If Scott Pilgrim only put references for the sake of references then I would be inclined to agree with this statement. However the use of game motifs was used as visual and metaphorical representations of the themes of the storyline.DearFilm said:
Take the base premise of Scott Pilgrim having to defeat Ramona's ex boyfriends in order to date here, here we have a typical video game plot where the hero as to defeat a series of bosses in order to claim the princess. In reality when a guy is interested in a girl who has had ex boyfriends he feels a certain need to "surpass" the exes to deem himself worthy in the girl's eyes. In essence the gauntlet of fights Scott goes through represents how he is maturing into a person worthy to be loved by Ramona.
Another example is the "Power of Love/Self Respect" scenes where Scott finally shows initiative and actually challenges a boyfriend instead of being passive and waiting for them to come to him. While the Sword of Love was able to grant him confidence and aid him in his fight, it breaks easily when truly tested against Gideon Graves. Many people are motivated to do great things based on love alone but simply acting on love without self respect can only get a person so far.
This is why I loved the movie to hell and back because of how it used nerd culture within it's story telling. A lesser film would have just thrown in a simple Mario reference and just called it a day but here they were used as central parts of the story telling.
I must also add that Scott Pilgrim's rating in Rotten Tomatoes is over 80%. Many of those reviewers are not part of the gaming culture and are of the older age demographic. If these people praised the film then that means it did have a certain universal appeal.
