About that last one: Metric’s once-in-a-lifetime, top-to-bottom performance of Fantasies last June also stealthily worked in another rare opportunity: opening act Sam Roberts Band, playing their own We Were Born in a Flame (2003) from start to finish.

While merely an opener then, it’s now Sam Roberts and friends’ chance to get in on the act, with their own headlining anniversary tour, showcasing the band’s stellar 2006 album Chemical City. We had a chance to check it out this past weekend at Massey Hall, where a visibly moved Roberts waxed poetic about the passage of time, about his ever-faithful fan base, and about looking ahead (to his next, as-yet unannounced, album).

Chemical City, inspired by the not-exactly-flattering nickname of Sarnia in southern Ontario, grew out of Sam Roberts’s interest in telling a story across a single, ten-track album.

Highlights include Canadian chart-topping singles “The Gate” and “Bridge to Nowhere”, though we’re partial to the expertly-named “An American Draft Dodger in Thunder Bay”, with its tale of a Vietnam War draft dodger. Surprise guests – Dartmouth, Nova Scotia’s own Matt Mays, who (fun fact) actually appeared on a single track on the original Chemical City album; indie rocker Danielle Duval – made for a thrilling and unpredictable evening. The album’s final track, the forlorn ballad “A Stone Would Cry Out”, featured Roberts alone at the keyboard under the spotlight, with gusts of smoke billowing behind him. The audience lapped it up.

Much like Metric’s Fantasies program, Roberts, recognizing the forty-seven minute Chemical City was hardly enough to fill an entire concert, leveraged the moment to launch into a greatest hits assembly of tracks covering nearly a quarter-century of music-making.

Highlights of the concert’s back half included We Were Born in the Flame stalwarts “Where Have All the Good People Gone?”, “Don’t Walk Away Eileen”, and “Brother Down”, alongside “Them Kids” and “Detroit ’67” (the two biggest hits off Love at the End of the World, 2008).

Probably the most exciting moment, however, was Robert’s second-ever performance of a track which just missed the cut on the original Chemical City, and which Roberts has lately introduced into his touring repertoire: the lovely, lyrical, “Fall Before You Finish”.

According to Roberts, the first run at Chemical City’s story generated slightly too many songs to include in the final pressing, and it was with some regret that “Fall” was left out. Here, at Massey Hall, it felt right at home – as did we all.

***

Tickets for the Chemical City Anniversary tour are available here.

The post Sam Roberts Band at Massey Hall (Concert Review) appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

WHAT IS IT?

A low-budget digital reimagining of beloved 90s Star Trek series Voyager, and, incidentally, Voyager‘s second quasi-sequel this year (after Starfleet Academy, of course).

IS IT GOOD?

Surprisingly, yes, though its complex systems – and deep love for obscure Trek lore – make this one only for the diehards.

WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?

Annika Hansen. Icheb’s Ghost. Mirror Harry.

FLASHBACK

It’s an interesting time for Trekkies.

The dreadful Star Trek Discovery is finally behind us, even as its pseudo-sequel, the Toronto-shot (and occasionally Toronto-set!) Strange New Worlds, has shown it’s still possible to deliver some good old-fashioned Trek.

Meanwhile, Disco’s other sequel, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, has offered up a weird hybrid of the two, doling out fan service – hello, Voyager’s The Doctor! – alongside occasionally excruciating YA melodrama. The jury’s still out on Starfleet Academy, though there’s no denying the power of its DS9/Benjamin Sisko tribute episode last month.

Into the fray enters a legacyquel of its own, Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, which essentially functions as a “what if” scenario for fans of the TV series, which ran seven seasons during the era of Peak Trek. While never as popular as fellow 90s Treks The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine, Voyager remains a beloved entry in the canon, no doubt bolstered by the enduring popularity of its two female leads, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), both of whom have popped up in recent projects like Star Trek: Prodigy and the Next Generation “coda” Star Trek: Picard.

Those projects, supported by a Hollywood budget and investment in returning characters, can’t really be compared to Across the Unknown, an avowedly budget title from an unknown studio, with relatively simplistic graphics, iterative design, and mostly lacking voicework (though both Robert Duncan McNeill and Tim Russ are on hand to provide voiceover readings of their characters’ “personal logs”).

