Yo! Joe! (Amiga)

Has that guy stuck a pair of fake eyebrows over his bandana?

Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a look at semi-obscure platformer Yo! Joe! Beat the Ghosts by Scipio, creators of... well, Yo! Joe! I guess. I did a quick google search and it doesn't seem like they ever made anything else, at least not under that name. I played this game a while back on my humble Amiga and I know it got a PC DOS release, but I don't think it was ported to anything else in the end. Poor console owners apparently missed out on this one entirely.

One thing I'm absolutely sure of is that it has very little to do with G.I. Joe.

Huh, the game has an intro if you leave the title screen on long enough? I've played this so many times and I had no idea.

The story begins with this six armed seer spying on Sal's Pizza shop through her crystal ball with her freakishly huge eyes.

Then it cuts to the shop itself and pans across to reveal these three keeping warm around a barrel fire in the rough side of town. I decided to stitch the whole screen together for you into one super sized screenshot just a little too wide for the page, just because I could.

The two from the loading screen earlier are called Nat and Joe and they're graffiti artists. Not that the game explains this. Also I've just noticed they have matching shirts... and three fingers on each hand. But the woman with the magic ball earlier had four! Now I don't know what normal is anymore!

They haven't mentioned where the city actually is, though the title screen seems to reveal katakana on the buildings, so I guess Sal's has branched out to Japan.

By the way, the music for this is awesome (and nearly identical on the PC version for once). Judge it for yourself with this handy youtube link.

Another stitched together panning shot to reveal the crowd our six handed four fingered oracle hangs with.

Oh damn, the art style on this portrait got me worried that I'd accidentally put Timeslaughter on again for a second there..

Huh... you can't wait to eliminate them? You mean Joe and Nat from that screenshot earlier? Why? Are they part time vampire slayers or something? Did they kill your brother? Did they tag your car? What's with the hate?

Uhuh...

I guess he means that no one has ever escaped from his new labyrinth, as apparently someone's had certain amount of success using red string. Wait, hang on, does that mean that this the actual Minotaur from Greek mythology? Do you think he's got Joe confused with Theseus?

They deserve the pain?

Okay I'm getting the definite impression that I've entered this story at the start of part two. I'm sure if I cracked open the manual it would explain why the Council of Hate (AKA. the Black Sect according to the back of the box) is after these poor blokes, but why should I have to when the game has an intro?

Okay the intro carried on like that for a while, so I'll skip the rest and get right to the options menu. I like how the two of them comment on each of the options I select in their little dialogue boxes up there. There's no difficulty select, passwords, or load game option, but it does have two player!

Oh shit, we've been lured miles from the city all the way to that guy's castle! How did that even happen?

Though on the plus side, check out this same-screen simultaneous co-op. It may also be the only 90s platformer where the hero characters flip a switchblade in their idle animation. I'll stick to one player though, on account of only having two hands.

By the way, the music's still awesome. Here, have another youtube link so you can listen while you read: Yo! Joe! Level 1 Music.

Well that's a good start, I'm barely through the door and I'm already being stabbed by paintings. I should've seen it coming really, considering how much Rogue Legacy I've played this year.

The castle seems to branch here so I guess I'll see where this downwards path takes me first.

By the way I like the guy's walk cycle and how he waves his finger as he goes. He's got a lot of character in his animation.

Great, the bottom path dropped me down a slide and now I'm trying to dodge killer fish in gross stagnant castle dungeon water. Note to self: next time, go right.

It's smart of the level designers to force me into the water like this though, or else I might have avoided it. I mean this has more than a slight similarity to the Castlevania games right now and while Simon Belmont may be a badass with a whip, he never did get the hang of treading water.

Hey, Joe can grab onto ledges and pull himself up! That's a rare skill for platforming heroes. And is that a Molotov cocktail subweapon I spy over on the right? Castlevaniaer and Castlevaniaer...

I think I'll have to swipe that as it may be my only chance to get out of here without being attacked by the henchman swatting on the left. He throws knives across the level, so the closer I get to him the less time I have to see them coming and dodge them.

Yep, that's a lot like Castlevania's holy water alright. It even cracked the secret brick, showering me with treasure. I still haven't found a roast chicken in the walls yet though.

