Scott Pilgrim (video game)/Shout-Out

• In the background of the Frying Tengu, you can see karaoke which the only lyrics are "Da Di Da Dooo~!"
• The Map screen is done in the same style as "Super Mario World."
• Wallace's Mystery Shop, in the car tunnel, is a very clear homage to Merlin's Mystery Shop from River City Ransom.
  • Another direct ref is the Flat Irons bookstore. (To list the others would take up the rest of the page.)
  • The Flat Irons bookshop actually sells "Lost at Sea", another of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novels.
    • The music shop sells Kupek, the name that Bryan Lee O'Malley makes music under.
  • Wallace's Mystery Shop sells "Never-ending Fantasy" and "Speedy the Porcupine" video games for stats. We can see a blue turtle shell and the dwarf's axe from Golden Axe in the background.
• On the subject of River City Ransom, the "Grand Slam" move is lifted directly from RCR, and it is indeed still a gamebreaker.
• There are banners on the streets for "The Wright Stuff", referring to a series of double bills in Toronto that director Edgar Wright screened while the Scott Pilgrim film was in production.
• Speaking of Edgar Wright, he is actually in the game. During the second stage, he's the director in a stocking cap shouting directions in a megaphone. ...this probably explains why you can't hit him.
  • Apparently, his body can be seen in the stack of bodies in the cutscene after that stage.
• The Subspace Warp Zones are filled with Bricks and ? $ Blocks that release coins.
  • Some of the Subspace levels themselves bare a more than passing resemblance to Rainbow Road.
• Breaking the car in Stage 2 is exactly like the breaking the car mini-game in Street Fighter II.
• Knives' Assist Kiss with Kim has her doing a little leg lift while she does so. While this is very old cinematically, this is possibly a reference to Karateka.
• The band Clash At Demonhead arrives in a stretch limo version of K.I.T.T.. (Probably K.A.R.R.)
  • The exaggerated streeeeetch aspect of the limo is straight out of the music video for Windowlicker by Aphex Twin.
• Many of Todd's physical attacks are lifted from Akira and his "move item storm" is from Slick from River City Ransom. His block is an AT-Field.
  • Additionally, his Super attack is identical to K9999's SDM from King of Fighters, down to even the initial pose and animation. Which makes sense since K9999 was a Tetsuo ripoff himself.
  • There's also a Spider-Man (Well, Venom, but Spider-Man as the series) reference when Todd uses his super attack. His creepy transformation as he shoots the vegetables from his arm morphs his body into a near exact copy of Venom's outfit.
• One liftable item/weapon is a vegetable with a face.
• At the Halloween party, there's someone in the background dressed up as Bang from the Nes Game Clash at Demonhead. In addition, one of the enemies is wearing the skull of Tom Guycott, a boss from that game.
• The sequence on the bus is reminiscent of the first boss battle in The Punisher arcade game, that was fought on a bus.
• Triforce symbol on the recycling buckets.
• Mobile's house in the park is styled much like the houses in Zelda II the Adventure of Link, much like that game; he's in the basement and gives (well, he sells it) you a special move.
• The park is filled with Invincible Minor Minion elves who look like Link and act like the Golden Axe gnomes.
• The key in the park is in a pedestal like the Master Sword.
  • The design and game mechanic of the keys is reminiscent of the keys from Super Mario World.
• Gideon literally sprouts one angel wing during one of his attacks.
  • His Battle in the Center of the Mind form brings to mind Kefka's final form.
• Gideon's underground base is some mix between the Technodrome and Dr. Wily's castle.
• Whereas comic Roxy uses a regular sword and movie Roxy uses a chain blade, game Roxy's sword works as both, similar to Renji' from Bleach or Ivy's from Soul Calibur'
• When Scott finishes a stage, he blinks out ala Mega Man, Kim leaves via Warp Star. Stephen Stills leaves via a Green Pipe that appears from the ground. Finally, Ramona exits via her own bag.
• Stephen Still's clear-out move is a localized Power Geyser, taken straight from Terry Bogard of Fatal Fury fame.
