The Video Game Critic

Got I hated Viewtiful Joe beyond the first level.

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I am sure there were many people who felt that way.  Personally, I loved it for its insane difficulty.  Fire Leo in particular has to be one of the most ridiculously hard bosses I've ever played in my life.  I feel proud to have finally figured out how to conquer him every single time.

I was insane enough to play through the entire game with Joe on Adult, Sylvia on V Rated, Alastair on Ultra V Rated, and then Captain Blue on Ultra V Rated all over again.  I was addicted to that game on a grand scale -- played it all day Saturdays and Sundays until I conquered every aspect of it.

Oddly enough, I wasn't as thrilled with Viewtiful Joe 2.  I anticipated that game and I did ultimately enjoy it, but I didn't get addicted to it the same way that I did the original.

Fire leo was just retarded, to make matters worse if you died you had to start the ENTIRE level over again.  And since that was the level you had to kill all the bosses again it was just un reasonable.  Capcom should really be ashamed of that level, other than that the game was great though I thought.  I have little love for the sequels though.

I have a thought: Maybe bosses are more fun in a co-op game? When playing Gears of War Co-op, when we run into some gigantic monster, it always seems so much more satisfying to take it out as a team.

-Rob

Fire leo was just retarded, to make matters worse if you died you had to start the ENTIRE level over again.  And since that was the level you had to kill all the bosses again it was just un reasonable.  Capcom should really be ashamed of that level, other than that the game was great though I thought.  I have little love for the sequels though.

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I think it was awesome and I stand by that   If you became good at killing those bosses (which you had to really by that time), then they were no problem, even when they were a little more difficult that tme around.

Fire Leo is a great boss.

I don't like games that are hard due to design problems, but Viewtiful Joe and Siren were not those games, despite the fact that many lazy gamers accused them of such.  There were very clear strategies in each game that you simply had to discover to progress.  To me, that's what makes them greater than average.

Ok then, what in your opinion was the hardest end game boss?

The easiest?

Ok then, what in your opinion was the hardest end game boss?

The easiest?[/QUOTE]

Hardest: I've been playing Yie Ar Kung Fu for years and I've never been able to defeat Blues. The other fighters aren't that hard, but Blues is insurmountable with his long legs and cheap bunches of kicks in a row. Has anyone here ever beat him?

Hardest: Geese (from my experience CvS but it seems he is always hard) with his cheap as all hell "I'm nearly dead so here comes an unlimited series of my deadly powerful super combo that is practically impossible to counter."

Easiest: Zhang Li on Perfect Dark Zero, by a LONG way.  Even on Perfect Agent it offers no challenge.

I hated Viewtiful Joe for a number of other reasons:

-Dull, uninspired designs and graphics beyond the first level.

-Incredibly repetitive main level sections without any depth to the fighting.

-Weak puzzles that were also ridiculously obscure the first time you come across them and then present no challenge after that.

Although not absolutely ground breaking, I thought the level designs were typical of the 2D beat 'em up platformers that VJ was trying to emulate, only with a nice 3D background graphical facelift.

I particularly loved the level in the corporate building.  Rising up each floor in another elevator to the next level, making sure not to fall through some holes leading back down to the floor you were just at.  Or, sometimes doing it on purpose to reach an elevator that leads to a floor you need to reach.  Crashing through a bathtub to reach the next lower floor, etc.  Ah, good memories!

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]-Incredibly repetitive main level sections without any depth to the fighting.[/QUOTE]

Gonna have to disagree there.  Every enemy, from the weakest to the strongest, had a very specific set of strengths and weaknesses.  You couldn't just go through VJ and beat everything up the same way, and you certainly couldn't rely on random passion mashing the buttons up however you liked.  You might get through a level or two that way, but you wouldn't save up enough of your life meter (or your individual lives) to successfully face off against the impending boss.  You had to examine and observe how to beat specific enemies with subtly different maneuvers over multiple attempts.

Going back to the issue of the Fire Leo level, one of the purposes of having all of the previous bosses there before having to fight Fire Leo was to test the player to see if he had actually learned the strategies for fighting these bosses, or if he was just lucky one out of the 30 to 130 times he tried to beat a given boss.  Just to make sure, the bosses were made even more difficult that time around.  Again, these bosses had very specific strategies that you couldn't just pick up from one play through.  You had to learn it over time, and you had to be VERY observant for slight signs of a weakness or a strategy.  I think the article posted described Fire Leo's strategy in particular very well, but in truth, every creature from the pawns to the bosses had to be treated in the same fashion.

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]-Weak puzzles that were also ridiculously obscure the first time you come across them and then present no challenge after that.[/QUOTE]

All puzzles can be described that way.  I've rarely seen good puzzles in a game that had immediately apparent answers.  I've also rarely seen a puzzle that was randomized to such an extent that it wasn't easy to solve immediately once you had already solved it in a previous play-through.

The backgrounds were dull and uninteresting.  All apart from the first level were so repetitive and simplistic.  They lacked any real character or personality.  Same for the enemy designs.

You seem to misunderstand me, my point was that all the enemies between the bosses were ridiculously easy to defeat, without being exciting or fun.  It was so repetitive.

There is a difference between ridiculously obscure and obvious puzzles.

Yes I know.  I read that.  I am simply disagreeing with it.  Character and personality is what it was full of, from my take.

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]You seem to misunderstand me, my point was that all the enemies between the bosses were ridiculously easy to defeat, without being exciting or fun.  It was so repetitive.[/QUOTE]

No I am completely understanding you.  I am not confusing you with those on the board who said it was too hard.  I am just disagreeing with you.  (It's apt to happen on a board of this kind).  I felt, in fact, that every enemy and every boss you had to fight were very different in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  I saw incredible depth to the fighting.  I also never considered the game easy for this precise reason.  It required persistence and observation, but it was hardly easy.

It comes down to your experiences with the game being very different than mine.  We'll just have to let that stand as it is.

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]There is a difference between ridiculously obscure and obvious puzzles.[/QUOTE]

I don't rememeber thinking or saying they were ridiculously obvious.  What fun is a ridiculously obvious puzzle?  Puzzles SHOULD be obscure.  Beyond that, once a puzzle is solved, it's never obscure again.

At least, that's the case in most circumstances.  I am sure there are instances in games of randomized puzzles that retain most (but not all) of their complexity over time.