Viewtiful Joe

We all probably started our gaming journey with a sidescroller game, mostly Super Mario. This is even more true, if you’re a kid of the 80s or 90s. These sidescrollers have filled our childhood with warm memories and fun filled hours of gameplay. I remember starting with Contra on a Sega Genesis and loving it to the core. But as we grew up, we were spoiled for choice in terms of games and the genres that followed. Today, AAA games dominate gaming and the open world is a general buzzword that’s thrown around like confetti. So returning to play a sidescroller triggered a lot of good old memories and got me hyped up. Will it be nostalgia that takes precedent, or will it take the backseat, letting logic and the play being prioritized? Will Viewtiful Joe stand up to the test of the time?

Viewtiful Joe was released in 2003. It was developed by Team Viewtiful, also known as Clover Studios, which was founded by Capcom. The Japanese are known for their creativity and out of the box thinking, which is apparent in this game.

Emulator:

Before we kick off I would like to point out that getting the game to work on the Dolphin emulator (Nintendo Wii and GameCube) was a piece of cake. I was running the game on a Windows 10 laptop with Ryzen 2500U and mobile GPU with 4GB RAM and a hard drive. Yea, I know this is nothing to brag about, but these specs didn’t hinder my smooth gaming experience in any way. The game ran like fine wine 99.99% of the time. This is no Crysis that’ll melt your PC, but if you’ve tried to play retro games on modern PCs, you know how challenging it can be to get them working with the compatibility issues and whatnot. And this was on an emulator which I have no experience with, so you can blame the other members of GenericGamingBlog for me doing this. I was taken by surprise when the game ran without me messing around the settings. I even upped the resolution to 720p and 1080p, without any issues. If this is how emulators are going to be, I can totally get on board. PS4 exclusives, I’ve got my eyes on you!  

zozodj2’s comment: Apparently Dolphin works well with Joe on Android using the Dolphin app on systems using Snapdragon 600 and higher processors. Grab the Play store version here and try it out on your phone, FireTV, Shield device etc.

Story:

Joe is an ardent movie-goer, who’s on a date with his girlfriend Sylvia. At the cinemas, Joe is fully involved in the movie, rooting for his favorite superhero, Captain Blue. Sylvia, on the other hand, is more interested in the actual date. Things take an interesting turn, when Sylvia is kidnapped by a character inside the movie, and Joe ends up being sucked inside the movie. Joe is now a Superhero inside Movieland! Can he save Sylvia and defeat the evil group Jadow that kidnapped her?

Sound:

I don’t expect games like these to have an excellent background score.  I don’t want to use the term cheesy again; but that’s what it kind of is. A small theme plays on a loop, which changes with every level or chapter, once the level boss is defeated. Other than that, the voice acting is fine, not too bad, but goes well with the rest of the theme. The filmy concept of ‘let’s take a break’ when you pause the game is a good thought, keeping in mind the theme of the game. The fight sounds are reminiscent of old movies, where drums were used to make fighting noises. Overall there’s nothing significant here, but I might be too harsh here, considering this game was released 17 years ago. 

Gameplay:

Enter a level, beat up a couple of baddies, collect some XPs and finish a stage after beating the boss. This was pretty much the gameplay mechanics of many side scroller games of that era.  Viewtiful Joe is no different. Gameplay can become monotonous, depending on what kind of player you are. If you’re someone who likes combat based, beat up the enemies, get to the next level, repeat cycle type player, you might like this. The story does take a backseat, but is relevant enough.

Some games work best with a controller. Sure, you can use controllers on PC as well, but if we’re talking about default controls, then it’s a keyboard and mouse. Viewtiful Joe is one such game which I felt would’ve benefitted from playing on a controller. This, by no means is the fault of the game. 

zozodj2’s comment: When it comes to emulators just grab a modern controller, either a console controller or someone cheaper like RedGear.

Playing on the keyboard can sometimes hinder the full potential of the new superpowers unlocked after a stage is complete. It’s attached to a default key and can be used as a combo as well, but remembering them during a crucial boss fight brought back college exam nightmares. I couldn’t remember critical things there either.

Now, the controls in game feel crisp. The combat is super fun. There’s a ‘VFX’ superpower Joe gets, which has a cool-down but replenishes. The first VFX can be compared to Max Paynes’ bullet time! The enemies are slowed down when you use VFX, so that you are at an advantage, the second is superspeed and the third is a sort of special moves like from a beat em up. You are also limited in terms of speed but its fun to kick some ass in slow mo! This is also used to solve puzzles. There are many more superpowers Joe gets as he progresses throughout the game.

The gameplay mechanics are similar to Super Mario and many such side scrollers of that period. There’s even a small tribute to the super Mario theme here in a level. There are a couple collectible points called V-points that extend your VFX bar, sadly the bar restarts after a level. There are also mystery boxes which when punched throws out cheeseburgers! This burger gives you an extra life. Every time Joe consumes the burger he says ‘Yummy!’ which left me wondering if it was from McDonalds. No, McDonalds did not sponsor this review.  

There are many power ups; which can be unlocked after a stage is complete, using the ‘V’ coins. So if you replay a particular level multiple times without beating it, you are at an advantage when it comes to powering up. This adds some great value to the combat and makes kicking ass just awesome.

There are two difficulty levels – Kids and Adults. It is obvious that ‘Kids’ is an easy level of difficulty and ‘Adults’; well it’s just like real life, you will get your ass kicked on a regular basis. If you’re willing to play on the Adults difficulty level, ‘May heroness be with you’. 

Conclusion:

Viewtiful Joe represents a time when games were simple. No huge open worlds, expansion passes or dwelling on graphics. A combat, which is straight-up fun, over the top, and a super cheesy plot with a surprisingly decent story, albeit with a plot twist which was, well, filmy. Viewtiful Joe is every superhero fans’ wet dream and then some.

Finding your date is the ultimatum of the story and the journey is an interesting one. That is, if you’re prepared to master the combat. 

The graphics while nice, look dated. The bosses have no facial expressions, which, while keeping in mind the age of the game is not really a con. The music can get annoying at times, especially when you’re crunching. I found myself muting the game, just to focus on defeating some bosses.

Speaking of the bosses, this game has a couple of bosses who can wreck havoc on Joe! I had to replay many bosses, but once I started learning the combos and dodging attacks properly, I could beat them. The difficulty of the bosses certainly gets higher with every level. So, mastering combos will help you as you progress. As I reached the end of the game, I had to replay some bosses multiple times in-order to beat them. 

There is something apparent with Viewtiful Joe. It’s for people who love reward based gameplay. You need tons of practice to perfect the combat and unleash awesome combos and when done correctly, this can be rewarding. This is also for people who love to replay levelss and whole games just to get that perfect score. While the story seemed super cheesy at first, I kinda ended up liking the climax of the game. The game is definitely worth a play, more so if you’re someone who loves challenging games and don’t mind playing a level multiple times until you’ve beaten it. 

Pros	Cons
Fun combat	Monotonous gameplay, can get boring
Mastering combos makes the fights very rewarding	Dated graphics
Awesome upgrades, adds value to the combat	Music is meh; annoying at times
Boss fights get harder as you progress	Some have cheesy ways to beat them