Commando retrospective: A rapid assault of quality | NES Works
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2017
- Capcom brings its NES development in-house with its third NES release, Commando, and nothing will ever be the same again. A fairly straightforward shoot-em-up offers a perfect trial run for the factors that will help propel the company to the upper echelons of NES development: Rock-solid technical underpinnings and home-exclusive content.
- เกม
I remember an old Spanish game magazine stating that the arcade version of Commando was so popular back in its day, it even received a movie adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. And when I finally saw the movie, I totally believed it.
I cant blame them
Before Captain Commando, Before Bionic Commando.. there was..
.. Commando.
I can always tell by the nuances and cadence in your voice when you're enthused by a game versus not.
Ah, I'm glad you mentioned NES Commando's secrets, which are extensive, but presented in a such a way that they can be totally ignored if the player just wants an arcade conversion.
In addition to the surprisingly numerous grenade passages, some of the doors that enemies emerge from can actually be entered by the player. In addition to powerups (including the important Grenade Explosion Size Up and Infinite Grenade upgrades, which themselves make searching for secrets easier), the game awards a special bonus after a level if you rescue every prisoner in it. There are even a few *bad* secrets: the Gasrooms have a timer and requires you bomb open an exit before it runs out or else lose a life.
yeah, I was always happy to get the machine gun upgrade. with it, and a turbo controller, it was like having a fire hose!
That music in the C64 version though.
Makes the Top 5 of c64 music hands down. It's unbelievably good.
Does anyone else want to know more about SAVAGE BEES?!
I actually played Commando in West Germany back in 1985. It was called Commando. The game was on an army base, though (Larson Barracks).
As a child I had no idea Bionic Commando was a sequel.
I always found the trend for NES games to 'revise' the gameplay an interesting twist. It feels especially more unique here… simply because they're secrets.
Which makes me wonder: if a player wasn't aware of them… what's the chance they would stumble upon them randomly? That'd make for a nice surprise bonus mechanic though :)
yes most players had to stumble upon them by chance rather than intention, then remember where they were since there wasnt rampant easy access to strategy guides and video based tutorials
Christmas of ‘86....Commando, Ghosts and Goblins, and The Legend of Zelda...Life was good....
I was actually surprised at how positive you were on this one. I remember being sorely disappointed in Commando from all the flicker and disappearing enemies (and flat music). To be fair I didn't play it until after giving the surprisingly solid 7800 version a whirl (which also includes hidden caves!), but it's never stuck with me. Still, it is such a cosmic leap over all the third party games up to that point that it is something of a contrast gainer.
Right, this retrospective was written in the context of a 1986 release, not within a holistic view of the platform. It's great by the standards of its initial release era but definitely less impressive by, say, the standards of MMC3-based games from 1990.
Quickly forgotten by 1988, yet I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this title.
Later in the Arcade Capcom brought out a sequel to Commando under the name Mercs (aka Commando 2) and this time with 3 player co-op play and rather than a 1 hit death the game added a health bar.
Yes, and there was also a third Commando for XBLA. But this video was about the first game's NES port.
this video made me extra happy that I grew up with this game :)
Maybe you will enjoy a game that I'm working on, based on commando series: www.ictiongames.com/mambo/
listen to the main theme for the movie Hundra (by Ennio Morricone) then listen to the level 1 music from Commando..
The soldiers disappear when a bankswitch occurs, or in layman's terms, when a new enemy type appears.
I never really found Ninja Gaiden to be terribly difficult, but 0:47 -- good lord... that part used to make me scream with rage as a kid. Hardest part of the whole game right there lol
Commando is one of my favorite Game Paks!
And it was on this day I realized Bionic Commando/Hitler's Resurrection was a sequel. Or, at least, part of a franchise.
I always played this on my Speccy. Great game.
What I found definitely disappointing when I ran into this game into one of my old famiclone multicart was the musical downgrade from the C64 version I had first played.
It's a fine game in any of its incarnations, but it's just not the same without it
To be fair the C64 is pretty hard to match for any other 8bit system, especially with Rob Hubbard doing the composing duty.
Totally agree. There's something magical about Hubbard's cover which has a spark of energy you don't get on the original arcade cab, or with any other version of the game.
Granted the music on the C64 is awesome but you can't ignore how chopped down that port is, since you only get three stages.
I always thought this game had pretty addictive game play. I enjoyed the NES version quite a bit, now a days I have a port of it for the Sega Saturn that's much more like the arcade original
Nintendo and Capcom were two of the first companies to understand that the video game market had changed following the crash, that simple arcade conversions weren't going to get it done anymore.
