the map, but worst of all is when the game freezes, which has happened at least 3 times to me on separate occasions. The only other thing I have to complain about is the difficulty of certain bosses, which varies greatly. Some later bosses are much easier than, for example, the second one when he picks up a skateboard. If that happens, and you're unfortunate enough to be in his midst unprepared, you can be killed in a matter of seconds with no way to escape.
Enough of the badness, the good side is that it's really fun when playing with others, and it's really satisfying to beat enemies with the wide variety of usable objects. Characters and environments are designed really well, reflecting both the comic and the film accurately. It's certainly worth the fiveish pounds.
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