 Viewtiful Joe is a 2.5D side @-@ scrolling action @-@ platformer , released on June 26 , 2003 . The title character is a parody of tokusatsu superheroes and is trying to save his girlfriend , who has been trapped in " Movieland " by a group of supervillains known as Jadow . To complete his quest , Joe must use his Viewtiful Effects Powers , which are based on camera tricks and special effects used in films . These include " Slow " , which simulates bullet time ; " Mach Speed " , allowing Joe to attack all enemies with his <unk> ; and " Zoom In " , which triggers a camera close @-@ up and unlocks special attacks . Internally , Capcom treated the game as a " staff @-@ focused project " with the goal of increasing the skills of director Hideki Kamiya . The game achieved a Metacritic score of 93 and won GameCube Game of the Year awards from numerous publications including IGN , GMR , and USA Today . The game sold out its initial shipment of 100 @,@ 000 to achieve a lifetime total of 275 @,@ 000 units . Producer Atsushi Inaba considered the game a success , achieving his goals of training staff , keeping a small budget , and selling well . However , these numbers were lower than Capcom expected , prompting the publisher to port Viewtiful Joe to PlayStation 2 in 2004 , with expanded features . This version sold 46 @,@ 000 copies with a slightly lower Metacritic score of 90 owing to the lack of progressive scan and frame rate slowdown generated by the porting process . 
