Henshin-a-go-go, Baby!
Joe is a big fan of the action hero known as Captain Blue, so he takes his girlfriend Silvia to the movies to see a few of Captain Blue's films. Joe is engrossed with the movie, much to the dismay of Silvia, who feels ignored on the date, so she makes a move on Joe. While Joe is distracted by Silvia, Captain Blue is killed on-screen. Moments later, the leader of The Shadow, whom Blue has fought throughout all of his movies, kidnaps Silvia, and takes her into Movieland. An apparition of Captain Blue appears, and informs Joe of his destiny - to take Captain Blue's place and fight The Shadow, as well as rescue Silvia. Captain Blue also gives Joe a special watch which gives him super strength and special powers, and sends him on his way.
Lights. Camera. Action!
Remember the days of simple games such as beat ‘em ups and 2D platformers? Viewtiful Joe takes these old game types, and mixes them up with some popular elements from new games. It's one of those very rare games that offer up 3D graphics, but restricts the gameplay to a 2D plane. Of course, to mix things up a bit, Joe has a whole heap of special moves and combos at his disposal.
Being set in the world of the movies, Joe's special move repertoire is comprised of special effects, namely Slow, Mach Speed and Zoom In. Slow is Viewtiful Joe's incarnation of Bullet Time, made famous by The Matrix and games such as Max Payne. Slow motion in Viewtiful Joe is a bit different to most other games, firstly because it's a beat ‘em up, and not a shooter, and secondly because it's utilized in several puzzles throughout the game. Not only will Slow significantly boost Joe's strength, but it will also allow him to predict enemy attacks, and repel enemy projectiles. Mach Speed makes Joe significantly faster than his foes, allowing him to render hundreds of attacks in mere seconds, and replicate himself. If used for long enough while fighting, Mach Speed will generate a small fire aura around Joe, adding fire damage to his attacks. Zoom In is a nice stab at movies which show excessive posing, as Joe strikes a pose when the move is triggered, not to mention that his strength increases, and he gains a few new attacks. These three special moves drain your VFX meter, which can be expanded by collecting the tokens scattered throughout each level.
Viewtiful Joe's control method is amazingly simple, yet very intuitive. Each of the VFX moves are mapped to an easily accessible button - Slow to L, Mach Speed to R and Zoom In on the C-Stick. The punch and kick buttons are mapped to X and Y, allowing for the player to make all sorts of combinations. Collision detection is right on for the most part, but you may find that Joe might dodge a projectile right at the point where you wanted to hit it, which is quite an annoyance.
Joe's special moves and techniques need to be put to use by the player to get through each level. You're rated on your performance in three areas - V-Points, Defence and Time. V-Points are obtained by pulling off impressive combinations and chains of attacks. These V-Points are also added onto a progressive points score, and these points can be spent at the store in various points of each level, to purchase new moves, life containers and the like. Defence is judged on how much life you use, and how you respond to Joe's ability to see incoming attacks. Time is self explanatory.
A major issue for debate over the next few weeks will be Viewtiful Joe's difficulty level. At the beginning of the game, you're required to choose between Adult and Kid difficulty modes - appearances can be deceiving, though. Just like its Capcom 5 brother PN03, Viewtiful Joe is packing a mean difficulty level, similar to the games of old. Kid mode is probably the best place to start out, as Adult mode could be seen as the game's hard mode. Kid mode is easy sailing for the first few levels, but quickly becomes tough. The fact that you can only resume at about three different points and save at one point in each stage also adds to the overall difficulty. Viewtiful Joe certainly isn't the longest game you'll play this year, but you'll have a tough but very enjoyable experience while knocking it over.
Life is Viewtiful
Viewtiful Joe employs one of the most stylish and original visual styles we've seen this year. Presentation is a mix of film scrolling across the top of the screen, cel-shaded characters, and comic book-style static backdrops. Modelling and animation on the characters is absolutely supreme, as is the quality of cel-shading. The art style used in the comic backgrounds seems largely generic, which is the purpose the developer was trying to achieve. There are also some very nice special effects in the game, ranging from standard effects such as lighting and shadowing, to unconventional effects such as a dusty, grainy and flickery mask going over the screen when Joe returns to normal after draining his VFX meter. Viewtiful Joe runs at a rock solid 60 frames per second, and also supports a 60 Hz mode.
The aural experience in Viewtiful Joe is quite typical of an action film. The soundtrack is made up mostly of the sort of guitar tunes you'd expect in an over the top action film, with the odd beat ‘em up style techno track thrown in for balance. The dialog of the main characters is pretty cheesy for the most part, especially Joe's one liners, but it all fits in well as the lines are delivered really well by the actors, not to mention the fact that the game is trying to come across as a B-Movie. Sound effects are also quite impressive, with a wide variety of loud noises such as explosions and the sounds of fists cracking skulls. Significant alterations can occur to the sound effects based on certain situations, such as using Slow or being underwater.
Red Hot
Viewtiful Joe is an almost flawless package - a combination of a great visual style, impressive action and enjoyable gameplay. It's the sort of game that reminds us what we like about videogames. The overall difficulty and the lack of save points are more likely to be seen as paying homage to the games of yesteryear, rather than being something that was overlooked. It's undoubtedly one of the best action games this year, if not this generation - buy it today.
I jumped straight into Adult mode as I didn't want to finish the game too quickly or too easily.
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