  • In a similar vein, Scott uses a Tatsumaki Sempuukyaku, Kim does a Spinning Lariat WITH DRUMSTICKS, and Ramona appears to have stolen a trick from May's playbook (spinning around wildly with an odd weapon outstretched, in this case a bag).
• The little wolverines in stage 6 attack using Wolverine's standing Fierce Punch animation from the Marvel Vs. Capcom games.
  • In reference to the same character's healing ability, the end credits of the game rate the wolverines as "having to regain HP."
  • Logical, since Wolverine is from Canada.
• The "paparazzi" enemies from stage two appear to have covered wars, you know...
• The Twin's Humongous Mecha description states that it's a prototype to the Kazinger K.
  • It also features detachable arms, a mono-eye, head-mounted beam weapon and a head that becomes an escape vessel, not unlike Mobile Suit Gundam's Zeong.
  • When you fight the robot; the city in the background is on fire, you're fighting it on a rooftop, and it sometimes retreats to the background, just like the third boss in the first stage of Contra Hard Corps.
• The Subspace in Gideon's Mind has Bloody Tears and Medusa Heads.
  • Roxy's belt looks a lot like the whip-sword from Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance.
• The rolling balls in the Dojo stage and Dragons Den and the Chaos Theater Elevator are straight from the TMNT arcade games.
• The character select screen for the Scott Pilgrim video game is nearly identical to the selection screen for Super Mario Bros. 2.
• The Subspace? stage features Red Drops of Doom from the last stage in Mega Man 2 and crystal platform blocks that look like lifted straight from Mega Man Battle Network.
  • When you beat the final form of the last boss you find Gideon behind a console just like Dr. Wily in Mega Man 2.
    • He even whimpers just like Dr. Wily does at the end of the games.
• The Ubisoft logo video at the game start has MPEG artifacts, just like video sequences from early CD-generation games.
• Winners don't eat meat. A veganized reference to the ad that showed on later arcade machines stating that "Winners don't use drugs."
• The scene during the end credits where they are in Ramona's back yard and a wave of zombies approaches is just like Plants Vs Zombies.
• The very first stage features a store named Mecha-Fetus Toys, which would be the most wonderful toy store ever. There must be more references to Mecha-Fetus...
• Right before the battle with Todd Ingram, you engage in a bass battle with note highways similar to Rock Band and Guitar Hero. After a while, Scott decides to cut the crap and hits Todd with his guitar. The actual boss battle then commences.
• The Twins' Humongous Mecha is named "Super Fighting Robot", a Shout-Out to the opening theme of the Mega Man 90's cartoon.
• You can find subspace highways in secret doors, like the ones that Ramona uses. The subspace highways sometimes act all glitchy and surreal with rainbows, but mostly like Glitch City.
• In the second level, there are men in dragon costumes, and when they try to bash into you, they turn red and look like giant Charmanders.
  • This troper always thought they were a reference to Bubble Bobble and the tendency of the enemies of that game to Turn Red.
    • Something about them also made this troper think of the fire-breathing crocodile men from the Xmen arcade game.
• Level 2 looks like an Indiana Jones level.
• Scott does the Awesome Face as a victory pose.
• In level 4, the blue tang just keeps swimming while most of the other fish are staying in one place.
• The graphic for the "Energy Tank" food item you can buy in the last level looks almost exactly like energy tanks from earlier Mega Man games. The in-game description even states "It has a letter E on it".
• Ken Katayanagi, of the Katayanagi twins, had his name changed to Kevin for the game. This is a reference to Street Fighter 2010, where the character Kevin had his name changed to Ken for the American release.
• Compare the pause theme to that of Battletoads'.
  • In fact, the music is FULL of Shout Outs in the names of the music. Lucas Lee's boss theme is called Skate Or Live, the twins' boss theme is called Twin Dragons, the final stage music is called Techno Man. In addition, some of the songs feature concepts from the comics. The music for stage six, for example, is called Leave The Past Behind which is exactly what Scott wants to do, but exactly what he shouldn't do.
• The enemy bats do two shout outs in one: they usually appear near bottomless pits - just like the early Castlevania games - and are called G.D.Bats - Goddamned Bats!