Just to give an idea of how budget this game is: until release, it wasn’t even clear if it had cleared the rights to Voyager’s wonderful theme music. (Spoilers: it’s here, even if the rest of the soundtrack is fairly bland.)

Colour me surprised, then, that after some admittedly confused opening hours, I’ve found Across the Unknown to be an overall enjoyable experience, revisiting key moments from the series in the guise of an engaging (if hopelessly complicated) spaceship-management sim.

YEAR OF HELL

Star Trek: Voyager, which ran from 1995-2001 as the flagship series of the UPN network (rip), follows the crew of the USS Voyager (callsign NCC-7465, but then you knew that already), stranded halfway across the Milky Way galaxy in what Trek lore refers to as the “Delta Quadrant”.

A relatively unknown area of space – and home to the horrifying Borg, villains of the best Star Trek movie – Voyager’s unique setting allowed its writers to explore (at least in theory) new species, new conflicts, and new tensions, with the stranded ship having to balance the desire to return home against the responsibility to uphold Starfleet values. (Early on, the show also tried to make a big deal of the fact Voyager “absorbed” a crew of anti-Starfleet Maquis revolutionaries into the ship’s ranks, though the Maquis folks honestly settled into their Starfleet uniforms a little too well, and too quickly.)

Across the Unknown, which draws on such popular sci-fi video game series as XCOM and FTL, is a game about exploration, and about decision-making, in line with the challenges a starship captain might face while stranded 70,000 lightyears from home. Play alternates between management sim – explore systems, collect resources, upgrade systems – and a relatively simplistic choose-your-own adventure campaign, which mixes up new storylines with those remembered (or, in some cases, only half-remembered) from the TV series.

Much of the tension in Across the Unknown comes not from the life-or-death decisions found in the story – sorry, Seven/Chakotay stans – but in your ability to manage the crew’s ever dwindling morale. While it may be tempting, for example, to invest all your resources into weapons and shields, turning Voyager into a bullying warship (abandoning your Federation principles along the way!), you’ll still to ensure Neelix’s mess is up and running, and there are enough quarters to house your demoralized crew. It is, in other words, a balancing act, one that you’ll constantly be managing throughout its approximately twelve-hour runtime. (Or, if you prefer, half a 90s Trek season.)

COURSE: OBLIVION

Even with – or possibly because of – its surfeit of tutorial-style assists, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by Across the Unknown, with its confusing array of rapidly dwindling ship resources, systems to manage, research trees to unlock, “work teams” to deploy. This is probably the worst thing about the game, the persistent feeling that you’re overlooking something, that some system you’re not even aware of is about to fail. Even after far too many hours with the game, there are still times when “my” Voyager will suddenly collapse into “Grey Mode”, life support systems offline, because I’ve overlooked some obscure system or gameplay mechanic.

That said, there’s an undeniably appealing rhythm to Across the Unknown, one in which you learn to always have a research project on the go (pro tip: develop the plasma torch early), always have a new room under construction (another pro tip: Engineering Offices are the main way to increase your “work teams”), always have a pending trade deal (last tip: pay close attention to what’s going on in the Aeroshuttle Hangar), even as you pursue the immediate mission lines to progress the story.

About that: one of the best things about Across the Unknown is its ability to unfold stories quite organically. The game does a lot of work to make you feel like you’re merely stumbling into scenarios, instead of ticking check-marks from an episode guide.

You might, for instance, come across a wormhole, only to discover it’s a teeny-tiny wormhole, only to also discover that on the other side… well, Voyager fans know already what’s there, but let’s refrain from spoilers for now. You might also, to give one more example, be out on a seemingly random away mission, only to encounter an organ-harvesting operation, which then unfolds into a larger mystery (and throughline from the early seasons of Voyager).

What’s also lovely about these scenarios is that they’re a chance to depart from Trek canon, gleefully disregarding the show in order to cultivate your own Voyager experience. To offer a prime example: on a lark, I disregarded Starfleet protocol and abandoned the Ocampa during the “series premiere” mission, using the Caretaker Array to blast home and short-circuit, well, the entirety of Voyager seasons 1-7. (Don’t worry: the game offered me the chance to “reconsider” my option and do the right thing.)

