| Viewtiful Joe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Beat 'em up |
| Developers | |
| Publisher | Capcom |
| Creator | Hideki Kamiya |
| Platforms | |
| First release | Viewtiful Joe June 26, 2003 |
| Latest release | Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble! November 2, 2005 |
Viewtiful Joe (Japanese:ビューティフル ジョー,Hepburn:Byūtifuru Jō) is aside scrolling beat 'em upvideo game franchise created by Japanesegame designerHideki Kamiya. It is primarily developed and published byCapcom and its subsidiaryClover Studio.
| 2003 | Viewtiful Joe |
|---|---|
| 2004 | Viewtiful Joe 2 |
| 2005 | Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble |
| Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble! |
The first game in the series was directed byHideki Kamiya, who had previously directedResident Evil 2 andDevil May Cry. It was the second title to be released under theCapcom Five, developed by a team of developers withinCapcom Production Studio 4 known asTeam Viewtiful. The game was released for theGameCube on June 26, 2003, inJapan, and in October 2003 inNorth America andEurope.Viewtiful Joe centers around the avid movie-goer Joe, who is thrust into Movie Land, transforms into thesuperhero "Viewtiful Joe" and sets out to rescue his girlfriend Silvia. The gameplay features traditional2Dplatformside-scrolling intermixed with3Dcel-shaded graphics. APlayStation 2 version was developed in 2004 byClover Studio featuringDante from theDevil May Cry series as a playable character.[1]
The second game in the series was directed by Masaaki Yamada, withHideki Kamiya writing the story. The game was released for both theGameCube andPlayStation 2 in 2004 inNorth America andJapan, and in 2005 inEurope andAustralia. The game would be the first title to be fully developed byClover Studio, a new studio withinCapcom that was founded in 2004.Viewtiful Joe 2 features bothViewtiful Joe and Sexy Silvia as playable characters with similar gameplay elements to the first game.
Hideki Kamiya has expressed wanting to return to the series since leaving Capcom. In 2017, in an interview withDengeki PlayStation, he addressed his former employer that he would want to work on a remake of the firstViewtiful Joe.[2] DuringPAX East 2020, Kamiya told attendees to "email Capcom" to get sequels to dormant franchises, includingViewtiful Joe. He later said he would like to finish the series with a third entry, as well as seeing aNintendo Switch version of the first game.[3]
Ananime TV series based on the video game series, simply titledViewtiful Joe, was produced byGroup TAC and aired from 2004 to 2005.[4] A manga series was published concurrently inV Jump magazine.[5]
Viewtiful Joe appears as a playable character in theWii version of the 2008fighting gameTatsunoko vs. Capcom.[6] He also appears as a playable character in the 2011 fighting gamesMarvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds andUltimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3,[7] and the 2013 mobile gameCombo Crew.[8]
| Game | Year | Metacritic |
|---|---|---|
| Viewtiful Joe | 2003 | 93/100 (NGC)[9] 90/100 (PS2)[10] |
| Viewtiful Joe 2 | 2004 | 86/100 (NGC)[11] 85/100 (PS2)[12] |
| Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble | 2005 | 62/100 (NGC)[13] 63/100 (PSP)[14] |
| Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble! | 2005 | 73/100 (DS)[15] |
The first twoViewtiful Joe games received critical acclaim. However, the games that came after received a mixed-to-positive response and did not sell well.
In Japan, the GameCube version ofViewtiful Joe sold through its initial shipment of less than 100,000 copies during the week of its release.[16] Preorders of the GameCube version sold out on Capcom's North American website prior to its ship date, andViewtiful Joe debuted as the tenth best-selling game in the region.[17][18] The PlayStation 2 version sold a poor 9,912 units in its first week of release in Japan.[19] Worldwide, sales of the game reached 275,000 copies on the GameCube and 46,000 on the PlayStation 2.[20] Sales of the game in both North America and Europe were lower than what Capcom had predicted, but due to its small budget, the game was considered by Inaba to be relatively successful commercially.[21][22]
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