Little Joe on the HUD at the bottom's been copying Big Joe's moves as he goes, but he couldn't help jumping for joy when he saw how loaded the two of them are now. I can't just walk away and cash out now though sadly, I've got a job to do. Not sure what that job is yet, but I get a feeling it involves going to the top right of the castle and beating up Count Wizardvampire.

DOS version

I found myself some nunchuks! The game's infected with these typical annoying half-invisible bats that show up in so many platformers, but this weapon utterly destroys them before they can even get close. Fortunately even if they did hit me, there's no knockback in this so I'm safe from falling into the spikes unless I mess up my jump, and with these controls that seems unlikely.

Also if you're wondering why the colours suddenly went less vivid (and why it's got DOS version written underneath) it's because I've switched to the PC port for a moment. This version shows a little more at the sides and less at the top and bottom, but besides that they both play the same and they both (still) have the same music.

How much do you reckon that electric chair is going to turn out to be a trap that takes off the last of my health when I touch it? I really should've looked before I leaped.


THREE LIVES LATER.

Well fuck. It turns out that the chair was perfectly safe, but alien Michael Myers here on the other hand was considerably more of a threat than I'd planned for. My first clue should've probably been that the spinning E gauge in the middle of my HUD suddenly filled up to show his health when I entered the room.

Annoyingly it seems that just touching an enemy lets them burn through my health in seconds, as it doesn't give me a moment of invulnerability to let me get my ass out of the way. Though on the plus side: it's got infinite continues!


ONE CONTINUE AND A FAIR BIT OF PLATFORMING LATER.

I was kicked back to the start of the level when I chose to continue, but this time around I went right instead of down and found a healing shower! Again this outdoes the Castlevania games as this castle actually has a bathroom. You can tell that the owner is pure evil though, as he doesn't have a sink to wash his hands afterwards.

Hey, someone's misplaced a golden chalice outside on that platform. Next time I'm given a choice of where to go I'm going to have to see if I can get out there and recover it. It belongs in a museum... though I'd probably just end up pawning it for food money.


SOON.

The platforms on the side of the castle led all the way down here to some tiny health ankhs, some larger extra life ankhs, a box of treasure, and some spare nunchaku. I think I can be satisfied with that haul.

Though it looks like there's still another room below this one that I can't get to from here. This place really is like Dracula's castle in Castlevania, except all linked together as one continuous scrolling map.


MEANWHILE ON THE PC VERSION.

DOS version

I think this must be the place where they keep all the zombies. I thought I'd done a fairly decent job of exploring the castle on the Amiga version, but I've never managed to get down here before. Maybe this path will take me across to that mysterious room under the last screenshot!

I'm just hoping that it's not sending me right down into another boss fight.

DOS version

It led right to an iron bar! The nunchuks are a great weapon, but I can't use them while I'm jumping. With the pipe equipped on the other hand I can leap around clubbing people's skull in to my heart's content... though I can't pull myself up ledges anymore.

So to get through here I'll have to smack this guy over the head with the pipe, duck down and press fire to cycle through to another weapon, pull myself up to the left hand platform, then switch back to the pipe again to club the guy up on the right.

Meanwhile back on the Amiga version, my path took me to a different boss fight, against a pumpkin monster who knocks the bricks right out of the air as he stomps. Fortunately I'm a shuriken monster who can fire ninja stars from my boot and with any luck I can kill the bastard before I run out of the things. There's no subweapon ammo hearts in this by the way, I've just been picking up a lot of shurikens along the way.

Here's something that bothers me about areas with falling bricks in games like this: there's no shadows under them. If you look back through the other screenshots you'll see that the rest of the castle has a nice 3D look to it because of the use of dark tiles to imitate shadows, but they couldn't do that here so it all looks really flat.

Well the bad news is that I ran out of shurikens, but on the plus side I grew a brain! Gee I wonder what the best weapon to use on the guy jumping up and down on the same spot could be?

Okay I've given myself a new rule: save the petrol bombs for the boss fights. Dumbass.

I found a chainsaw! Oh the fun we shall have. I can't actually stick around and fight anyone with it though as I'd be wasting my limited ammo. So I guess I'll just have to imagine the fun we could've had.

This path has to be getting leading up to the level exit now, as I'm fast running out of castle here. I love that classic Amiga style gradient background though. There's no parallax scrolling in this universe.