At other times, you might be tasked with ferreting out a traitor – the canonically wrong answer letting you embrace a certain “Bajoran” as a permanent member of your crew – or deciding how to resolve an infamous ethical conundrum (#justicefortuvix).

Even though many of these boil down to multiple-choice menu selections, it’s still fun, for a certain kind of dork, to fool around with the canon this way. Bear in mind that these choices are meaningful – you’ll gain and lose crew members in occasionally shocking ways, and there’s a good chance that the Voyager at the end of your story will little resemble the Voyager of “Endgame”. Personally, though I’ve largely played the “good guy”, there have definitely been moments when, plagued by dwindling resources and plummeting morale, I was awfully tempted to just go all Equinox on the Quadrant.

And that’s Across the Unknown in a nutshell. If any of those choices, those references, made you smile in recognition, you’re bound to have a fun time in this game. If you’re looking for a digestible, bite-sized experience – Across the Unknown is very Steam Deck-friendly, with its discrete and easily interruptible mission structure – you’ll appreciate this opportunity to experience yet another episodic Trek, whether at home or on the go.

And if the prospect of minutely managing a Federation starship’s complex interconnected systems unnerves you, rest assured there’s an easy mode. (Honestly, it’s a much better game on easy mode, where the fail conditions aren’t quite so harsh.)

Just please do me a favour: don’t activate that godawful “Fair Haven” holodeck program.

***
Final score: 7/10 operatic doctors.

Visit the official website for Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown here.

The post Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown (PS5) Review: Fun Will Now Commence appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

A wonderful showcase for Canada’s world-class ballet company, with a fantastic score from English composer Paul Englishby, it’s a great, family-friendly work arriving just in time for March Break.

Today familiar from the Disney film and other (weirder, Roberto Benigni-starring) fare, Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio originated in the 19th century as a series of stories for Italian children. Splitting the difference between those original stories and an overt Disney influence (as if the Disney-branded merchandise in the gift shop wasn’t a giveaway), the National Ballet Pinocchio follows the adventures of the wooden marionette – accompanied by a number of animal friends, albeit no cricket (a Disney invention) here – as he pursues his dream of one day becoming a “real boy”.

With key roles for the boy-puppet (Noah Parets, David Preciado, and Alexander Skinner rotating between performances), the Blue Fairy (Beckanne Sisk, Koto Ishihara and Agnes Su), and Pinocchio’s creator/father Gepetto (Larkin Miller, Donald Thom Josh Hall), the show is a start-to-finish delight.

Highlights include a “dance of the puppets” (the dancers ingeniously “strung” together by white ribbons), a mildly frightening carnival sequence featuring the infamous donkey-children (who, the show subtly implies, are devoured by hungry carnivalgoers off stage), and – our favourite – an extended underwater sequence which precedes the arrival of the whale that will swallow Pinocchio whole. (The whale itself is a disappointment, inexplicably rendered as a CGI steampunk submarine which in no way matches the ballet’s aesthetic.)

Shout-out too to the mischievous Fox (Isaac Wright at our opening night performance) and Cat (Jenna Savella for opening), the comic relief/sidekicks who act as a pair of guides of sorts for Pinocchio’s journey out into the world. The carnival barker/ringmaster (Naoya Ebe), also makes the most of his limited stage time, appearing suitably creepy. (Why these kids trust him is beyond me, but then I said the same thing about Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka.)

While we perhaps could have done with less Canadiana in the production design – between the dancing lumberjacks, the Mountie, and the pair of Niagara Falls tourists (replete with Maid of the Mist rain ponchos), it’s a lot – the ballet’s biggest mistake is its reliance on spoken word.

Rarely a scene goes by that isn’t interrupted by a dose of terribly written, declamatory poetry – Pinocchio, you must be good / It’s time for you to leave these woods!, that sort of thing – which adds nothing, and in fact detracts from the experience. Kids have been enjoying Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty without verbal hand-holding for centuries; it’s frustrating that our otherwise stellar ballet company couldn’t trust their intelligence with this production.

Those concerns aside, it wouldn’t be a National Ballet performance without a stellar turn by the Corps de Ballet, that criminally underappreciated group of dancers who form the heart of the company, and whose trials and tribulations are movingly captured in the recent CBC documentary series, Swan Song. The Corps, portraying everything from dancing raccoons to aquatic sprites, was on fine form throughout our opening night show. Knowing how much work goes into what they do, here’s wishing them all the best for the remaining performances!

