New Joe & Mac - Caveman Ninja

I sat down with this expecting a clean, punchy HD revival of a Data East arcade classic, and what I got instead was a lesson in how floaty controls and a poorly tuned health economy can undercut otherwise decent artwork. New Joe & Mac is a 2D side-scrolling action platformer where two cavemen punch, throw, and weapon-spam their way through prehistoric levels to rescue kidnapped villagers. The weapon variety is genuinely fun on paper - boomerangs, stone wheels, dinosaur teeth, fire, electricity, and a clone launcher are all cracked out of dinosaur eggs spread across each level - but the moment-to-moment feedback never quite connects. Hits don't feel like hits. You take damage and half the time you can't tell what caused it. The difficulty is the central issue, and the community is split on whether that's a feature or a flaw. On Normal and above, a hunger meter bleeds your health continuously whether you are fighting or not, and a single enemy graze removes a painful chunk of your remaining reserves. The loop becomes trial-and-error memorization rather than reaction-based skill. Short levels stretch out to extended play sessions because of repeated deaths, not because the stages reward exploration. On the flip side, some boss patterns can be cheesed from one fixed position with zero risk once you discover the spot, which creates this odd difficulty curve that swings between cheap and trivial inside the same encounter. If you grew up with Ghosts 'n Goblins and consider that design philosophy a feature, you will be more comfortable here than most. Content-wise, the package offers two modes: Arcade, which recreates the original levels with new HD visuals, and Extend, which reworks and expands those same stages into a substantially longer experience with alternate paths, rising lava sequences, and spike gauntlets. The Extend mode is reportedly three to four times longer than the Arcade run, so there is more here than a cynical two-hour trophy grab - though some reviewers noted a boss rush and additional content arrived in post-launch updates rather than at day one. Four of five stages branch into alternate routes, which adds light replay value. Local co-op is present and genuinely helps, since splitting the difficulty across two players makes the hunger meter and enemy aggression feel more survivable. Remote Play Together support on Steam means you can rope in a distant friend if a couch partner is not available. The presentation is where the game lands its clearest wins. Mr. Nutz Studio, who also handled the HD Toki remake and Asterix and Obelix: Slap Them All, brings that same hand-drawn cartoon aesthetic, and the boss designs in particular - a T-Rex, a mammoth, a giant snake - animate with genuine personality. That said, the character sprites themselves drew criticism for stiff, keyframed movement that looks more mechanical than natural, and some reviewers flagged intermittent framerate dips, especially in two-player. Audio mixing is also uneven, with certain environmental sounds stomping over the background music entirely. Steam sits at a mixed rating from a small review pool, which is probably the honest summary: it is not broken, but it is not polished enough to fully justify itself to anyone outside the nostalgia crowd. For PC specifically, the Steam Deck is listed as fully compatible, which is a reasonable home for this kind of short-session arcade content. Controller is strongly recommended - keyboard input would fight the twin-height jump system, where holding up during a jump triggers a higher arc in the style of old Shinobi, and the charge-attack mechanic needs analogue timing to not fatigue your caveman mid-throw.

Fred · Scout Team

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