Viewtiful Joe (Japanese: ビューティフル ジョー, Hepburn: Byūtifuru Jō) is a side-scrolling action fighting game series. It was created by Japanese game designer Hideki Kamiya. The games are mainly developed and published by Capcom and its subsidiary, Clover Studio.
Games
The first game in the series was directed by Hideki Kamiya, who had previously directed Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry. It was the second title released under the Capcom Five, developed by a group of developers in Capcom Production Studio 4 called Team Viewtiful. The game was released for the GameCube on June 26, 2003, in Japan, and in October 2003 in North America and Europe. Viewtiful Joe follows Joe, a movie fan who enters Movie Land, becomes the superhero "Viewtiful Joe," and tries to save his girlfriend, Silvia. The gameplay includes traditional 2D side-scrolling levels combined with 3D cel-shaded graphics. A PlayStation 2 version was made in 2004 by Clover Studio, which included Dante from the Devil May Cry series as a playable character.
The second game in the series was directed by Masaaki Yamada, with Hideki Kamiya writing the story. It was released for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 in 2004 in North America and Japan, and in 2005 in Europe and Australia. This game was the first fully developed by Clover Studio, a new studio within Capcom created in 2004. Viewtiful Joe 2 allows players to control both Viewtiful Joe and Silvia, with gameplay similar to the first game.
Development and history
Hideki Kamiya has said he would like to return to the series after leaving Capcom. In 2017, during an interview with Dengeki PlayStation, he told his old company he wanted to work on a remake of the first Viewtiful Joe game. At PAX East 2020, Kamiya asked people to "email Capcom" to request sequels for games that are not being developed anymore, including Viewtiful Joe. Later, he mentioned he would like to complete the series with a third game and to see a version of the first game on the Nintendo Switch.
Other media
An anime TV series based on the video game series Viewtiful Joe was created by Group TAC. It aired on television from 2004 to 2005. At the same time, a manga series about Viewtiful Joe was published in V Jump magazine.
Viewtiful Joe is a character who can be played in the 2008 Wii version of the fighting game Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. He also appears as a playable character in the 2011 fighting games Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Additionally, he is a playable character in the 2013 mobile game Combo Crew.
Reception
The first two Viewtiful Joe games received high praise from critics. However, the games that followed received some positive and some negative reviews and did not sell well.
In Japan, the GameCube version of Viewtiful Joe sold all of its first shipment of less than 100,000 copies during the week of its release. Preorders for the GameCube version were sold out on Capcom's North American website before the game was shipped, and Viewtiful Joe became the tenth best-selling game in that region. The PlayStation 2 version sold only 9,912 copies in its first week of release in Japan. Worldwide, the game sold 275,000 copies on the GameCube and 46,000 copies on the PlayStation 2. Sales in North America and Europe were lower than Capcom had expected, but Inaba considered the game to be relatively successful commercially because of its small budget.