***
The National Ballet’s Pinocchio runs March 13-22, 2026.

The post Pinocchio at National Ballet (Review): No Strings Attached appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

WHAT IS IT?

A (surprisingly violent!) stealth/horror title with a wonderful Burtonesque aesthetic.

IS IT GOOD?

It’s entertaining in its own morbid way.

WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?

Wednesday Addams.

THE HILLS ARE SILENT

Tarsier Studio’s macabre Reanimal, its first new horror title since the well-received pair of Little Nightmares of 2017/2021, is an engaging, well-told, if fairly disturbing adventure, where the emphasis is less on the truly frightening and more on maintaining a generally eerie vibe. As such, it’s not as scary as fans might hope, though it definitely has its standout moments, even as its story is interesting enough to pursue on its own.

THE EVIL IS RESIDENT

From its opening, contextless sequence – a stormy rescue at sea – Reanimal takes off and rarely lets up.

Following the trials and tribulations of a pair of animal mask-wearing siblings as they seek to escape the clutches of a horrifying assortment of adult-coded foes, Reanimal offers a solid core of stealth gameplay, in service of a series of disturbing setpieces overflowing with dark shadows, slithering monstrosities, and quite a lot of blood and guts. The fact that these are children we’re playing as makes it all the more distressing.

Moment to moment, Reanimal plays a lot like a horror-inflected version of Ico, that classic of PS2 immersive adventuring. Whether playing in two-player co-op or solo (we honestly preferred solo, it contributed to the oppressive vibe), expect to spend a lot of time exploring expertly rendered environments – a coastal castle, a tumbledown cinema, a flooded city – in pursuit of doohickeys to unlock the next obstacle in your way, all while being stalked by a myriad of Burtonesque foes.

Although the aesthetic remains fairly consistent – grim, grey – throughout, this set-up does allow for quite a bit of diversity in terms of what you’re exposed to, each new area an opportunity for another new set-piece. One minute, you’ll be dropped into an extended homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic The Birds, while in another you might be easing your rickety motorboat through a flooded building while underwater monsters bear down on you. It’s good stuff.

THE FRAME, FATAL

While technically a spiritual sequel to Little Nightmares, Reanimal perhaps has more in common with the horrifying creations of Playdead, the brains behind the critically-acclaimed Limbo and Inside. Like those games (and, to be fair, like Little Nightmares before it), Reanimal embraces an approach which might best be described as “horrifying stuff, plus kids!”

This both lends it a certain sense of urgency – you worry more for these oddball kids than you would for, say, a lonely explorer traipsing through an abandoned space station – but it also occasionally allows for Reanimal to veer into the unpleasant. Frankly, it feels borderline wrong to see these kids subjected to certain of these environments, these visuals. The fact they’re merely avatars for you, the player, makes it tolerable, but there’s an unshakeable “ick” factor, not present even in the previous Little Nightmareses, which were decidedly more tame.

Another fair comparator might be BioShock, in which you could – with a merciful fade to black – “harvest” the spirits of that game’s mutant Little Sisters, which at the time represented a rare dalliance with a relatively untouchable aspect of interactive storytelling. Reanimal, in which your youthful protagonists can die in fairly macabre ways, does not offer such a fade to black, though the stylized art at least blunts the trauma of it.

That said, my main criticism is, perhaps ironically, the opposite: Reanimal fails to make death consequential. Checkpoints are frequent, and there’s rarely any cost to failing a segment and restarting. Over time, this both encourages risk-taking (why bother trying your best when you can just instantly retry) and dulls the threat of foes or obstacles: the third or fourth time you begin the same chase sequence, it’s hard to get exercised about the giant snake dude slithering from up-screen.

Still, at a breezy five-hour campaign (with a handful of optional unlockables to pad out the extra time for those interested), Reanimal nevertheless earns a hearty Toronto Guardian recommendation for any horror fans. It looks great, it plays wonderfully, and it has enough spookiness – and more than enough entertaining set-pieces – to reward the interested horror gamer.

***
Final score: 8/10 Pugsleys.

Visit the official website for Reanimal here.

The post Reanimal (PS5) Review: Big Nightmares appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

WHAT IS IT?