• At one point, Knives' mother will be summoned and call your enemies a grass mud horse.
• When Super Fighting Robot shoots his missiles at you, it resembles a lot like another Background Boss.
• During Todd's Massive arm attack, reactor symbols flash onscreen, a la Utsuho from Touhou.
• One of the logos in the background of the Mini-Mart looks like the Angry Sun.
  • There's also a red bull
• There are multiple throwbacks and Mythology Gags to the original graphic novel that are too easy to miss, for example...
  • On the window of the Video store, there are two posters depicting the covers of the second, third, fifth, and first volume of the graphic novels.
  • In level 4, why are there constantly girls attacking you on roller skates? They're the Winifred Haileys that Roxanne conjured from the short comic that came after the second book.
  • Why does Mobile teach you a special attack in his secret basement? Because there was a Red Herring in the third volume about him teaching Scott how to use psychic powers against Todd.
    • Speaking of which, why is Wallace, Jimmy, Other Scott, and Joseph doing outside of his basement? The only correlation between them and Mobile is that they're all gay secondary characters.
  • You see the symbol on the Katayanagis' organ? It's the same symbol used on their keyboard/synthesizer in the movie.
  • In stage 3, while you make your way through the club, you can see at least two "The Clash at Demonhead"-poster that are recreations of the ones used in the movie. Notably it shows Envy with blond hair rather then red hair.
  • One of the trophies/achievements you can get ("Twin Dragons") is unlocked by defeating both of the Katayanagis simultaneously. In the comic, Scott gets an achievment for doing the same thing.
  • In order to unlock the secret shop, the player has to pay $504.25 for Scott's late fees at No Account Video, an obvious reference to the comic.^[1]
• One of the addresses in the first level has 3.1416; an estimation of pi. This is reminiscent to one guy able to do a far longer and more accurate estimation.
• Posters in Julie's party reflects the albums of Metric and the island that Anamanaguchi's Dawn Metropolis was placed in.
• When a character dies and doesn't have any lives anymore, they become angels.
• The zombies seem to have a little in common with those from the Metal Slug games, especially the creepy noises they make.
• The little robots that skitter along the floors in the 7th level look like something from Invader Zim.
• Several of the games cheats (At least on the 360 version) Are shout-outs to famous codes from other games.
  • The blood code is ripped from the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat. ABAXABB being as close as you can get to ABACABB on the 360 pad.
  • The "Change coins into animals" code is not only a shoutout to Sonic games, but the code Up, Up, Down, Down, Up, Up, Up, Up is the same as Sonic The Hedgehog 3's insanely hard level select and sound test code.
    • The Konami Code makes an appearance (With LT and RT needing to be held) as a code that spawns money when you commit suicide.
      • The select the same character code(Down, RB, Up, LB, B) is identical to the SNES version of the Vanilla Street Fighter 2 Code that enables Mirror Matches.
• Ramona's secret technique (the one you have to purchase) is a front-flip-landing-in-straddle-split move, used by Kim Kap Hwan and Chun-Li.
• In the techno-base, you can buy an energy tank with an 'E' on it, which may be a reference to Metroid. Then again, there must be plenty of energy tanks in games with 'E's on them.
• Gigadeon's weak point being his obvious, external heart may a reference to the Tyrants from Resident Evil. Or to Cackletta's Soul.
• A few of Super Gideon's attacks are taken from Gill's standing normals.
• Mr. Chau is fought on an open field in the middle of a storm; it looks a lot like the place where you fight Shin Akuma in Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold. There is some sort of castle in the background, though.
• Though it's a bit of a stretch, the Dragon's Den level bears a resemblance to Stage 8 of the original Street Fighter, as both share a burgundy color scheme, as well as an endless rug spanning the level and numerous statues littering the hallway.
  • The traps, spiked pit at the front and general theme also resemble the final level from the first Double Dragon game.
• The elves on Nega-Scot's level that can be beaten for coins resemble those on Golden Axe

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1. ↑ Granted, the actual fee is $504.28, but it's most likely to prevent annoyance at constantly having a cash total not ending in 5 or 0 (as the lowest coin is 5 cents)