Viewtiful Joe

Released August 27, 2003

Developed by Clover Studio

Published by Capcom

NWR Reviews: 9.5 - 9.5

Retrospective by Steven Rodriguez

When it was released to Japan in June 2003, Viewtiful Joe quickly sold out in shops across the country. Once importers got their hands on it, they got to see what all the fuss was about. The cel-shaded graphics, over-the-top style, and classic 2D kick-your-ass action turned plenty of heads. Anticipation grew fast, and when Joe hit the States later that year, everyone finally got to confirm it with their own eyes: Viewtiful Joe was one freakin' sweet game.

Born out of the Capcom Five GameCube agreement between Nintendo and Capcom (see below), VJ was a game that revived a lost art. As consoles transitioned away from cartridges, the 2D side-scrolling beat-'em-ups gave way to flashier 3D action games. Titles like Double Dragon, Final Fight, and River City Ransom were some of the best back in the day, but most attempts to bring similar gameplay into the next dimension came up flat. It's fitting, then, that a new trend in graphics design rescued the genre by going flat.

In the early days of the generation, cel-shading was the hot thing in gaming. The graphical style let developers give 3D objects a 2D look, like a comic book come to life. Viewtiful Joe used cel-shading, but Clover Studios took it to the next level. Anyone who thinks that realistic graphics are the best will have a hard time supporting their argument once they see VJ. All of the characters dripped with style. Each of the levels looked like a super cool pop-up book that wanted to jump out of your television. It was one of the best looking games that had been made available on any system at the time, and even today, there are few games that outdo it in terms of style.

The cartoon look fit perfectly with the side-scrolling action. But everyone wondered, would the gameplay do the style justice? Hell yes.

Viewtiful Joe succeeded in bringing classic 2D gameplay to modern 3D consoles. The heart of the game is the VFX system, where players can slow down time, fast forward, or zoom-in the camera on Joe. The movie-inspired powers were needed at every turn, like slowing down time to punch back a speeding bullet or speeding up Joe so that he catches on fire. VFX turned standard platforming puzzles into clever mind-benders, which made Viewtiful Joe much more than a mindless button-masher. Sure, there's plenty of button-mashing in the game (it is a beat-'em-up, after all), but players who used VFX correctly could find weak spots in enemies and rack up the Viewtiful multipliers. Using the powers was a necessity for defeating the game's bosses, all brilliantly designed tests of your knowledge of the three VFX powers.

Mastery of the VFX system was only the tip of the iceberg. Knowing what powers to use at the right time didn't make Viewtiful Joe that much easier. Not only is the gameplay a throwback to the days of the NES, the game's difficulty showed how watered-down the games of today really are. Continue and Game Over screens appeared left and right, but very few people seemed to care. The game was so much fun to play, people wanted to battle through one level just so they could move on to the next. Just when they thought the last boss was around the corner, players found that they had to survive a gauntlet of all the game's bosses just to make it to the finale. Those who managed to conquer it all were rewarded with the option to try their luck on the V-Rated difficulty level, which made the game just about impossible. But that didn't stop people from trying it anyway.

Viewtiful Joe is the epiphany of classic side-scrolling gameplay for the modern era of consoles. If you're not old enough to appreciate how good games used to be in the late 80s or early 90s, playing through VJ will get you pretty close to understanding why all the old-timers long for the 2D classics of yesteryear. It's a great tragedy that the game's developer, Clover Studios, will not be around to make another game like this one, because gaming needs more games like VJ. If you haven't played Viewtiful Joe, you're doing yourself—and gaming as a whole—a great injustice. It's easily one of the GameCube's best games, and should be made a requirement for anyone who considers themselves a fan of gaming.

Mike Sklens: "I love this game for so many reasons. First, it's a brawler in a time when very few brawlers exist. Second, it looks amazing. The comic book style is fantastic. Third, it's all about movies. I'm a movie geek, and getting to the final level of this game and finding out that it was based on Star Wars was a real treat. Finally, this game is really freakin' hard. Lots of games aren't challenging enough anymore, but Joe kicks your ass very well."

Stan Ferguson: "This had to be one of the most slap-happy, fun games on the GCN. It was joyfully goofy with incredible controls and a fast-paced style that never grew old. I never did beat Fire Leo, though. I got so close, and I just couldn't bring myself to continue again."

Karl Casteneda: "Something that the GameCube always seemed to lack was a kick-ass action game. The PS2 had Devil May Cry, and Ninja Gaiden eventually made its way to Xbox, but Nintendo lacked that extra-visceral feel. Although a bit more quirky than 'kick-ass,' Viewtiful Joe definitely had that 'awesome' factor that made it instantly enjoyable to anyone who played it."

Daniel Bloodworth: "This must have been one of the most perfect import games ever. Aside from a handful of menu items, everything was already in English. The fresh, fun, and amazingly difficult gameplay made it a great win for summertime action. Henshin a go go baby!"

David Trammell: "Viewtiful Joe is memorable because of its unique art style and fresh gameplay. It's legendary because of its absurd difficulty and the satisfaction one gets from mastering it."

Lasee Pallesen: "At a time when side-scrollers seemed like a dying breed, Viewtiful Joe came along and proved that the genre still has legs. It did so with its stylized visuals, wacky humor, intense boss battles, and crazy story developments. Viewtiful Joe managed to instantly bring me back to the glorious days of 2D gaming when your objectives seemed so simple to accomplish yet proved so difficult."

Dissenting Opinions (Kind Of)

Jonathan Metts: "I have always hated the controls in Viewtiful Joe, especially for jumping, but the combat is superb and the puzzles are a great touch."

Michael Cole: "While I appreciate Viewtiful Joe's bold style and no-nonsense gameplay, I found its difficulty too much for my blood."

Viewtiful Joe was originally one of the "Capcom Five" GameCube games. In November of 2002, Capcom made a surprise announcement: Nintendo would receive five Capcom-developed games for release on the GameCube—and only the GameCube. The promised exclusives were Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, P.N.03, Dead Phoenix, and Resident Evil 4. Securing Capcom's flagship franchise and getting four new and original IPs became a big coup toward Nintendo's efforts of regaining lost console market share.

In the months that followed, however, things began to unravel. Not much was heard from Dead Phoenix after the initial announcement, and it was eventually canceled before any of the games were released. P.N.03 wasn't well received, and was ultimately the only one that ended up truly exclusive to GameCube; Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil 4 both got ported to the PlayStation 2 (but stayed GC-only long enough to be eligible for this feature), and Killer 7 became a multiplatform game when a Sony version was released at the same time as the once-exclusive GameCube game (making it ineligible).

Despite not following through with their original promise, Capcom still provided the GameCube with some amazing games. The Capcom Five didn't save the system from its eventual fate, but they rejuvenated Capcom and helped them to return to their rightful place among the top Japanese game companies.