The latest – and, spoilers, fantastic – entry in the surprisingly long-running Scott Pilgrim series of comic books, video games, movies, and cartoons.

IS IT GOOD?

It’s a delightful, if canonically ambiguous, entry in our beloved, Toronto-centric series.

WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?

Every Torontonian, most geeks, and definitely Michael Cera.

BREAD MAKES YOU FAT?

There’s never been a better time to be a Torontonian.

Between last month’s side-splittingly funny Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie – a film that begins and ends with a CN Tower “heist” of sorts – and this month’s release of Scott Pilgrim EX, sequel to the goofy movie with which Nirvanna shares no small amount of DNA, Toronto is proudly, entertainingly, back in the spotlight.

It’s been sixteen long years since Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the Movie blew our collective minds with its raucous, geekified take on Toronto, introducing a whole generation of dorks to the awesomeness that is our city. It’s been longer still since Scott Pilgrim debuted, in the pages of the cult classic graphic novel – the first entry of which arrived in 2004 – written and illustrated by Ontario’s own Bryan Lee O’Malley. (He grew up in London, Ontario, but moved to Toronto in the early ‘00s.)

For a long while, Scott Pilgrim had the feel of a precious, hidden gem: one you either knew about and lovingly embraced, or missed out on entirely. Despite landing director Edgar Wright – of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame – the film adaptation performed poorly at the box office before quickly disappearing into obscurity, the flame kept alive in only the most obscure (and not necessarily even Canadian) corners of the Internet.

Over time, though, something wonderful happened.

Acclaim for the film, not to mention the excellent, underrated comic book series, began to grow. Critical reappraisals followed, even as it became hard not to notice the film’s impeccable casting instincts – its bevy of future-famous faces includes Kieran Culkin (“Wallace”), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“Ramona Flowers”), and Aubrey Plaza (“Julie Powers”) – not to mention Brampton’s own Michael Cera in the title role. Amusingly, the movie also features a plethora of superhero actors, including ex-Superman Brandon Routh (“Todd Ingram”), ex-Human Torch/future-Captain America Chris Evans (“Lucas Lee”), and future-Captain Marvel Brie Larson (“Envy Adams”).

It took some time, but eventually Scott Pilgrim went from cult classic to cult canon, earning for itself a sequel animated series – 2023’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – and several beautifully remastered editions of the graphic novels, not to mention various action figures, Funko pops, and board games. (Surely, the truest sign of nerd success).

Now here we are, 2026, and Scott Pilgrim EX – the title is an amusingly geeky double-entendre – has arrived. A direct sequel to the 2010 Scott Pilgrim tie-in video game, as well as a pseudo-sequel to both the comic book and the recent Takes Off, with which it shares its canonically dubious continuity, EX is a fantastic (if flawed) retro-action title, and a must-play for gaming geeks and Canadians alike.

It’s also very, very funny.

I’M IN LESBIANS WITH YOU

Like its decade-and-a-half-old predecessor, Scott Pilgrim EX is a hardcore 2.5D side-scrolling beat-em-up, a genre which generally involves moving left to right, foreground to background, as you and, in optional multiplayer, your team of allies, take on a succession of missions. Here, the six-or-so-hour campaign is suitably silly, as you track down your band’s missing/stolen instruments, dispersed across space and time thanks to the machinations of “Metal Scott”. And yes, if you recognize that as a Sonic CD reference, you’re tuned right into this game’s wavelength.

Selecting from a roster of familiar faces – Scott, Ramona, a few of their famous “Evil Exes”, some spoilery characters – your team of one to four players (crossplay enabled; shout-out to my PS4-owning buddy Carl!) is set loose on a wonderfully realized 16-bit Toronto, here rendered as an interconnected set of screens which can be more-or-less freely explored. It’s a nice touch, having everything connected from the start (with hidden shortcuts connecting the farthest flung locations), instead of the more traditional structure of standalone levels, as in the recent Marvel Cosmic Invasion (also from Tribute Games) or the previous Scott Pilgrim game.

