Platformation Time Again #6: New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja PS4

HISTORY

Fiction has more or less cemented the general vision of the prehistoric past as “caveman and dinosaurs” for entertaiment media as a whole, despite the fact our unshaven ancestors did not live at the same times as the dinosaurs, there’s no hunting down brachiosauruses when the things had gone extinct 65 millions years ago, or writing middling yet kinda charming newspaper comic strips (the fabled “western 4-koma”) that can change that.

But it was not reality; it was the 90s.

Indiana Jones discovered ancient shit every so often, and Jurassic Park ignited the dino craze… no, the dino mania, got the fever for these ancient creatures sky high, and Data East, a company mostly dealing in pinball machines but also occasionally videogames, was more than happy to oblige and carpe the dino diem quick and hot, by releasing Joe & Mac: Tatakae Genshijin (the original japanese subtitle translating roughly “Caveman Fight”), better known worldwive as Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja or simply Caveman Ninja.

The “Ninja” in the title is there because the 80s craze with the japanese born assassins still made for attractive videogame marketing, as fun and crazy as it would have been to have a game subtitled “Caveman Ninja” to actually have caveman ninjas…it’s just marketing.

But boy it worked, as Joe & Mac proved to be a smash hit for Data East, a very big hit (so big you couldn’t avoid it going into arcades even in my country as well), so much that many ports followed for basically every system of the era, including the NES (which was quite old back then) and many home computers, not the usual for a Data East game, so much it cameoed in Tumblepop, had a spin-off in the vein of Tumblepop itself, Joe & Mac Returns and eventually spawned sequels.

For reasons i will explain later, this also – if indirectly – counts as a review of the original Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja game that released in arcades and today can be found as a Switch download, part of the Johnny Turbo branded series of releases…. Well, could.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Congo’s Caper/Joe & Mac 2 SNES | Sun Wukong Upon A Star

Ah, yes, the three inescapable truths of life: death, taxes and SNES caveman platformers that somehow you didn’t play or knew existed, like todays’s Congo’s Caper, just recently rereleased on the NSW Online subscription/retro apps.

This one it’s a bit more recognizable than stuff like Prehistorik Man, as it’s basically a spin-off of the Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja series by Data East, but also the second game in the series, since it was actually sold as Joe & Mac 2 in Japan and PAL regions.

And i kinda get why, as Data East also recycled some characters from the mainline Joe & Mac series, like the devil or the first stage t-rex boss , and the controls are similar, as it retains the high jump, but not the weapons, as you use only a small club to attack.

The more distinctive feature is the player character turning back into a monkey if hit, and regaining your human form with a red crystal (Mario style), with the ability to enter a “super saiyan” invincibility state too, you’re a half-monkey man after all.

Controls are actually pretty smooth, arguably better than the original Joe & Mac, the new protagonist has some new abilities like hanging from vines, so it should be better…. and it arguably is, it’s definitely more polished, has a lot more levels, BUT it’s too easy for its own good, it’s fun, but it lacks challenge, and the level themselves are very short, while also not providing anything you haven’t seen (or heard, as some of the sound effects are pretty much “ripped off” of Super Mario World…. or its sound libraries) done better in terms of level design.

So it’s not a bad game, but a decent one that could have been potentially quite good.

Shame, really.

[EXPRESSO] Prehistorik Man SNES | Accept Humanity

Played via Nintendo Switch Online’s SNES service.

So, i guess i was one of the few people mildly interested in some of the February 2012 NSO updates. Which is somehow managing to make me miss the original Virtual Console, somehow.

But i have a thing for caveman platformers, i do, so here we are.

To be fair, i didn’t expect much, especially since it comes from Titus (and if you know something about retrogaming, their name wasn’t exactly one welcomed with cheers), i wasn’t familiar with it and just figured it was gonna be a Joe & Mac clone, but this isn’t really the case. And while it’s easy to understand its existence being relegated to niche retrogaming obscurity, as the 90’s were obsessed with cavemen and dinosaurs and this one didn’t do much to stand out in the avalanche of cavemen themed movies or videogames… you might want to give this one a chance.

It’s not an unsung SNES classic by any means, no, it’s kinda generic and unremarkable, but it’s surprisingly nifty, pretty entertaining, and the while the plot see a caveman named Sam on a quest to feed his starving village, while searching for a bone graveyard so to make his tribe rich… it’s very cartoonish and fond of the usual caveman anachronism. It’s also not short, with a good variety to the levels, often putting you in control of a vehicle like a glider; and while the level design starts off fairly straighforward, more often than not it requires you to explore the levels and collect the required items, as it is still an “euro platformer”, and a pretty challenging one too.

I just wish your character’s standard attack was less crap, and the controls were a bit less slippery, but it’s a good retro platformer.