Welcome to the 76th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This is a weekly feature where we share some our favourite games. Some may be well known, others I feel have been ignored but all are fantastic and deserve at least a play.
Once upon a time Capcom had a fantastic studio under it's belt which created all new IPs rather than rely on older established franchises, this studio was called Clover who later in 2007 disbanded and many key members went on to form the mighty Platnium Games. This studio was headed by Hideki Kamiya (Resident Evil & Devil May Cry,) and they went on to make such fantastic games as God Hand and the Twilight Princess beater, Okami. However, perhaps their most successful franchises (in terms of sales) was actually their first game which then went to spawn three follow up titles and was one of Capcom's "Gamecube 5" which was 5 new games for the Gamecube (there is a common misconception that these were meant to be exclusive to the Cube but infact only RE4 was meant to be...and it wasn't). Along with Resident Evil 4, P.N.03, Killer 7 and the now cancelled Dead Phoenix, Clover debuted Viewtiful Joe.[prebreak]Continue reading[/prebreak]
The story goes like this: Joe is a massive movie fanboy and while watching a movie starring Joe's favourite superhero Captain Blue, his girlfriend Silvia who is with him, gets kidnapped by a gang called Jadow and Joe is then taken to Movieland. He meets Captain Blue and he gets gives Joe the "V Watch", which in turn, turns Joe into Viewtiful Joe and from there he sets off on his adventure to rescue Silvia.
Viewtiful Joe was a beautiful cell shaded side-scrolling platformer beat-em-up, and as Joe you can jump around and kick the crap out of multiple enemies but what made it different to others in the genre was that it employed a system called "VFX Powers" which was essentially allowing the player to "Speed Up" or "Slow Down" to solve many puzzle and combat situations there is also a "Zoom In" power which increases Joe's attacks and gives him more moves. These powers are limited to a VFX gauge meter, this meter is normally full meaning Joe gets to stay in his "Viewtiful Joe" superhero persona but the more you use his abilities the more the meter empties and once it depletes you become regular Joe where he become weaker, less powerful and unable to use his powers. The meter does refill gradually but you can quicken the process by collection "VFX Juice". The "VFX Powers" help add some variety and some strategy into the game and really helps in what normally could be a repetetive beat-em-up. It's also fairly lengthy for a game like this, offering around 9 hours most gamers
Graphically it is a dream to look at. Clover/PG know how to make beautiful, stylised games as their first title is no exception. The cel shaded models are well design, animated and damn right gorgeous and borderline on works of art as does the backgrounds too. The artwork really shows the comic book theme so damn well with rich detail. On the Gamecube this does not feature a single bit of slowdown or stutter throughout and was really a showcase to what Nintendo's purple box could do. The sound is very crisp and fitting for the game and it's sound with sharp punches, grunts, chimes and voices and the VFX Powers give a good audio assult on your ears. Musically the soundtrack is a bit of a trancey, funky ravey beats that keep up with the action on screen.
Overall this is a fantastic and at times different game and one of the best of that generation. The series has seemingly been forgotten nowadays but it did spawn the very good Viewtiful Joe 2 also for GC/PS2, the "bleh" VJ: Red Hot Rumble for GC & PSP and the excellent DS title VJ
ouble Trouble all of which were developed by Clover. The character style of VJ however has been bought over somewhat for PlatinumGames next game The Wonderful 101 which is exclusive to Wii U and is released later this month. While Clover are now over, it's great that the key people are still making great stylised games under PlatinumGames and I bloody hope that after Bayonetta 2, Hideki gets his wish and gets to make a new StarFox game...or Zelda...whatever.If you enjoyed this week's edition of GBAtemp Recommends! please leave a comment in the thread. This helps us monitor feedback and ensures we keep posting these articles in the future.
Platform Nintendo Gamecube / Sony PlayStation 2
Released 2003 (Gamecube) / 2004 (PlayStation 2)
Developer Production Studio 4 aka Clover
Publisher Capcom
Director Hideki Kamiya
Genre Scrolling Beat-Em-Up
