Viewtiful Joe 2

Thoughts:

Viewtiful Joe 2 feels like an improvement on the first Viewtiful Joe game, but the changes feel fairly minor. Aside from the addition of Sexy Silvia and her new power of replay, the game plays nearly identical, and even have the same flaws as the first. The game is still very challenging, but this time around it feels a lot more manageable compared to the first. The store and constant save points mean the game doesn’t make you constantly play the same sections over and over again, and lets you plot your purchases more effectively. Battles can still often feel tedious if you don’t know how to hit the enemy for massive damage, but these areas are few and far between to make them a constant problem throughout the game. What is evident though is the games need to let you figure out how to do it all on your own though, often giving puzzles that are only solved once or twice in the game. Again these puzzles are puzzling not for the fact they are meant to be puzzles, but because the game doesn’t give you enough tools to figure out how to solve it to began with. Trying a bunch of different moves and ideas till you exhaust any given option you know of till you either give in and look for advice or get a eureka moment. Viewtiful Joe 2’s puzzles can often be like battles sometimes, being tedious, a bit confusing, and overall frustrating.

As I said before, Viewtiful Joe 2 is an improvement on the first game, and it improved the combat enough to make it all the more enjoyable. Playing as Sexy Silvia is different though, as she uses a pistol along with her kicks, and while it helps set her apart, it also takes away a lot of her combo potential out. This makes Sexy Silvia inferior to the already Viewtiful Joe, but what makes this worse is the fire mechanic that can only be put out as Joe. So if you are dedicated to using Silvia through out the reel sections, you will eventually be forced to switch to Joe to put yourself out when you’re on fire. Buying items and moves aren’t nearly as grind heavy as the first game thankfully, and you will usually be able to get a new move or item each time you visit the store in each given reel. The story this time is a bit more nonsensical however, but still cheesy nonetheless. The soundtrack also still manages to get the blood pumping and the fuel going, but its nothing to write home about. Really though, Viewtiful Joe 2 had a lot of potential to help get a franchise up and running, but with little improvements its understandable how this series just kinda died off unfortunately. There was a lot of missed potential with VJ2, and while I’d like to see more of the series, I can’t say that gaming is missing much. VJ series is good as a whole, but it’s not really that great as a series, and seems to not address its faults well enough.

Final Thoughts:
Viewtiful Joe 2 improves on the originals formula of controlled viewtiful fighting, but it does little to actually improve the flaws the first had. Fights can still be very tedious if you don’t know how to hit the enemy properly, and the puzzles are nearly as bad as the first with a lot guess work and wondering what exactly you do to solve this puzzle. Viewtiful Joe 2 had a lot of potential to be great, but it just ends up being a good affair.