Like my virtually imageless Aladdin retrospect (aside from Skizz’s half) I have no actual pictures for this one on Captain Commando, that’s not because I didn’t take any screenshots. My computer’s internal hard drive crashed a few weeks back and my pictures were on that. So instead of using Google Images, I’m just gonna post some pictures off of deviant art, which will hopefully add some much needed zest to my look back at
CAPTAIN COMMANDO!!!
the name alone inspires quasi-patriotic pa-thumping in the hearts of retro-gaming man-children all over the globe. It may be just the liquor talking but I love this game and if it started paddling me with a wooden plank I would easily please ask for more and love every minute of it. And like a good Capcom beat-em-up, it actually DOES continuously and repeatedly whoop my ass with its giant wooden board of challenging opponents and no saves. Yet I still DO come back for more. And why? Why do I love the beating so? Because it has quality.
A good game can be perceived as one with interesting environments, colorful enemies, challenging boss fights, and solid controls. Luckily Captain Commando has all of these. A tough but not impossible difficulty curve may also be expected from an arcade style (no saves, but lives) beat-em-up, which the Cap’m also brings to the table. But a game truly becomes unique when you have a choice of playing as several fascinating characters, not just the stereotypical Ryu clone in red. And that’s what I really loved about CapC. The game bleeds crazy, creative fun from every part of it.
Playable characters are the robo-suited Baby Commando, backwards-baseball-cap wearing Mummy Commando, the titular Captain Commando, and the Ninja Commando…who is a ninja. While there basic abilities are similar, they each have a bizarre personality to their looks and moves that makes them uniquely their own. The enemies vary from fire-breathing midgets, to samurai, to neanderthal ladies. And you travel from aquarium to museum to cave system to outer-space, with an added waterway chase scene after a mad scientist.
Captain Commando is an unapologetically colorful and fun side-scrolling beat-em-up, and if you’ve never played it, please, please, please check it out and have lots of great times doing so.
