A playthrough of Data East's 1993 platformer for the Super Nintendo, Congo's Caper.
Congo's Caper, or Tatakae Genshijin 2: Ruukiino Bouken (戦え原始人2 ルーキーの冒険, lit. "Fighting Caveman 2: Rookie's Adventure"), is the SNES-exclusive sequel to Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja ( • Joe & Mac (SNES) Playt... ), which was known in Japan as Joe & Mac: Tatakae Genshijin (ジョー&マック 戦え原始人, "Joe & Mac: Fighting Cavemen"). The localized title obfuscates the connection between the two, and this change is presumably the cause behind the third game in the series being renamed to Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics when it made its way west ( • Joe & Mac 2: Lost in t... ).
In Congo's Caper, you play as Joe & Mac's ancestor Congo (originally "Rookie"), a boy with a monkey tail who is on a mission to save his girlfriend Congette (originally "Aiai," like the girl in Super Monkey Ball) from the stomach of Gao, the Tyrannosaurus Rex that she was fed to after being kidnapped.
On paper, the game sounds like everything you'd expect from a sequel to Joe & Mac: it's a light-hearted, tropical-themed platformer that features a club-toting caveman who "enters" a dinosaur in order to throw down against a demon-like archvillain and rescue his woman. However, despite being based on similar premises, Congo's Caper neither looks nor feels at all like Joe & Mac.
Congo's Caper's target audience skews much younger than the teenaged arcade-going crowd that Joe & Mac catered to. There are no scantily clad maidens chasing the hero, the bosses don't lose body parts when they take damage, and the difficulty level is considerably lower. By early 90s standards, this is an incredibly easy game.
In his normal state, Congo is your typical happy-go-lucky monkey boy, but if he collects three gems, he can "evolve" into his stronger, faster super-saiyan form. Conversely, if he takes too much damage, he "devolves" into a weak monkey that can be killed in a single hit.
The flow and the structure of the game resemble Super Mario World's. You can take on the four main areas - each containing four stages - in whatever order you like, and though their layouts are simple, the stages are large, semi-open areas that encourage you to explore for secrets as you hunt for the exit.
It feels first-and-foremost like a console-style platformer, which it is, and that is a large part of what differentiates it from Joe & Mac, which was originally an arcade game. The tempo of play is more relaxed, the visuals are cuter, and the modest production values are more in-line with lesser known SNES action-platformers (like Smart Ball • Smart Ball (SNES) Play... or Spanky's Quest • Spanky's Quest (SNES) ... , for example) than with lavishly produced coin-op titles of its time. It doesn't come across as "cheap," per se, but it's an obvious downgrade from the first game.
At the end of the day, Congo's Caper is a charming, family-friendly game that prioritizes fun over a fancy presentation or a ruthless difficulty curve. I like it that way. It does its own thing, and it does it well.
It was probably for the best that they didn't call it Joe & Mac 2.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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