Viewtiful Joe | DJcube

Life is Viewtiful!

JP release: 26th June 2003
NA release: 7th October 2003
EU release: 24th October 2003
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
NGC Magazine Score: 90%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

The second of Capcom’s five big exclusive GameCube games, although Viewtiful Joe got ported to the PS2 a year later (interestingly, the appearance of Nintendo’s ROB is left in the PS2 version). It’s a side-scrolling beat-’em-up where Joe has to enter a film to save his girlfriend and stop the villains from escaping into the real world.

On top of various kicks, punches and dodges, Joe also has VFX powers which are the cornerstone of the game’s combat. He can slow down time, make everything fast and “zoom” into the action (which can be combined with slow and speed to give you more options). These powers can also be used to manipulate the world itself, making floating platforms raise and fall and some other neat affects. I really enjoyed the use of puzzles in this way, and it’s great to be able to use the combat mechanics for more than damaging opponents.

While I initially found combat to be incredibly good fun, I found it got extremely tiresome by the ending. Part of this is that enemies have a lot of health, and it’s not consistent either, the same enemy types can take a different number of hits. What didn’t help me was the health bar on bosses, which use multiple layers, sometimes of similar colours, so I wasn’t sure I was even causing damage a lot of the time. For some bosses, you can have the main tactic figured out and just have to repeat it countless times. I went for the “Adults” difficulty and ended up wishing I’d gone for the extra easy difficulty contained in the Japanese re-release.

Still, Viewtiful Joe is a lot of fun, and if you’re good at these games, you probably won’t encounter the main kind of problem I did. I do really hate the lack of consistency in enemy health (it felt ridiculous to me for some of the later repeat big enemies), but then the game also throws different objectives at you within sections of the level to help mix it up. It also encourages replaying with even harder difficulty modes and extra characters to play as.

Fun

Some of the puzzles, or rather tasks required of you, can be frustratingly difficult at times. Not in an old school way, but purely because the way in which you have to accomplish many of the tasks can seem illogical. In essence, there’s just too much to do, and concentrate on . And, to top it all off, failing the tasks often means that you have to start again at the beginning of a section, and fight your ay back.

But these really are minor problems, and the sheer audacity, manic intensity and superlative execution of he game as a whole, undoubtedly compensate for any misgivings we may have had.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #84

Remake or remaster?

A remastered collection of the Viewtiful Joe games would be great, perhaps add a super easy option for people like me.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Viewtiful Joe.