Nintendo DS Review: Viewtiful Joe - Double Trouble
Published March 28, 2006
Menus are also irritating at times. For instance, on the opening menu you can highlight an option with the stylus, but you can't actually select it. Other menus use the stylus for everything; others fail to use it at all. Cinematic sequences, a mix of still pictures and in-game engine animation, need to be "flipped" like pages in a book. It's another example of how wasted the touch screen can be at times.
With all of these new touch powers, there should be some challenge to put them to use. However, the developers highlight exactly which power needs to be used, and how, around 80% of the time. It's hard to screw anything up or feel like you're being challenged when the entire thing feels like a tutorial.
Even with a myriad of issues however, Double Trouble is an average success. Even with some sluggishness, the fighting is still a joy, with perfect collision and impacting blows. Stages are close to the brilliant category, including an entire stage set inside Resident Evil's mansion, complete with window crashing dogs. The in-jokes and nods to other games are too numerous to mention. This is still the game that Capcom will be milking for the next 20 years, even if it doesn't all come together as it was intended.
Based on that, if you know and love the series, there's nothing that should deter you. It's superb graphical style, feel, and quirkiness maintain everything that has made the series popular. Its basic engine that has already been used many times over on other consoles outweighs its problems. If it's good enough to produce multiple sequels, it's good enough for the DS.
Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble is rated T (Teen) by the ESRB for Cartoon Violence.
Matt Paprocki is the former reviews editor for Digital Press. The deep game collection, which spans nearly 30 systems and 2,000 games, lines his walls for research purposes. Matt strives to bring credibility to video game journalism, and to aid the industry in becoming respected with all forms of entertainment media. He currently freelances for GameArgus.com and MultiPlayerGames.com.
- Nintendo DS Review: Viewtiful Joe - Double Trouble
- Published: March 28, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Gaming
- Filed Under: Gaming: Nintendo DS
- Writer: Matt Paprocki
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Every time i play Mario car, I always get jammed pretty badly when i play as Mario. What happends is that when i am in the first round, Princess always ramms me into a corner, then my whole game gets fuzzy and stuck. The music starts skipping and stuttering beats. Then everything gets frozen. After that the whole screen turns black! Then i have to pound on the controls and i have to disconect all the wires from the box thing and the tv wires to. Then theres a huge white flash from the tv screen when i do reconect the wires. Then the whole game has to restart over again. but when i continue to play, then Mario gets all fuzy and then my whole controls lock up. Then Mario goes into the cliffs and stuff, i always get last place!!! What is happening? my grandpa always tells me i have faulty wireing but i already checked
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Good review.
I am a Viewtiful Joe fan, and I've had this game for a few months now.
I agree that some of the touch screen functions can be a pain at times. They almost seem unecessary.
I love Nintendo DS, but the problem tends to be that they feel the need to make use of the touch Screen with EVERY game that is released for it, and I don't think that should be the case. It works well for some games, and it should be used when it logically can be. I would have no problem if a few games come out for it that don't use the touch feature.
It would be nice to see something along the lines of a Midway Arcade Treasures game released for DS. They have one out for PSP that contains the 3 original Mortal Kombat games (drooooool...). It would be nice if something like that came out for DS. I don't have a PSP (mainly because of the huge price tag on it) and it would be nice to get some things like that on the DS.
Anyway, Viewtiful Joe is a fun game and its still good overall despite the negatives. I am glad that I picked it up.