Gaming Viewtiful Joe 2

[Charles]

Well, Capcom recently announced that Viewtiful Joe 2 for the GameCube has been in development since last summer and will release on GameCube and Playstation 2 this winter. Besides allowing you to play as Silvia from the beginning of the game and talk of co-op play (which Atsushi Inaba said will add a lot of depth in terms of combos), Gamespot reported the following additions:

[quote][b]Besides having 40 new types of enemies, the sequel will also span several new environments, including a jungle, underground ruins, ancient Japan, snowy mountains and outer space. Joe's Six Machine will get new transformational powers that will let it turn into a racer, cannon, drill or submarine during different stages of the game. The caped hero will also receive a new VFX power, "Replay," which will let him triple the effect of attacks or power-ups.[/b][/quote]So, there you have it. The original was a blast and the second won't do away with the hardcore difficulty entirely. Thus, I look at this sequel as a nice evolution of one of the best old school games in recent memory.

I've attached some scans that show Devil May Cry's Dante (who appears to have mistaken Silvia for Trish?) among other things. The quality isn't wonderful, so I'm not sure if they show the PS2 version of Viewtiful Joe in there too. But, this should give everyone an idea of the things to come until we can get better images.

Edit: I couldn't attach them all, so here are links to the others.

[url="http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_06.jpg"]http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_06.jpg[/url]

[url="http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_01.jpg"]http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_01.jpg[/url]

[url="http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_05.jpg"]http://sungame.mods.jp/photos/JOE/JOE_05.jpg[/url]

[Turkey]

Some of those pictures are from the PS2 port of Viewtiful Joe 1. At least, I can recognize most of the Dante pics from there. However, I hope that Dante is given a good story, so he doesn't feel like a shameless way to cash in.
Also, I like how Silvia is shown shooting with that yellowish gun. If they put stuff like that in the store, it would be even better than before. Lastly, I really hope that you can carry over your save from the previous game.

[James]

[color=#707875]Yeah, Dante won't appear in VJ2 to my knowledge; he's an added extra in the PS2 port of the original game.

I can only say that I'm really looking forward to this game, as I enjoyed the original very much. Viewtiful Joe was a breath of fresh air as far as video games go in general...and apparently the sequel will have many more levels and such. So if it's a longer (and better) game, I'm sure it will be just as popular as the first.[/color]

[Xeryus Weapon]

I can only hope that this sequel is as good as the first, as most are dissapointing.

Viewtiful Joe 2 will sustain the original cel shaded graphics style as before in the first adventure, and will let you play as Sylvia as mentioned previously by Charles.

The game will be displayed in brand new environments and settings, along with more new difficult puzzles, and introducing the Replay function. Joe is able to perform the Replay ability allowing you to "go back" to help defeat enemies and or revitalise your health bar. For example, throwing a punch and replaying it three times inflicts three times the damage, healing yourself and replaying it three times gives you three times the energy.

It will be interesting to see how techniques influenced by Bullet Time (such as going back in time in Prince of Persia) would adapt to a cel shaded engine, it could be the start to something new ;).

Not only are there new abilities too, it seems Joe's fighting style has also improved, he can now grab and hold enemies to swing and throw them around, which can be useful in over-crowded environments.

In conlcusion, Viewtiful Joe 2 is the sequel to a very creative game, I can only hope that it proves as creative as its predecessor.

[Charles]

Yeah, and you know, I just hope the new enemy types provide a bit of variation. Upon playing the first again, I became reminded of the frequency of battles with tanks, helicopters, the jackpot enemy, and the guy with the cowboy hat and six shooters. :sleep:

If I have one complaint about the original, that would be it.

[Semjaza]

Here's the first videos of this game in action...

Large (7 MB):
[url]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/b8a26c0a-0471-4bbd-9a23-e8d388cd77ab.mov[/url]

Small (2 MB): [url]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/fbbd9508-0626-4d1f-ac20-ea41e464139b.mov[/url]

And some new, clear screens:


[IMG]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/36cb1067-2ef5-4cf8-b91b-c91439504ce2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/7e438fa6-fd0a-44d4-823b-948f6063eb4f.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/1a670171-fe93-465a-98ce-b53bc8e9c78c.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/2a7fe75c-9313-4b9f-9a6b-8462c4cf04cc.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://media.nintendo.com/mediaFiles/0c085edc-9ade-4e19-b8b0-db2ae86e97cc.jpg[/IMG]

Hands on from IGN: [url]http://cube.ign.com/articles/514/514092p1.html[/url]

[quote]Capcom Entertainment on Monday held its pre-E3 Producer Day, an event designed to show off much of its 2004 lineup to the press before the kick off of the big show. One of the game's the company spotlighted was Viewtiful Joe 2, the sequel to the hit beat-'em-up of the same name for GameCube and (coming soon) PlayStation 2.

