Viewtiful Joe 2

Joe and Silvia are back in this sequel to Viewtiful Joe. This time you have more style, new special moves, and more than 40 new enemies to defeat. Now Joe's trusty aircraft transforms into various shapes to support his activities throughout the game's many stages. In addition to Joe, you can play as Silva, Joe's girlfriend. Call upon the powers of Joe and Silvia, and get ready to both solve new puzzles and save the day.

Released: 18 November 2004
Platforms: GameCube PlayStation 2
Genres: Action Beat 'em up Fighting Platformer
Developers: Clover Studio
Publishers: Capcom
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Action Comedy
Country: Japan
Age ratings: PEGI 12 ESRB T
Languages: English, English (UK), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish (Spain)

About

Viewtiful Joe 2, known in Japan as Viewtiful Joe 2: Secret of the Black Film, is a 2004 beat 'em up game developed by Clover Studio and published by Capcom for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. The game's story begins where the original Viewtiful Joe left off, with the beginning of an alien invasion of Movieland by a villainous organization called "Gedow". The group is led by an unseen being known as the "Black Emperor", whose proclaims his goal to collect the special Rainbow Oscars, seven statuettes which contain the "power of the happy ending". Straight from their previous adventure, superhero Viewtiful Joe and his girlfriend Sexy Silvia quickly charge themselves with stopping Gedow's evil plans.

Very similar to its predecessor, Viewtiful Joe 2 is a combination of 2D and 3D cel-shaded graphics with action, platforming, and beat 'em up gameplay elements. Using either of the characters Viewtiful Joe or Sexy Silvia, the player must utilize "VFX Powers" in order to battle enemies and solve puzzles. An integral part of the gameplay, these special abilities include being able to slow down, speed up, zoom into, or replay the onscreen action. Also akin to the original game, Viewtiful Joe 2 sold modestly but garnered considerable praise from critics due to its stylish graphics and gameplay.

Keywords

martial arts
anime
2.5d
brawler
bullet time
slow-motion
wall jump
superhero
boss fight
voice acting
protagonist's name in the title
polygonal 3d

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Viewtiful Joe 2 is a 2D beat 'em up which combines side-scrolling and platforming. The player takes control of either of the characters Joe or Silvia to complete tasks within each stage, such as defeating enemies and bosses, and solving puzzles. Within Movieworld, Joe has "VFX Powers" such as Slow (similar to bullet-time), Mach Speed, and Zoom at his disposal to defeat the enemy. He is joined by girlfriend Silvia, who has also acquired VFX powers.

However, Silvia has "Replay", which allows her to record and repeat an event three times in succession, instead of Joe's Mach Speed. The Replay power must be used wisely, as although it allow the player to do three times the amount of damage on an enemy, being hit while using it will incur three times the amount of damage to the player.

Story

The plot of Viewtiful Joe 2 continues immediately from the ending of the previous game. Having just saved Movieland, Viewtiful Joe and his girlfriend (and new partner) Sexy Silvia learn from Captain Blue that the world will be threatened twice more. Joe and Silvia leave Captain Blue's space station to attend to an alien invasion from the forces of Gedow. The leader of Gedow, the Black Emperor, suddenly attacks Captain Blue and turns him into a statue called a "Rainbow Oscar", one of seven in a set that represents Movieland's power of the happy ending. With their power, the Black Emperor intends to conquer Movieland.

Cast off to "the fringes" of Movieland by Gedow, Joe and Silvia fight their way through a prehistoric film and defeat the Tyrannosaurus rex soldier, Big John. Joe and Silvia obtain a Rainbow Oscar from Big John just as Joe's father Jet arrives in the theater and demands that they come back to the real world and clean up the mess they made. Silvia manages to convince Jet to help them rescue Captain Blue, and Jet agrees by setting up new films for her and Joe to journey through in search of the Rainbow Oscars.

Development

Viewtiful Joe 2 was developed by "Team Viewtiful", a part of Capcom's subsidiary Clover Studio. The game was produced by Atsushi Inaba and directed by Masaaki Yamada. Hideki Kamiya, the director of the original Viewtiful Joe, contributed to the storyline scenario of the sequel. At the time, Kamiya was signed on as director of Ōkami, but he wanted to write the story of Viewtiful Joe 2 to ensure continuity.

Kumiko Suekane once again supervised the character designs, and Masami Ueda and Sayaka Morita co-composed the game's soundtrack. Suleputer released the soundtrack on a double album titled Viewtiful Joe + Viewtiful Joe 2 Original Soundtrack in Japan on December 22, 2004, which includes the musical scores from both games.

Reception

Reviews for Viewtiful Joe 2 were generally positive. The GameCube and PS2 versions hold GameRankings scores of 85% and 84% respectively. Metacritic currently lists the respective versions at 86 and 85 out of 100. IGN ranked it as the 89th best PlayStation 2 game. The staff felt that it was an example of a quality sequel.

Famitsu magazine gave the GameCube version of Viewtiful Joe 2 a 28 out of 40 and gave the PS2 version a 27 out of 40. IGN gave a rating of 9.0, citing the game's deep and satisfying gameplay, and that "all sequels should be this good".