Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble PSP review

The first Viewtiful Joe was a wonder to behold. It had everything that makes a good videogame, and more. Classic cool fighting, complete with slow motion, fast motion, endless hordes of drones to unleash your fury upon, and to top it all off, a spandex-clad superhero as your vessel.

The idea wasn't exactly original, side-scrolling beat 'em ups have been at the forefront of the games industry for a long time, be that only as a result of the sheer number of them. However, Viewtiful Joe put a tremendously appealing spin on the genre, making it not only humorous, but cooler than Frosty the Snowman with brain-freeze. Fighting games changed forever that day.

So how will Capcom's second attempt fare up to the critically acclaimed original? Viewtiful yo or Viewtiful no? (Sorry).

Different Strokes

Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble has a different game dynamic to the first. Instead of beating up hordes of enemies to progress to an end-of-level boss, the base objective is to compete against a CPU controlled player in a number of movie scenes. Each movie scene has an overall aim, mainly just to do better than your opponent, but sometimes to accumulate the most points in the time limit. The ways in which to obtain these points have their own little objectives as well. These are, once again, tasks like get the most of a specific item, but also include targets like doing the most damage to a boss.

Once a scene is complete – usually consisting of three sub-levels – the points of both players are totaled and whoever completes the overall objective wins. Of course, if you want to get to the next level, the winner must be you.

A Little Less Complication

It's a little complicated at first. It's easy to forget that you've not only got to get more points than your opponent, but you've got to complete the given task at the end of it all as well. A cheer may raw from you when you see your money pile grow larger than your enemies at the end, but that cheer soon changes to a sob when you get 'FAILED' in big blue letters drop into your screen from not completing the overall task. It's all in good, if frustrating, fun though.

Well, fun to a certain extent that is. Although this change in objective breaks away from the repetition of the original VJ, it also takes away some of the appeal. I especially liked the dodging from the first game; it added another element of thought, ensuring you not only took less damage, but that you get to deal the most pain. VJ:RHR doesn't have another level like this. The constant struggle to beat the opponent makes the game a lot more frantic and somewhat confusing than it should, especially since the CPU controlled players get very difficult early on.

Wizard's Sleeve

However in an attempt to give you a fighting chance Capcom has given VJ some new and quite spiffy little tricks up his sleeve. On top of the standard slow-mo, the speed-mo now sends VJ on a turbulent journey about the skies as a flaming, and almost indestructible, hunk of man careering into (and through) enemies and bosses as if they're nothing but air. It's a little cack-handed to control, and it only lasts for a matter of seconds, but if it's points you must collect, flying at the top of the screen just as they appear ensures the growth of not only the evil grin you'll be administering, but the depth AND width of your wallet at the end-of-level. Awesome.

Also, in the vein of the New Super Mario Brothers, one superb little power-up, once engaged with a swift depression of the L2 trigger, makes VJ grow about 10 times bigger and develop the fortitude of The Rock on PCP. Once again, this enlargment lasts mere seconds, but once it's in action, one tap of the punch button can hit and instantly kill several enemies at once. Let alone the kick.

Motley Crew

In a game based on man-to-man combat, it would be stupid of Capcom to not include the ability to play as other characters. The company doesn’t disappoint.

The variety isn't drastic (except Dante from Devil May Cry), most of the alternate characters look very similar to VJ, with a different colour and a few extra pointy bits, but it is far from aesthetics that set these guys apart from one another. Think of it more about the skills with which they kick each other's asses.

The basic power-ups are still there to collect, but the individual attacks vary from person to person. To be honest, I think all are inferior to VJ's basic punch and kick tactics, but it is a refreshing change once in a while to be able to have a gun, sword or ray-gun wielding dude at your disposal.

Production Values

So what does it all look like. Let me tell you, this Viewtiful Joe truly is a Beautiful Joe as well. It's very apparent that you're playing this all on a PSP, but the number of things happening on screen at once, not to mention the special effects linking them together, are quite impressive indeed. RHR has kept true to the cel-shaded style of the original and it's truly a delight to behold. I really can't fault and therefore have nothing else to say about this part of the game.

The same goes for sound as well. Although there isn't really much to comment on. Let's face it, the epic sound of a full orchestra in titles like Oblivion, in this game, is replaced with the bitter-sweet ear-candy of people getting kicked in the face, and believe me, it's more than welcome.

The music score is most definitely worthy of mention, however. What else would you listen to whilst you kick people in the face than rock music? Nothing, I should hope, and Capcom has given us that pleasure.

Almost Famous

To summarize, I'm gonna say I like VJ:RHR. In all fairness, it's a good platforming beat 'em up, but the only thing that has me raising my eyebrows in concern is that it's little to nothing like the original game with the exception of graphics and sound.

I loved the original game, I would go as far as to say it was a defining moment in videogaming for me, but when you buy a new Viewtiful Joe game, you want to be kicking the asses of hordes of bad guys, level-after-level, but RHR doesn't deliver this. It's almost a completely different fighting game with the Viewtiful Joe title slapped on the cover and I'm sure that's going to upset some people.

Nonetheless, the game is good fun if a little frustrating. Fans of the original might be a little miffed by the drastic shift in dynamic, but as long as you recognize that this isn't just a side-scrolling beat 'em up, you should be pleasantly surprised.