Producer Atsushi Inaba told press on hand that at last year's Producer Day he begged them to help make the game sell so that he could make another. He thanked everyone for helping to achieve that goal.

"His moves. Suave and ravishingly Viewtiful." This is how Capcom described Viewtiful Joe 2 in an opening trailer for the game, which it premiered at its Producer Day. The publisher also showed off a playable version of the title, running on -- gasp -- PlayStation 2. (The GameCube version is expected to debut at the E3 show floor.) Crowds gathered and -- as with the first title -- those lucky enough to play didn't easily relinquish the controller.

Viewtiful Joe 2 was officially announced for GameCube and PlayStation 2 in late April and at that time IGN wrote a preview of the game. What we saw at Capcom's Producer Day confirmed our hopes and expectations.

VJ2 is more of the same. The title plays almost identically to its predecessor. Joe is still manipulated through stylized cel-shaded environments in a linear left-to-right fashion. He fights with an impressive selection of enemies -- more than 40 -- and is able to use his special superpowers to knock their lights out, simultaneously scoring points for well-executed combos.

New to the sequel is Silvia as a fully playable character from the start. She now uses a gun and can link combos with the projectile. Indeed, on more than one occasion in our play test with the title we used her gun to stun an enemy and then really pounded into the foe with a well-choreographed punch-and-kick combination for many, many Viewtifuls. "They fight Viewtifully together," exclaimed Capcom of Joe and Silvia, who can battle side-by-side in a newly included two-player cooperative mode. Judging from the teaser video shown and the play test, it appears that in two-player mode both players are affected by the special moves that one gamer or the other activates. So, if Silvia goes into slow mode, so will Joe. And if Joe speeds up, so shall Silvia. It should make for some very interesting and unique teamwork.

Capcom's teaser video showed off for the first time some of Six Machine's new abilities. The vehicle, which Joe took to outer space at the end of the first game, is now able to transform into everything from a sniper gun to a submarine. Though it's clear that it'll play a far more integral part in VJ2 than it did in the original, we were unable to test it out.

What we did get to try, though, were some of Joe and Silvia's "Viewtiful" new moves. (We apologize for that, but it seems to fit.) Of course we're referring to the new VFX powers such as replay. This power enables Joe to record moves or frames, which can then be played back three times in a row for multiple times the damage. So if Joe were to combo kick an enemy, that recording could be tripled up to inflict massive amounts of hurting. The power is as stylistic as the others, slowing the action and zooming in to show off Joe or Silvia's agility and overall coolness. But as Inaba explained in his presentation, using the move may also open the heroes to attacks. If players accidentally triple-copy an ineffective move, they will do no damage and may instead receive three times the pain from enemies.

Inaba also explained that Viewtiful Joe 2 will feature more content, will be a longer game, and will be based more and more in the movie-themed environments. We saw a couple of these demonstrated. Joe or Silvia is able to travel through a prehistoric land filled with erupting volcanoes and dinosaurs. The hero must find a way to fill the volcano with a giant rock so that it no longer vomits out dangerous particles and later they must reverse the process to proceed. In the following stage, Dino Park, Joe and Silvia will encounter more creatures, as well as molten lava that they'll need to jump over or else they'll catch on fire.

Generally speaking, Silvia seems to be able to jump higher and move slightly faster than Joe, but the Viewtiful one is able to dish out the damaging blows.

"Viewtiful Joe was the killer app for the GameCube in 2003, and this winter Viewtiful Joe 2 will raise the bar for excellence and innovation even higher with the second generation of the series," said Todd Thorson, director of marketing at Capcom Entertainment. "With new visual effects, enemies and challenges, Joe and Silvia are ready to take on an all new Viewtiful adventure."

Viewtiful Joe 2 will release for GameCube and PlayStation 2 later this year.[/quote]

[GuyYouMetOnline]

With all the new games coming out for Gamecube (The new Zelda game, Paper Mario 2, Metroid Prime 2, etc.), it's hard to decide which one I'm looking forward to the most, but that's probably Viewtiful Joe 2. I love the original. Difficulty modes ranging all the way from way-too-easy to breaking-controller-against-the-wall-hard make it suitable for all skill levels, and three unlockable characters give you plenty of reason to play the game multiple times. Not that I need a reason to. that game's awesome enough that I'd play through it again and again anyways.

By the way, I'm having trouble viewing the video. I have a PC with Windows XP Pro and People PC as my ISP. I use Internet Explorer as my browser, and have the most recent versions of Quicktime, Java, and Shockwave. When i click on the links to the videos, a new browser window opens, but the window remains blank. Can anyone help me with my problem? I really want to see all of these new games in motion.