Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja (MD, 1993)
Graphics-7/7.5* Sound-7.5 Control-6 Challenge-7.5/?** Story-5
Level Design-7 Frustration-8 Fun-7/?** Originality-4.5
Overall Score-7
*Barone's color hack
**2-player
+ 2-player co-op, alternate paths, charge attacks, large and fairly detailed bosses (sometimes made up of several different sprites - one of these falls apart piece by piece as you fight it (mammoth)), shows bosses' healthbars, ride a dino (one of the river levels), two alternate endings (just slightly different joke endings where the girls you saved are replaced by either a fat one or an ugly one - you have to guess by taking one of three paths after the final boss), fairly expressive sprites, difficulty options (bosses seem to act the same and do the same amount of damage on easy as on normal though) and control config, decent variation, somewhat more interesting red t-rex boss fight
+/- More faithful to the arcade than the SNES version (jump on enemies to kill them and bounce off of them, charge attack, alternate paths, different kinds of attacks do different amounts of damage, etc.), slow rate of fire (only 2 projectiles on screen at once, no small ones can be shot if a charged/large shot is on screen), can't walk while shooting, no time limit, can't shoot diagonally (see Contra or GH), charged shots would've been more useful in levels if it went through smaller enemies and rocks (there could've been an upgrade for them if you picked the same weapon twice or something), health drops disappear after a few seconds, hard or impossible to rack up extra lives?, short levels, life refills after most bosses (not the second to last one), limited continues (up to 4, with 4 lives per continue), no save/password, derivative art direcion (similar to Wonder Boy/Bonk/Adventure Island), unlimited ammo, slow upwards scrolling in vertical levels (makes it so you can't jump past certain challenges), respawn at the beginning of boss fights after dying and even after using a continue (since you lose your current weapon it makes the fights a bit harder), smaller sprites than in ARC & SNES versions (actually helps the gameplay a bit though), no lightning strikes (they were pretty annoying anyway), no "surprised" animation at the start of boss fights (also a good thing, though they could've redesigned it instead so that it doesn't interfere with gameplay)
- Annoying how you lose health from charging your shot for too long, some control issues (firing a charged shot while above the top edge of the screen causes it to disappear, can't high jump off of an enemy, can't shoot upwards while performing a high jump, can't shoot downwards, no charge meter to show you when you're about to get exhausted (see the Kunio Kun Soccer MD game), slow movement speed and Contra style jumps (vertical-focused), can't high jump while charging, so-so jump height adjustment (two modes: regular and high jump - regular jump can't be adjusted and is already pretty tall), can't move while crouching), uneven difficulty (spikes: first boss, pterodactyl boss), missing some things from the arcade version (clone/spirit weapon (can be shot upwards when charged), map screen, route selection screen sprites (just text against a single color bg here), invincibility power ups (pepper/booze), bomb blasts from chopper bombs, various animations (electrocuted player, squished player, enemy on fire, ash rain, lava area to mammoth cave transition, etc.), mini t-rex enemy, some ankylosaurus and skeleton dino patterns), no weapon inventory (this coupled with large hit boxes on weapon drops and the contra-style jumps means you have to wait a few seconds for unwanted weapon drops to disappear - breaks flow), sometimes poor color choices (mostly fixed via a romhack though), some rough FM sfx (fire), no dodge/slide/block move, trial & error (boss patterns (grey dino in the river's appearance, ankylosaurus's invincibility times), attacks from all sides, adjusting to being carried in some levels, can't destroy eggs while they're being carried), super short mammoth cave and dino insides levels, somewhat sloppy hit detection on the charged stone wheel shots (unforgiving),
Level Design-7 Frustration-8 Fun-7/?** Originality-4.5
Overall Score-7
*Barone's color hack
**2-player
+ 2-player co-op, alternate paths, charge attacks, large and fairly detailed bosses (sometimes made up of several different sprites - one of these falls apart piece by piece as you fight it (mammoth)), shows bosses' healthbars, ride a dino (one of the river levels), two alternate endings (just slightly different joke endings where the girls you saved are replaced by either a fat one or an ugly one - you have to guess by taking one of three paths after the final boss), fairly expressive sprites, difficulty options (bosses seem to act the same and do the same amount of damage on easy as on normal though) and control config, decent variation, somewhat more interesting red t-rex boss fight
+/- More faithful to the arcade than the SNES version (jump on enemies to kill them and bounce off of them, charge attack, alternate paths, different kinds of attacks do different amounts of damage, etc.), slow rate of fire (only 2 projectiles on screen at once, no small ones can be shot if a charged/large shot is on screen), can't walk while shooting, no time limit, can't shoot diagonally (see Contra or GH), charged shots would've been more useful in levels if it went through smaller enemies and rocks (there could've been an upgrade for them if you picked the same weapon twice or something), health drops disappear after a few seconds, hard or impossible to rack up extra lives?, short levels, life refills after most bosses (not the second to last one), limited continues (up to 4, with 4 lives per continue), no save/password, derivative art direcion (similar to Wonder Boy/Bonk/Adventure Island), unlimited ammo, slow upwards scrolling in vertical levels (makes it so you can't jump past certain challenges), respawn at the beginning of boss fights after dying and even after using a continue (since you lose your current weapon it makes the fights a bit harder), smaller sprites than in ARC & SNES versions (actually helps the gameplay a bit though), no lightning strikes (they were pretty annoying anyway), no "surprised" animation at the start of boss fights (also a good thing, though they could've redesigned it instead so that it doesn't interfere with gameplay)
- Annoying how you lose health from charging your shot for too long, some control issues (firing a charged shot while above the top edge of the screen causes it to disappear, can't high jump off of an enemy, can't shoot upwards while performing a high jump, can't shoot downwards, no charge meter to show you when you're about to get exhausted (see the Kunio Kun Soccer MD game), slow movement speed and Contra style jumps (vertical-focused), can't high jump while charging, so-so jump height adjustment (two modes: regular and high jump - regular jump can't be adjusted and is already pretty tall), can't move while crouching), uneven difficulty (spikes: first boss, pterodactyl boss), missing some things from the arcade version (clone/spirit weapon (can be shot upwards when charged), map screen, route selection screen sprites (just text against a single color bg here), invincibility power ups (pepper/booze), bomb blasts from chopper bombs, various animations (electrocuted player, squished player, enemy on fire, ash rain, lava area to mammoth cave transition, etc.), mini t-rex enemy, some ankylosaurus and skeleton dino patterns), no weapon inventory (this coupled with large hit boxes on weapon drops and the contra-style jumps means you have to wait a few seconds for unwanted weapon drops to disappear - breaks flow), sometimes poor color choices (mostly fixed via a romhack though), some rough FM sfx (fire), no dodge/slide/block move, trial & error (boss patterns (grey dino in the river's appearance, ankylosaurus's invincibility times), attacks from all sides, adjusting to being carried in some levels, can't destroy eggs while they're being carried), super short mammoth cave and dino insides levels, somewhat sloppy hit detection on the charged stone wheel shots (unforgiving),
