Congo's Caper (Super NES, 1993)

 

More terrible box art heralds the game that was called "Joe & Mac 2" in Japan. It's available in the SNES section of Nintendo Switch Online, as are the two real games, so for once I wasn't forced to emulate these buy them on Ebay for hundreds of dollars and try to frame-capture from a real system with a GoPro. In any case, this bizarre game is brought to us by Data East, best known for......... Data East Pinball, I think?

...You know, I could have been playing Elder Scrolls Morrowind instead of this. I really like Elder Scrolls. That series made open world a thing to begin with, well before it was all the rage. Characters you can customize to an incredible extent. You can even create your own spells in those games. They're just nutso, and I can't imagine how happy I'd have been if I'd gotten into that series as a kid in the 90's. Alas that Daggerfall wasn't on console. The only thing I don't like about the series is the fanbase. I noticed that a lot of Youtubers who cover Bethesda games seem to have these bizarre one-sided angry conversations with Todd Howard in their videos. It's so off-putting.

Anyway, I had the Rocket Town theme stuck in my head the entire time I was playing this, and it fit the game perfectly. It's just seedy enough for this seedy game. Which brings me to... where's my Rocket Town DLC, Square? Pretty much everything else on my Top Fifteen Games I'd Like To See list has come true / been announced in the two months since then. But not that one! What gives, Square? And where's Elder Scrols VI, TODD? Todd Howard lied! He lied! I demand Morrowind Remastered, TODD. You made promises and you broke them, TODD! You're not my mother, TODD.

Japanese box art, clearly showing that this game was intended to be the sequel to Joe & Mac. I think I know what happened here. The developers in Japan decided to totally overhaul the graphics and take things in a new direction, realized it didn't work, and reverted back to the original design for the third game. Meanwhile, the North American branches of the company thought this would be better off marketed as an entirely different game, given the total lack of resemblance to the first Joe & Mac on SNES. The first game was pretty well-liked, and historically speaking, it never goes well when developers try to radically change something that was already working fine. Not when you're one game into a series, anyway.

Now that all of the backstory is out of the way, I took a quick look at this one to see if it was something that might be worth a run. Originally I wasn't even going to do a post for this, I was just going to throw a few images in with the Joe & Mac 2 post. However, it felt like an incompleteness that was uncharacteristic for me. So here I am actually playing it. This better not take long.

It's definitely a game for (very) small kids, and I can see the Joe & Mac DNA in the gameplay. However the game itself seems to have nothing to do with the other two, and the character you play as looks and handles totally differently. Maybe this is supposed to be a prequel where you play as the titular characters as kids, or something? Like Yoshi's Island? ...yeah, no, never compare this to Yoshi's Island again. It eludes me why they'd think that Joe & Mac needed to be radically overhauled like this, unless the idea was that the series would really take off if it was geared towards little kids.

Take off...like a rocket. Where's the Rocket Town DLC, TODD?

It even starts like Yoshi's Island, with a gathering of monkeys in the woods. No Baby Mario here though.

Long story short, these monkeys can turn into people (??) and this flying imp swoops in and kidnaps the main dude's girlfriend. The scene looks and sounds just like what you think it does.

Now, it falls on this little tyke to fight his way through hordes of stunted neanderthals to rescue her! Not sure what this has to do with Joe & Mac but here we are.

Take a hit, and your dude turns into a monkey. His idle animation involves shaking his butt!

First boss is a T-Rex, and like everything else in this game, he's a stubbier and cartoonier version of something from Joe & Mac. This is the Mighty Final Fight of Joe & Mac.

The next section has our hero swimming in pee! The lengths he will go to rescue his girlfriend, dammit!

The imp dude is the first boss. This is a good time to mention that collecting 3 red gems while in human form (and without ever getting hit) will turn you gold and give you higher speed/jumping/damage output. This lasts until you take 3 hits, then you go back to human form.

This is all really weird, and it's sorta like if you had to pick up 3 Fire Flowers to turn into Fire Mario. At least you get some extra hits once you're super, but having to collect 3 red crystals (which are fairly uncommon) without getting hit is a bit of an ask.

There are six worlds: One intro, one final world, and a stage select in between with four worlds to choose from (each with 4 levels, most of which are really short). The stage select doesn't exactly tell you much about these worlds. All I'll say is, don't do the first one first. The upper-left world, which is the one it defaults to, is WAY harder than the others. Most of this game is pretty easy, except that one world which is complete bollocks, and seems like a design oversight.

