It’s
nice to see a new game franchise emerge from the primordial gaming ooze,
but there’s always a danger of it constantly following the same
formula until the thing is a stale, uninspired husk of its former self. That in mind, the stylish, fancy-schancy, 2D, cel-shaded
action series Viewtiful Joe, from Clover Studios, is getting a new
installment on the Gamecube and
PSP, taking the series in a different direction while they’re at it.With Viewtiful Joe VFX Battle, players will be pitted in a
decidedly competitive style of game, unlike the more straight ahead, 2D
action outings of passed iterations of Joe.
With
a premise surrounding the onset of filming a new Captain Blue film,
players will find themselves competing in cutthroat, action packed
auditions to score themselves a starring role.That being said, it’s easy to see how a more competitive tilt
will be present in VFX Battle.At
this point, though, there is a lot up in the air as to how all of this
is supposed to
play
out.There is talk about
how players will have to build up VFX points to unload attacks on
opponents, as well as how the game’s environments will be interactive,
and players will be able to use enemies to their advantage as they
attempt to screw over the competition, thus getting the starring role.There’s also mention of cooperative play modes being included
in the game, but little is known as to what this will entail.
However,
with no demo, playable or otherwise, shown at E3, and a lot of extremely
vague talk of what exactly people will be doing in the game, for now there’s
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still
quite a bit of head scratching among the press as to what exactly we can
expect from the game. In
some ways the game looks kinda reminiscent of Super Smash Brothers, but
even that is stretching it. For the time being, all we can do is
wait until the Tokyo Games Show this Fall, and hope there’s something
a little bit more tangible in regards to VFX Battle, helping to dispel
the confusion.