Hey look who it is! It appears that I've just encountered the end level boss.

Oh crap, how do I actually get down from here? I instinctively jumped backwards when I saw where this was leading and managed to accidentally trigger the boss fight before I'd hit the ground. Now the screen isn't scrolling across any more.

Damn, I think I'm really am stuck up here now. I suppose there's nothing left for me to do here but to quit the game and start the entire castle again from the beginning.

On the plus side that does give me something else to whine about: I hit the escape key and it took me right back to the main menu without even asking if I was sure. What if I'd accidentally brushed the key with my little finger while reaching for a delicious beverage? What if a cat had come in through the window and sat on my keyboard?

"Are you absolutely certain that you want to sacrifice all the hours of gameplay you've put into the game so far? Yes/No"

Would that have been so hard?

DOS version

Right, I'm definitely starting to get the impression that I don't want to be on the same level as this guy when he attacks. I'm not sure that the fuel bomb is actually the best weapon here after all, as he teleports around all the time, but I do have a bag full of shurikens handy so I'm giving them a shot.

I'm pretty confident I can take this guy out on my first try (that time I got stuck on the roof totally didn't count); mostly because I've got 8 lives and I can just continue exactly where I left off each time.


ONE EPIC VICTORY LATER.

Ah, so this is the way I'm meant to be going. I wandered off to the left at first and was a bit confused to find myself jumping around the rooftops again.

Well I certainly did whatever it is I came here to do (probably) so I guess I'll be climbing onto this giant bird now (please don't eat me).

Whoa, it's a shoot 'em up bonus level! Some beautiful parallax scrolling on the background there. It's like they wanted to really cut loose and show off after being stuck with gradient sky in the platforming levels.

Anyway the gameplay here is simple: shoot the bombs, collect the ankhs, and the dragon steers well enough to avoid frustration. After the level they add up what I was able to grab and add it to my life bar.

I'll switch this off in a second, but I just want to get a couple of screenshots of the next stage first. I'm nearly done now.

Level two doesn't change the gameplay much (though it did take away my weapons... bastard level). Also sliding down slopes into enemies hurts me instead of them, what's up with that? Why are the developers breaking one of the sacred rules of platformers?

This isn't the first time the game's put me into situations where it seems I have no chance at all to avoid losing health. It's been pretty good at letting me refill my life bar afterwards but still, it's irritating.

I miss my nunchuku. Little Joe down there on the HUD doesn't though, look at him swinging them sticks around like a boss. I can only aspire to be like him.

The pin-up girl on the inside of the sarcophagus did make me smile, but it became slightly less amusing when I saw another one open and it had the same picture inside. In fact they ALL have the same picture inside, even when there's a bunch on screen at once. Way to kill the joke guys!


MUCH MUCH LATER.

Oh so this is the Minotaur's level then? Somehow I never imagined the labyrinth to be a pyramid, though it does make sense I guess. This guy's an asshole by the way, charging me from across the screen and replacing floor blocks with spikes. Still, I think I can take him. Probably.

Might take a while though.


Anyway I'll spare you from any more screenshots and instead inflict upon you my opinion about Yo! Joe!

Well, it's nothing that amazing, but it's pretty solid. Computer platformers often didn't measure up against competing console titles at the time, but this almost feels like a SNES or Sega game that got lost and ended up on the wrong system by mistake. It has good controls, interesting levels, slick gameplay, decent graphics and some of the best music of its time. Plus it's even considerate enough to put the camera in a place that lets me see what I'm doing. It feels like it's been put together by a team that really gave a shit, who had time to polish it up and pay attention to the details.

On the other hand though it's pretty short, with only five and a half platformer levels, and some people are going to find it too easy due to the infinite continues. Personally though I could have done with a level select on top of that; I mean it saves my high score onto the disk, so it could at least save the level I've reached while it's at it! Even passwords would've been nice. Plus I found the way your health drains away whenever you touch anything really annoying.

It's probably worth a look if you like platformers about hitting things. The Amiga version has the edge, but the PC version's basically been the same thing so far, so either's good.

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Maybe you've played the game yourself and want to agree or argue with me, or maybe you just want to talk about my writing or the site itself. Either way your feedback is always welcome, so leave a comment in the message box below. You know, if you feel like it.