Viewtiful Joe
Is Joe as Viewtiful on the PS2?
Tags: Viewtiful Joe Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Adam on Oct 19th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Viewtiful Joe (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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If you’re one of the unfortunate few who never played the Gamecube version of Viewtiful Joe, this will all be new to you. You play as the character Joe, a movie maniac who just happens to be watching one of his favorite movies starring Captain Blue. Keeping him company on a rather unsuccessful date is his beloved girlfriend, Silvia, who doesn’t care much for the movie and is constantly trying her best to get Joe’s attention – at least until she is snatched up by an unknown black figure and pulled into the silver screen. With the help of Captain Blue’s Six Machine, a transforming Mech Robot, Joe bravely follows her into “Movie World”. It seems that the movie’s villains are tired of being ruled by the director’s power in their current world and want nothing more than to escape and conquer the outside world. With Joe having been transported into the world of the movies, he gets some help from Captain Blue in squashing the bad guys’ evil plans. Thanks to the power of the V-watch, Joe can transform into Viewtiful Joe and set off on his quest to save Silvia.
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Now, we all know a hero is nothing without his superpowers. Lucky for Joe, he gets some extremely powerful techniques to aid him in his quest. The first and most useful is the ability to slow the movie reel down to a crawl and engage in some slow-motion brawling. Utilizing this power will not only enable Joe to gracefully dodge attacks but also increase the power of his kung-fu combos. The more impressive your attacks are, the more V-points (and audience appreciation) you earn. If you’ve played Devil May Cry before, you’ve seen this performance-based system before (kinda). In order to get new powers and combat abilities, you’ll have to perform well and earn enough points to buy said enhancements at the game’s store. Since you can’t go there whenever you want, you’ll have to wait until you complete a level before spending your hard-earned V-Points. Constantly buying new and exciting powers and upgrading existing ones adds a cool layer of depth to the game and should really motivate you to try and perform better.
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An additional power you’ll gain is that of Mach Speed, which as you can probably guess, boosts Joe’s speed to ridiculous levels and allows him to rapidly destroy scores of enemies. Ripping through their ranks with spectacular punches and kicks is normally a great deal of fun, but with the use of Joe’s superpowers it becomes a total blast. Deciding when best to use each of your powers and succesfully carrying out multi-hit combos is undoubtedly the greatest aspect of the game, though it’s clearly not the only one you’ll enjoy.
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Seemingly playing much like a typical side-scroller, Viewtiful Joe has the distinction of incorporating plenty of 3D elements into gameplay. There are several puzzles that need to be solved as wel, though it’s nothing too complicated. More challenging are the game’s memorable bosses, at least in the first few times you battle them – expect to lose a life or two before you get wise to their rhythm. Be warned that even thoughthey have patterns and signals for certain attacks, some look similar to each other and could cost you if you’re not 100% sure which attack is coming at you. Of course, this problem can mostly be solved with your slow-mo powers, a fact which applies to just about everything in the game. The game’s difficulty level isn’t too high, but you’re still in for 7 episodes of highly intense action.
Graphically, the PS2 version doesn’t really offer as much as the Gamecube version. Though the game still retains its awesome stylized art and judicious use of colors, it suffers from that old problem, the “jaggies”, especially noticeable with the 3D character models. It’s a good idea not to get too concerned with this, however, as this is easily one of the best looking cel-shaded games around and never fails to bring about memories of the great Comix Zone.
Whether you’re punching enemies at superspeed or in slow-mo, the sound effects are great, with my personal favorite being the enthusiastic crowd that goes wild after you pull off a large combo and rake in the V-points. Music is well chosen for every level and scene and the dialogue never becomes boring or repetitive. In fact, it was downright funny at times – definitely a plus (considering this is a Capcom game, after all)
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The PS2 has a set of exclusive extras, though there aren’t nearly as many as you think. One of the secrets that can be unlocked comes in the form of Dante, the demon-slaying hero from the Devil May Cry series. The only problem with throwing him into the game is that all of Joe’s story dialogue seems to play in reverse during cutscenes. The subtitles point out what they’re saying, but it really just seems like not much efforts was put into adapting the cinematic scenes. Fans of Devil May Cry should definitely keep an eye out for some in-jokes throughout Viewtiful Joe, one of which involves the appearance of Alastor (just so you know). Besides Dante, there’s also a couple of other characters to be unlocked and a trailer for the upcoming Viewtiful Joe 2. .
To be blunt, this a great game. It’ll take you back to the days of classic side-scrollers whilst constantly engaging you with innovative new elements and an insatiable desire for onscreen action. Whether you’re into 2D nostalgia or not, you should definitely check out Viewtiful Joe.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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-The storyline's good and is rife with entertaining dialogue. -The controls are easy to manage. -The sound quality is good and the music in general is nicely done. -It's really, really fun. |
9.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
-Graphically, the game doesn't quite match up with the Gamecube version. -It's a bit short. -Slow-mo can solve almost every problem. -Capcom could have put more effort into the dialogue for the unlockable characters. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Definitely a title that's worth picking up. It'll get you pumped for Viewtiful Joe 2. | |
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Tags: Viewtiful Joe
Posted by Adam on Oct 19th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
