Now Playing: Viewtiful Joe

Viewtiful Joe is a side scrolling action game originally released on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. It’s a game I have very mixed feelings towards. There are some aspects I adore, but others I’m very frustrated by. You play as Joe, a regular guy whose girlfriend Silvia is kidnapped by evil movie monsters, and Joe must enter Movieland to save her.

Graphically, VJ is a great looking game, with wonderful environments, characters and animations. It’s a colourful mixture of 2D and 3D with a dash of cel-shading. In terms of audio, VJ is also pretty good, with some great music and effects. The story, such as it is, is suitably silly with a lot of humour and amusing characters.

Playing as Joe, you can perform basic punch, kick and jump attacks, combining them to form combos. It’s not quite the combo system you’d expect, however. Chaining together hits will net you more points, but it’s the dodge mechanic that’s at the heart of VJ’s combo system.

Dodging just before a hit will ‘daze’ an enemy, allowing Joe to strike freely and deal more damage. You also net more points for doing so. It’s a neat risk/reward system. Sure, you can blast through and attack without worrying too much about dodging (at least on the easiest difficulty), but doing so will grant you faster kills, more points and a higher final ranking. And on the higher difficulties, knowing when and how to dodge effectively is a requirement if you want to survive.

The combat system isn’t just about punches and kicks, though. You also have three special abilities – to slow time, to speed it up, or to ‘zoom in’ – all of which can be combined with your standard attacks. It creates a stylish, colourful and varied combat system, one which takes time to learn and master. Although I liked the system overall, I do have some minor gripes with it.

The first is that it’s not the most fluid system in terms of movement, particularly when Joe is in the air. Repositioning can be tricky, and you’ll often find yourself unable to move when locked into an animation. Certain enemies can also lock into an animation that completely ignores your attack, forcing you to watch as your kicks and punches simply pass through their model.

That’s because the combat system in VJ is one of precision. It requires precise movement, timing and strikes. It’s designed to be this way, so my gripes are a matter of personal preference more than anything, but as a result, I did find it to be more frustrating than fun at times, and I do wish there was more fluidity of movement, and more freedom to break free of animation cycles.

The game takes place across seven episodes, taking roughly eight or so hours to complete. But it’s the kind of game that you can really race through if you know what you’re doing. It’s one of those rare games I’d be genuinely interested in watching a speed run of. The episodes offer a fairly varied mix of environments and challenges, each with their own boss.

There’s a lot of platform style puzzles and challenges to complete, in addition to the fighting. And I really liked how your time powers are incorporated into these environmental puzzles. The boss fights are all unique and challenging in their own way, but they’re also not without their issues.

Many of the bosses tend to have very specific attack patterns, and learning these really is the key to beating them as opposed to player skill. Rather than intuitive design, these fights feel more like a matter of trial and error until you crack the pattern and figure out the relatively easy way to defeat the boss.

Enemy variety is another issue. Once you’re past episode 3 or so, there’s nothing really new to face in terms of enemy types. There’s a few new twists on enemies you’ve already fought, but nothing radically different aside from the boss fights. The game, unfortunately, also has a habit of recycling certain fights multiple times (tanks and helicopters in particular), which can grow rather tedious as you progress. Hell, the second to last episode is simply all the boss fights in the game repeated one after the other. And there’s no new twists on the fights, which is pretty disappointing.

And I guess that’s my real problem with Viewtiful Joe. It begins far more strongly than it ends. The initial half of the game as you unlock your powers, explore new mechanics and encounter new enemies and environmental challenges, is pretty damn fantastic. But the second half of the game fails to introduce anything particularly new, and the last three or so episodes are little more than a gauntlet to run of everything you’ve already faced. Challenging, yes. But not exactly compelling – more a tedious grind to the finish.

I began VJ having a ton of fun, unable to tear myself away, but as the game progressed, I found myself growing increasingly irritated by the quirks of its combat system and rather tired of having to fight the same damn enemies time and time again. I went from wanting to play VJ, to almost having to force myself to sit down and play it. VJ feels like it packs all its best moments into the first half of the game, and as a result, the second half is a little disappointing.

There’s a few extra things I should cover before I wrap this up. Points scored can be spent on certain upgrades or limited abilities between levels. It’s a neat addition, but it doesn’t really mix up the combat to any substantial degree. There are two difficulties unlocked at the start – Kids and Adult – but I’d recommend starting with Kids if it’s your first time, as it’ll give you a decent run for your money before you start getting a handle on the combat.

Keeping your combat flow going is also key to higher rankings, and kicking and punching enemies into one another can further boost your score. But be warned – using special abilities can increase your damage output, but also increase damage sustained, so they must be used with care.

Overall, VJ is a good game with a deep, if rather unforgiving combat system. Those little quirks I’ve complained about are really just a matter of personal preference on my part – an issue with me, in other words, rather than with the game. Because though I didn’t care for those aspects, I can’t really fault the overall design.

That said, I can’t ignore my other issues with the game, particularly its second half. It’s a damn shame, because I was loving Viewtiful Joe during its first half, but I found myself kind of irritated by its second. But hey, if you want an engaging, challenging and deep action game, you really can’t go wrong with it. The combat system is the real highlight and the best part of the game, despite my personal gripes. It’s just a shame the game surrounding that system falls a little flat towards its end.

7/10