Viewtiful Joe review

In Viewtiful Joe, Capcom attempts to recreate an age-old style of game with a reconstructed post-modern hero. Will they succeed? Or will they succumb to the perils of producing yet another endlessly repetitive franchise? Who could possibly save the day? And more importantly… will it be any fun to play?

Capcom’s new hero is just an ordinary Joe (pun surely intended). Until he gets sucked into a cheesy movie world that combines Japanese 70s style superheroes with 50s style comic book artwork. To quote the hero: “Henshin-a-go-go, baby!” Through the course of his game, Joe has to beat up countless robot bad guys and to help him in his task, he gains powers to slow down and speed up the movie he’s in. As well the ability to zoom in for dramatic close-ups, which both increases the power of his blows and provides posing opportunities.

Capcom returns... again

The “lone hero vs. many” style of beat-em-up has long been a classic game format, one that has sadly had little success on current consoles. Except for a few notable exceptions, it can often seem like a stale part of the genre. But one of the routes to success is through offering the player a greater degree of freedom and Viewtiful Joe offers a great deal of freedom in setting up the style and execution of attacks.

Although the cell-shaded graphics are 3D, the gameplay is strictly on a 2D plane, like many other fighting games. But Joe’s freedom of movement in this single plane, not to mention his control over time, reduce any feeling of limited movement. If anything, staying in two dimensions makes targeting foes much easier, allowing for more impressive attacks.

Each of Joe’s three main powers provides a different visual effect, as well as altering his attacks. This makes the process of defeating a group of enemies a creative as well visually impressive task. Leap into the air. Then slow down time to attack an enemy in mid-flight, just before zooming in on the action when you hit the ground, to cause a shockwave upon landing.

The Bold and the Viewtiful

The graphics manage to replicate the black outlined format of an old-fashioned comic book, while remaining fluid and smooth. All the characters retain their hand-drawn appearance despite being animated in 3D, in a fashion that deceives the eye even more than the impressive effects seen in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Even more impressive is the number of effects onscreen at once. Shockwaves and explosions of Joe’s powers, combined with a streak of lines across the screen or a blur of the fast-forward power, all manage to combine coherently to make a still frame of gameplay resemble a panel from a comic book.

The only complaint in this area is that on a few occasions the camera zooms in just a little too close than is comfortable for combat. But this never causes any unnecessary loss of life - it just makes you sweat a little more.

The sound production keeps to the same high standard as the visuals, while being just as distinct. With a quirky set of tunes and voice acting that is deliberately hammy, there’s a B-movie feel to the audio, just as there is with the graphics. Joe just never seems to shut up and his cries constantly mix it up with an array of crashes, bangs, explosions, gunshots, whooshes and shouts of pain. But despite this cacophony, the audio separation remains distinct and all of the sounds remain sharp, albeit only in stereo.

It’s worth pointing out that sounds distort in slow motion, and bass grows louder in close-up, just to add that extra bit of impact.

Using your powers for good

There is a wonderful paradox at the heart of Viewtiful Joe. The more visually impressive and powerful moves you gain, the harder the game becomes. So though you may gain the ability to effortlessly see off a horde of robots in tutus, you will struggle to think of new ways to use your powers each time you meet a new boss.

This experience fits perfectly into the rookie superhero concept. It’s always an uphill struggle against improbable odds, growing more improbable by the minute. Make no mistake; this is a very challenging game. But the level of challenge forces you to push your usage of Joe’s powers to the limit. If you fail to learn the nuances of Joe’s abilities, you will fail at the game. Succeed, and you succeed spectacularly.

A brilliant example is the series of battles you have against your mentor, Captain Blue. While hardly the hardest series of fights in the game, you both grow more powerful with each battle, pushing you to use more of your special abilities to win. This promotes a feeling of superheroes battling at the limits of their powers, which makes these battles that much more rewarding.

Feel good hit of the year?

On the one hand it can be frustrating to repeat the same levels again. But on the other hand, the game rewards your repeated play with extra points to spend powering up your character. And little is as satisfying as finally perfecting the technique to conquering a specific section of the game. Especially since it often means that you’ve unravelled another delightful secret of the game’s intricate design.

In the end there is no counter to the argument that Viewtiful Joe is simply a very difficult scrolling fighting game. But if that concept at all intrigues you, you will find it executed in some of the most rewarding and entertaining ways possible. It made me smile within minutes of playing it. If that isn’t a happy ending, I don’t know what is…