While Joe & Mac emulated Adventure Island, this game is clearly trying to be some combination of Sonic and Mario. For the most part, you're zipping through these Sonic-like levels, collecting gold gems.

I lucked out and skipped the first world, because it looked like a boring grassland world, doing the other 3 first. Which saved me from running into a brick wall early and probably noping out. Why would they make a super hard world the default on the stage select?

Anyway, the world I went for is the fire world, which looks pretty cool. Pressing Up+Jump together causes you to soar in this game, and holding down L causes you to run. The game never tells you either of these things or tricks you into learning them, but yeah.

If anyone ever asks you what Congo's Caper and Chrono Trigger have in common... they both have a Dragon Tank. However, it's unlikely anyone will ever ask you this.

At the end of the level, a bunch of monkeys are saved...and immediately all start shaking their butts!

The water level is creative, with a sea level that rises and falls and autoscrolling that moves around in unexpected directions.

Next boss is this anchor-swinging pirate caveman. We have pirate ships and robots, alongside cavemen...what is this setting supposed to be?

Finally I take on the first world on the stage select. This one is SHEER BRUTALITY. First a giant orb chases you down, and the game gives you basically NO ROOM for error or slowing down in the slightest.

Make any mistakes at all and you go insta-splat. Why'd they make this so insanely frustrating? Requiring pixel-perfect movement and jumps for an extended chase sequence isn't fun, especially on a level that most players will be playing super early in the game.

Finally, I escape from the DEATH BALL, only to face a new nightmare...

This unholy, infernal section with green platforms that appear and disappear WAY too quickly. There's no way to even outrun them since they appear and disappear so fast. You're forced to use the run button and dash across, which also makes it easy to miss jumps and fly off to your death. Couldn't they make the platforms stay onscreen for like, 4 seconds instead of 2?

There are so many other awesome things one could be playing on Switch Online that aren't Congo's Caper.

FINALLY, I get to the midway checkpoint, which is at least solid ground, and our hero immediately shakes his ass. It isn't actually a checkpoint, and dying after this sends you back to the beginning of this section. Luckily, the second half of the sprint isn't as bad as the first.

This world ends with a super-easy castle level full of ninjas. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the difficulty spikes were an unintended design flaw. That was some Gremlins 2 level bullshittery going on where you wonder if the game is even completable. Then it's right back to being easy.

Next boss is this ninja who leaps around the room. At this point it's safe to say any kind of projectile would make this game infinitely better, because your club attacks are so limited in range that it's hard not to get hit. Luckily, there's a HUGE i-frame window where you're impervious after getting hit, letting you get a bunch of free attacks in.

Oh wait, I've got one world left on the stage select, the night world. This is another easy one, with lots of tiny jump platforms that are...over regular ground so falling off means nothing. So they're just decorations.

Next boss is this vampire dude! You want to get to every boss with the golden form, preferably with all 3 hits, and just wail on them. Losing that form and having to fight them in base form after that is basically ass and a half.

The sixth and final world is the inside of a T-Rex, as is tradition.

Final boss is a 3 phase monstrosity. First is the imp guy from earlier. It's like when you fight Genichiro again as the first form of Isshin at the end of Sekiro. ...man, I could be playing Sekiro right now too.

Next, this demon lord guy shows up and MURDERS THE IMP WITH A FIREBALL.

Another easy fight, you jump n' slash from down here. Move to the other side after every two strikes, to avoid his retaliatory fireball.

Third and final form is this super Red Arremer nightmare, and it's way harder than the other two phases. Why did we even need those other two phases at all? They just waste your time and keep you from trying this one again when you inevitably die 12 times on it.

I end up cheesing the fight by exploiting i-frames to hammer the boss as much as possible. He's got a ton of HP, so you need to whittle him down somewhat first. Get him down to about 75% HP and you can i-frame the rest of it.

That's it for this bizarre, completely uneven game. It isn't bad, but it isn't good either. It isn't hard, but it isn't easy either. I'm not even really sure what this is. All I know is that A) It wanted to be Sonic, B) It isn't Joe & Mac, and C) It would be censored in 2003 because the guy is giving a peace symbol.

Anyway, I just knocked that out for completion's sake, and because it's like an hour long. Joe & Mac 2 next.