Gameplay is slightly more sophisticated than button-mashing, as you’ll need to learn the difference between regular and heavy attacks, expert use of the throw/pick-up function (for weapons), and of course your various super attacks. Most fun of all, EX has an abundance of unlockable summons, ranging from Sex Bob-omb’s #1 fan Young Neil (who summons a legion of groupies, it’s hilarious) to Ramona’s zippy housecat. We’ll refrain from spoiling more, but part of the fun of EX is unlocking each new summon and trying him/her/them out until you decide on your favourites.

Also, the soundtrack, by returning chiptune artists Anamanaguchi, is fantastic, demonstrating that the band, which scored both the original game and the recent Takes Off TV series, haven’t lost their touch.

THINK ABOUT DEATH AND GET SAD AND STUFF

Splitting the difference between nerd homage and Toronto love, EX is overflowing with fantastic references, from knowing character and level designs to tributes to iconic parts of Toronto.

On the nerd/gamer side, you’ll encounter an overwhelming amount of familiar-looking enemies and items, liberally “borrowed” from titles like Super Mario, Mortal Kombat, Devil May Cry, and a frankly absurd number of allusions to my favourite 16-bit series, Ghosts ‘n Goblins. (Clearly, someone at Tribute is as big of a Sir Arthur aficionado as I am.) There’s also an entire Ocarina of Time-like system for learning various “riffs” (bass, drums, etc.) which progress the story. It’s awesome.

When it comes to Canadiana, Montréal-based Tribute Games – founded by several veterans of the Ubisoft team that developed the original game – clearly knows their Toronto. There’s the obvious – the CN Tower, a brilliantly reimagined Casa Loma, plentiful TTC references – accompanied by the more specific, like lovingly parodic takes on Toronto stalwarts such as Honest Ed’s (rip), Second Cup, and Shopper’s Drug Mart. Heck, there’s even a whole shop which exclusively sells power-ups named after Neil Young albums.

CONSTANT COMMENT

Scott Pilgrim EX is not without its problems, at least some of which are inherited from its tough-as-nails predecessor.

To begin with, EX can be ruthlessly difficult, refusing to dole out a bare minimum of health power-ups even as it sends you through increasingly harsh challenges. The placement of checkpoints – often before a long gauntlet of enemies preceding a boss fight – can feel unfair, albeit accurate to the quarter-munching era to which this game also pays homage. EX also crashed several times during our playthrough, most notably at the height of a particularly tough boss fight. Not cool.

Indeed, EX is one of the few games to earn a rare Toronto Guardian “Easy Mode” Stamp of Approval: it’s frankly a better game on lower difficulties, since the combat, while still challenging, is offset by what feels like a fair allotment of health and other power-ups.

EX is also clearly designed with multiplayer in mind, so woe be to any solo gamers. Combat in general is more fun with allies, while boss fights are more tolerable with multiple players teaming up. In fact, there reached a point during my single-player playthrough that I began activating a second controller for every boss, leaving my idle ally to soak up enemy attacks as a distraction. Also, fair warning: some mechanics – like the ability to revive after being K.O.’d – are only available in multiplayer.

Then there are the minor, but nevertheless irritating, problems. Puzzles and Shops which don’t save your progress when you die between checkpoints, forcing you to go back and repurchase/redo everything. Unskippable dialogue sequences. Unskippable dialogue sequences. In 2026. The (bizarre) inability to swap characters from anywhere but Ramona’s house, necessitating longish treks across the map whenever you want to change your hero. EX also suffers from some fairly mediocre platforming controls, which mostly don’t matter, but occasionally hinder the game’s optional challenges.

Perhaps the game’s single worst failing is its atrocious revive system. It took us forever to figure out that, once an ally is down and that ten-second counter appears above their head, you need to stand near – but not over – their prone body and manually throw hearts at them, hoping one lands in the correct spot. Even if it wasn’t so poorly explained, it’s still a baffling design choice, adding needless complexity to an essential mechanic which, in any other game, operates with the tap of a button.

Having said that, the weaknesses of Scott Pilgrim EX are only what reduce it from a pure 10/10 to a still impressive 9/10 vegan gelatos. The whole time we were around it, we had a fantastic time. It almost felt like we were on drugs. Not that we do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case we do them all the time. All of them.

***
Final score: 9/10 vegan gelatos.

Visit the official website for Scott Pilgrim EX here.

Check out Bryan Lee O’Malley’s official prequel comic, Scott Pilgrim: Dawn of Metal Scott, here.

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