I’m a strong adherent to the philosophy that games these days are more difficult than they need to be, and should be a little more forgiving, to be accessible to as broad an audience as possible. In principle. In practice, though, I fall squarely into the “core gamer” demographic (also commonly referred to as “nerds”), a group that relishes a good, nasty challenge. The people that prefer the delicate balance of Virtua Fighter, that revel in the sensory overload of Rez, that marvel at the merciless beauty of Ikaruga. Viewtiful Joe is a little gift to those core gamers, but doesn’t provide much for those who haven’t wasted large portions of their life mastering absurdly hard video games.
The game is for the most part a straightforward left-to-right brawler, combining a 3D graphics engine with 2D level design in a technique borrowed from the Klonoa series. Joe punches and kicks the crap out of a seemingly-endless stream of enemies, while trying to rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of a shadowy evil figure. The story’s hook is that Joe has been sucked into the world of the movies, � la The Last Action Hero. This gives the writers an excuse to break the fourth wall on a regular basis, and for the programmers to lay some neat degrading-film filters over the screen.
The movie setting also sets up the core of the game’s mechanic: Viewtiful Effects, or VFX. Joe has the ability to kick in special effects while he fights: he can slow down the action to make dodging enemy attacks easier while making his own hits stronger; he can go into mach speed, kicking and punching in a fiery blur; and he can zoom in for a dramatic, extra-powerful strike. These abilities are also used to solve puzzles. Slowing down time next to a leaky pipe causes a water drop to grow immensely before falling, pressing a button on the floor, and fighting at mach speed for a while, causes Joe to catch fire, allowing him to light fuses on bombs. The puzzles are for the most part just a break in the action, though; something to keep you from getting too exhausted from fighting.
Using VFX makes fighting an extremely entertaining activity on its own, puzzles or no, with even the most mundane grunt now a target for a wicked, stylish combo. Joe receives a rating at the end of an area for style points, but the lure of a higher grade isn’t nearly as attractive as the desire to simply flow through the game’s environments in a whirlwind of aesthetically-pleasing destruction. After a while, guiding Joe as he kicks, flies, and spins through wave after wave of enemies becomes a completely natural activity, like walking — actually, simply walking across a screen eventually feels un-natural: a slow, awkward motion that’s not really stylish enough to be part of this game. Capcom tried and failed to achieve this effortless, flowing style of play in P.N.03, but Team Viewtiful has pulled it off here with aplomb.
VFX aren’t just visual gravy, however; they’re a very necessary part of Joe’s arsenal, as many enemies are nigh-impossible to defeat without them, being fast (requiring slow-down to avoid their attacks) and tough (requiring zoomed-in hits to take them out). The boss fights in VJ are especially pitiless.
I’ve never been a fan of boss fights; they have a tendency to be exercises in repetition, requiring you to repeat a single, precise dodge-and-attack motion over and over again for an unreasonably long time to finish. It’s tedious and frustrating; it’s why I’ve never actually played all the way through a Megaman game. VJ’s bosses are actually more complex than usual. Each has an array of four or five different attacks, making a successful dodge-and-attack pattern harder to figure out, and after you’ve stumbled onto a successful strategy, the margin of error for execution is very small, requiring tight maneuvering and reflexes. Even after multiple playthroughs, you’ll find yourself cursing as you lose life after life because of a tiny slip in your timing.
The bosses are a big part of why Viewtiful Joe might be a hard game to recommend to casual players. The whole game, while not actually very long from end to end, can require a pretty hefty investment in time and sweat to get through. There is an easy mode, but it’s condescendingly called “Kid’s” mode, as if every adult should already have mastered the fine arts of joystick-wiggling and button-mashing by now. It’s a shame that the game closes the doors on people this way, because its delightful visual style and snarky dialogue are something that everyone can enjoy. You just have to be prepared to work for it.