Past meets present: Joe & Mac/Caveman Ninja

This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Caveman Ninja might sound like the name of a game a TV writer has come up with to make fun of the concept of video games, but the reality is that it was an arcade title developed and published by Data East back in 1991. You might know it better as Joe & Mac, which is what it was christened when it arrived on consoles, and some versions combined the two into one name, but they’re the same thing. Well, mostly. And sometimes not really. It depends on the version, alright?

Data East themselves handled two editions of the game: the arcade original, and the conversion to the SNES, which reworked the game and its mechanics so that it was a better fit for home play than the arcade version. It’s still not that long of an experience by any means, but it’s closer to an hour instead of 30 minutes, and it’s less obvious with its desire to quarter munch, since Data East already got your money.

Beyond those two versions, though, there was also a port to the Genesis that more closely followed the arcade game (developed by Eden Entertainment Software), NES and PC versions (Elite Systems), Amiga and Game Boy ports (Motivetime), and then, way down the line, a Zeebo conversion published by G-Mode, as well as 2022’s Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja remake for PC and consoles. On top of all of that, the SNES edition of Joe & Mac is available on Nintendo Switch Online, and, for a time, a Johnny Turbo’s Arcade version of the original Caveman Ninja was available for purchase on the Switch, as well. Those Johnny Turbo titles have since been delisted, however, so if you didn’t grab them while they were there, then you missed out on a chunk of Data East’s arcade catalog.

Those Johnny Turbo ports weren’t great ones, to be honest, but they existed at all, which was better than nothing. Which, at the moment, is the state for quite a few of the Data East games that were part of the series. Hopefully they’ll be back up somewhere eventually, and in a superior form, rather than having all of them go through remakes that make them $30 instead of just a few bucks for the original, like what happened with Joe & Mac, or just $10 but ripped apart by critics and fans like Forever Entertainment’s recent janky Night Slashers remake.

Anyway. There might be one other place you know of Joe & Mac from, and that’s Nickelodeon. It was a frequent option on the game show, Nick Arcade, and was selected as early as the second episode of the show, with the goal being to score 800 points in level 1 before time expired. It was my first exposure to the game, for sure — that and another caveman outing, Chuck Rock — but I actually didn’t end up playing either of those titles until I was an adult.

Joe & Mac isn’t particularly complicated, but it’s fun for what it is. Data East had better action platformers — Spin Master is something of a twist on the Joe & Mac formula that I enjoy more, for instance — but there’s something to appreciate from either the arcade or SNES editions of the game, despite that. The arcade original has a default throwable weapon and charge attacks that result in you tossing some giant axes or what have you instead of regular-sized ones, there’s a wide variety of weapons, and there are power-ups like hot sauce that let you temporarily breathe fire. You have a health bar, but, in the vein of certain Wonder Boy games or Adventure Island, it ticks down as you go through the level all on its own. Just like in those games, eating food you find on the ground or floating in the air will refill some health. It’s short, and very busy with enemies because it’s an arcade game actively trying to kill you, but it’s fun, especially when both Joe and Mac are active in co-op.

The SNES version slows things down a bit. Levels are longer, and your default weapon is now a melee attack instead of a thrown one. There are now hidden keys to collect, which open up additional areas on an overworld map, and your health is no longer a bar, but now hearts, which deplete when you’re hit half-a-heart at a time. In some ways it feels a little worse to play than the arcade one — usually regarding the lack of power in the weapons you have access to, as well as the lessened variety of them and the infrequent opportunities to power them up — but the additional platforming and reworked levels bring something to the table, as does the fact that jumping on enemies lets you ride on top of them, opening up where you can jump to if you time things right.

One thing both games have in common is the story. It’s light, sure, but it’s there. The women of your tribe have been kidnapped in the night by the local Neanderthals, and it’s up to Joe and Mac to get them back. The Neanderthals are common foes throughout the game, and are working, if not directly with the dinosaurs, then at least parallel to them. The dinos really just might be something of a workplace hazard, it’s a little difficult to tell, and not like you can ask them about it. Everyone here speaks with their fists or teeth and all.

Unsurprisingly, Joe and Mac are pretty popular with the ladies, given that they’re out there risking their lives to rescue them from the clutches of the Neanderthals and/or dinosaurs. When you complete a stage, the cavedamsel in distress runs your way and plants a kiss on your cheek. If you’re playing co-op, the kiss goes to whichever player had the better performance in the stage. The arcade game doubles down on the whole deal by really rubbing it in the other player’s face through the use of two different celebratory screens:

There’s the initial one where the kiss occurs, which might even have you see the cavewoman run right past one of Joe or Mac and to the other…

…and then there’s the Stage Clear screen, which shows larger renderings of the two characters, and even more obvious disappointment on the face of the kiss-less one of the pair:

How do you think cavemen said, “Skill issue, bro,” anyway?

While Joe & Mac looks good on the SNES in a way that, when static, holds up pretty well against the arcade version, the animation in the arcade edition really adds something to the proceedings. Joe and Mac can be squashed down there, limiting their jumping ability in a cartoonish manner, and little things like how far their eyes bug out when they see the final boss — a Neanderthal-ish dino-ish hybrid abomination — really jump out at you.

The overall edge goes to the arcade version of the game, but Data East at least did a solid job with the conversion of it for the SNES. Neither is a perfect experience by any means, but they’re a fun distraction with some layering to the gameplay that makes them worth the 30 minutes or an hour you spend with them just to know.

Now, there were also a number of sequels to Joe & Mac, with one being for the arcades and the other two being exclusively for the SNES. Joe & Mac Returns, the arcade one, has more than a passing resemblance to Data East’s Tumblepop, but the SNES sequels retained the side-scrolling platforming action of the original. Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics allows you to choose one girlfriend and shower her with gifts until you end up getting married and having a kid, and you can go back and replay levels a bunch to earn currency to spend — it’s so much more clearly made from the ground up for consoles than the port of the original arcade title.

Interestingly enough, it’s Joe & Mac 2 in North America, but everywhere else, it’s the third game in the series. That’s because the game known as Congo’s Caper was a direct addition to the Joe & Mac series in Japan and in Europe, and this return of Joe and Mac is a follow-up to that game, which starred a half man, half monkey boy named Congo. These titles are also available on Nintendo Switch Online in the present, if you’re curious about where Joe and Mac, as a series and as characters, went after Data East’s initial console introduction of the pair.

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