Gaming/Features

Scott Pilgrim has always been the poster child for delisted games. The restored version of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition is a win for every player who missed out the first time around.

The city of Toronto frequently stars as other cities: Casa Loma as the Xavier school in the X-Men movies, city hall as the conspiring Umbrella Corps in Resident Evil.

Hell, my high school auditorium was where they filmed the trivia finale of Billy Madison. Enthusiasm ran high in 2010 upon the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the movie based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 2004 graphic novel series about fighting for love, music and high scores in and around Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.

Bittersweetly, the movie has since served as a time capsule of a bygone Toronto scene with the shimmering Honest Ed’s as a backdrop to an unacceptable preponderance of raglan t-shirts.

That local institution was not the only thing that’s been lost since 2010. That same year Ubisoft released Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, taking the Streets of Rage-inspired material and turning it, well, into Streets of Rage. A four-player arcade beat-‘em-up where Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pine and Stephen Stills brawl across Toronto, from Lee’s Palace to Hillcrest Park to clubland. A free-for-all aboard a TTC streetcar like Friday night on the 504.

Chiptune punks Anamanaguchi scored the game while artist Paul Robertson developed the spritework. The game was created in under a year to align with the release of the film. One of the last of its kind as film tie-in, games grew out of vogue – one of the first of its kind as a commercial release to be delisted. In 2014, licensing agreements between Ubisoft and Universal Pictures expired, forcing the removal of the game from digital stores like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. Since the game had only had a digital release, this rendered it “vapourware” games that can no longer be acquired legally if at all.

It’s an increasingly common story as games experience their own extinction event. Sega scrapped OutRun Online Arcade after its agreement with Ferrari expired. The entire Wii- Ware store is retired. Konami tried to erase P.T., a horror collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, and tease to a larger, cancelled game Silent Hills. Thankfully Scott Pilgrim got his happy ending. After years of growing demand from fans, Ubisoft re-released the Scott Pilgrim game this month.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game – Complete Edition is a restored version for every player who missed out. To ensure the game is never lost again, Limited Run has released its first ever hard copy, ensuring Scott Pilgrim remains in circulation. They’ve also reissued Anamanaguchi’s soundtrack on vinyl.

“We’re pretty excited for the re-release,” said Jean-Francois Major, one of the game’s original developers. “Scott Pilgrim has always been the poster child for delisted games. So in our books, this is a big win.” He and other Scott Pilgrim developers went on to found Tribute Games, which focuses on other retro-inspired titles like Mercenary Kings, Flinthook and most recently Panzer Paladin.

I’m not going to hold out on a video game somehow restoring the labyrinthian Honest Ed’s, but it would be nice.