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Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble Preview
Written by Jonathan Ikeda on Saturday, November 5, 2005
Fan of Viewtiful Joe? Then check out his foray onto the Nintendo DS with these exclusive hands-on impressions...
Capcom's Viewtiful Joe was an unexpected triumph for 2D gameplay when it hit the big consoles back in 2003. Now its unique charms are playable on a little console called the DS, and it remains just as oddly engaging as before.
The factors which differentiate Viewtiful Joe Scratch from previous versions are all centered on the touchscreen. Important new moves can can be pulled off by tapping and scratching. The 'scratch' reference in the game's title points to the key touchscreen move, a shake of the visible play area effected by a quick stylus scratch around enemies. This is a touchscreen reinterpretation of Super Mario's POW! blocks, really, rocking the screen and knocking things over to clear enemies from your path.
Another cool stylus feature enables you to cut and paste parts of the display. By using this method you can rearrange features of the environment to assist your progress. This removes the frustration of, say, finding your course blocked by some large obstacle, but the payoff is the time needed to perform this operation and the constant threat from enemies as you carry it out.
Most of your time, however, will be spent with thumbs resting on d-pad and a/b buttons. The shoulder buttons too are vital: holding L effects slow-motion, my favourite aspect of the Viewtiful Joe experience, while R pushes Joe to run at a fair pace.
I don't think any developer has really figured out how best to combine standard d-pad/button controls with stylus input. After some time with Viewtiful Joe Scratch, it seems that Capcom hasn't quite sussed it out either. Viewtiful Joe is an action-heavy, high-speed game by default. Capcom asks the player to quickly reconfigure their whole input method frequently throughout each level, which strikes me as just a wee bit overly demanding, although after more play it may well become easier to switch to and from the touchscreen and trad controls. Let's hope so.
In all artistic fields, Viewtiful Joe Scratch is without doubt a star performer. The visuals are almost as sumptuous as the GameCube original's lush picture, and the bizarre style is retained intact. Scratch's music is up to, um, scratch -- the VJ brand of thrash-techno-guitar comes over sounding lovely from the DS' surprisingly clear and beefy speakers. (Is it just me, or does the DS sound much better than the PSP when heard without headphones?)
We'll have more on Scratch when it launches domestically as Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble later this month. In the meantime, it's safe to anticipate a solid addition to the canon of Joe's adventures. Just be prepared for some hand gymnastics -- start flexing those fingers now!