I wonder if you'll do something about Bionic Commando. That's one sweet game by Capcom for several reasons.
3:32 i didn't think they let people with polio fight in wars
Loved this as a kid but it was one of those where the heck did it come from game... I don’t remember my parents buying it🤷♂️
This game is freakin sweet imo
I was familiar with the Commodore 64 version of the game, but hadn't seen the NES port before. Listening to a NES version of that very familiar Rob Hubbard soundtrack is extremely weird.
Was that the arcade version of Bionic Commando, or can you jump later in the NES game (that I've never played through all the way)?
That's actually Area 6 on the NES.
1:11 I get a kick out of reading the early English translations:
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOUR 1ST MISSION
IS ALL OVER!
😂😂😂
Commando kind of reminds me of Gun.smoke. Not a one to one true copy, but similar nonetheless. I'll have to track this one down.
Please do Ikari Warriors. I owned both and loved Commando but I still suffer from Ikari Warriors PTSD. Years later I find that another SNK port Guerrilla War got everything right where the NES port of Ikari Warriors was so godawful. What went so horribly wrong???
I had the C64 version as a kid. It had much better music than the NES version, but was visually inferior.
Even when I was a kid, I found Commando to be a very bland game. Limited use of color made it ugly, repetitive gameplay game it boring, and being a child, I found it relentlessly unforgiving. I did own it, but it wasn't ever an NES game I would reach for.
Instead, when I wanted to play a game like this I'd always reach for SNK's Guerilla War. It plays very much like an evolution of Commando where you can shoot in eight directions and have many, many enemies on screen, but there are more weapons, vehicles, and variety, plus the whole game looks a hell of a lot better than Commando, even on the limitations of the NES. And on top of that, there's even a simultaneous two player mode.
Maybe it isn't fair to compare Commando to one of the best games ever released on NES, but given the similarities, it's hard not to.
What about Konami's Jackal? Ever play that one?
While I can understand why you brought it up, I think Jackal/Final Command is a very different game from Commando or Guerilla War because you're constantly in a vehicle. It's more similar to Iron Tank than Commando.
I didn't think much of Commando until I picked it up again for this retrospective. I found it to be a limited but smartly designed game - not as sophisticated as the more technically advanced NES games that would come later, for sure, but quite fun in its own right.
Certainly this is a good version of Commando, but much of Capcom's early arcade games are just bland. Vulgus, Exed Exes, 1942, SonSon, even Bionic Commando or Trojan just aren't that great, neither is Street Fighter.
Capcom's main legacy is they are the masters of sequels and revisions. 1943, Bionic Commando NES, Street Fighter 2, Megaman 2, Resident Evil 2 and so on.
Capcom has produced many of my favorite games, but their early stuff just doesn't hold up as being anything more than bland, much like Williams' early games.
My money is on Heavy Barrel.
Mashine gun power up
Guess it's an OK Ninja Princess clone.
I will play the arcade version first before I play the nes version. 😀👍🎮
the C64 version sounds so good compared to this
it has some of the best music in any game of the era
I have this game and I kinda find it to be lackluster. Not bad, but not exactly good either. I like jackal better
I think this conversion is way worse than 1942- 1942 might have juddery, flickering Sprites but in Commando enemies often just completely disappear which is odd.
I do enjoy it , though I'd rather play Gunsmoke
Despite how much I loved your thoughts on Commando, it still stinks as a game. Even given the time frame and the much more competent port, (your research game is admirably strong, love watching your vids for these facts) it never called to me, and think of it as below average. After watching this, I can pour more respect on its grave, but I'll never think well of it. The kudos I will give to it is the TIGHT controls. Something the others may have lacked because of original game physics or programming/limitations/Micronics team size(?!) barriers.
In the Capcom Generations collection (which you poor Americans didn't get) this was my least favorite game on its disc. I vastly prefered Mercs and Gun.Smoke.
Eager to try the Famicom version.
You know that 1942 beeping is ptsd inducing, right?
😉/😠
Micronics did it first with “1942” followed by “Ghosts ‘N Goblins” which were both published by Capcom, the third game was “Commando” which was developed and published by Capcom which were all released in 1986 and it was first NES game being developed by Capcom. After two failures of these games, “Commando” is the better port than the original, and this is where Capcom started to get a lot better after a duo of games that Micronics developed.
:)
Guerrilla War was better
This game sucked.
Not if you count the first two Capcom titles for the NES, both “1942” and “Ghosts ‘n Goblins” sucked, but “Commando” for the NES was decent. As 1987 went on, Capcom was started to get better and better as time rolls on. “Section Z”, “Trojan”, “Gun-Smoke”, and “Mega Man” are the best games for 1987.