Viewtiful Joe

For those not familiar with Viewtiful Joe, the basic premise revolves Joe, an average guy that has the ability to perform some craziest and unusual moves in video games.  Imagine playing in a comic book style movie with amazing and innovative visuals you’ve ever seen.  But it’s not the visuals and moves; it’s how the moves are performed.  You have the ability to slow down the game to perform your moves and make the moves look spectacular.   This is just the beginning to describe how wonderful Viewtiful Joe is.  The first game seemed to come out of nowhere and blew everyone away. 

In Viewtiful Joe 2, Joe is back for even more action this time.  The second game starts out with both Joe and Silvia (Joe’s girlfriend) in what appears to be a prehistoric setting.  This game will allow both Silvia and Joe to fight side by side in the game.  In addition to the moves in the last game a cool new move was added to the sequel called “Replay.”  The replay move is similar to an old kung fu movie you might have seen where the actors perform a rapid succession punch to an enemy.  You have the ability to replay a punch or move to perform triple the attributes.  Replay a punch three times for triple the damage, or replay a health item to triple your health.   

The game will also include 40 different enemies to defeat and new stages to complete.  Graphically the sequel looks very similar to the first game.  In fact if it wasn’t for the new Replay move you might think this is the same game as Viewtiful Joe 1.  Now this is not a bad thing since the graphics are simply amazing.  It really is a cartoon being played out on your PS2 or GC because of the toon-shading.  If something doesn’t need to be fixed then leave it alone and there wasn’t anything wrong with the graphics in the first game.

Besides Viewtiful Joe 2, Capcom also announced Viewtiful Joe 1 on PS2.  Now originally this was one of the exclusive games announced for the GameCube along with Resident Evil 4.  I asked the Capcom representative Carrie Rooth why the game was being moved to the PS2 platform.  She mentioned that even though the first game did well on the GameCube it probably would have performed better on the PS2.  So now PS2 owners have the opportunity to play the first game but with extras.  The biggest extra is Capcom’s newest flagship character, Dante from Devil May Cry, is a playable character in Viewtiful Joe.  

If you never played Viewtiful Joe then you just don’t know what you’re missing.  This is an incredible game and gamers are fortunate that Capcom has decided to make a sequel and release the first Viewtiful Joe on PS2.  Viewtiful Joe 1 will be released later this year with Viewtiful Joe 2 sometime in 2005.  Capcom will make sure the first game is released on PS2 before releasing the sequel to ensure PS2 gamers get the opportunity to try the game out before the sequels release.  Don’t miss out when something Viewtiful comes your way very soon.