What it was
The year is 2026, and Metro City, the town Final Fight cleaned up, is overrun again. This time the criminals have powers. Captain Commando and three companions go after them and after their leader, an alien called Scumocide (Genocide in Japan).
The four commandos are the reason to play. The Captain fires flame and electricity from his Energy Gloves. Mack the Knife is a bandaged alien with two knives. Ginzu is a ninja of the Bushin-ryu school from Final Fight, and the only one who throws shurikens. Baby Head is an infant genius who fights from inside a robot he built himself. Each has his own dash attacks, throws and a special move that costs some health.
It plays like Final Fight with a few new habits: tap twice to dash, run into a jump attack, and keep your gun when the screen moves on to the next area. Nine stages, a boss at the end of each.
Where it sits in history
Captain Commando existed long before his game. From 1986 to 1989 he was Capcom USA's spokesman on NES boxes and manuals, the face of the 'Captain Commando Challenge Series' on 1942, Commando, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Mega Man and others, with a message in each manual congratulating the buyer. For the 1991 arcade game, the seventeenth on Capcom's CP System board, Akira Yasuda redrew him, because he found the American version uncool.
The arcade game took up to four players and topped Game Machine's Japanese arcade chart in its 1 December 1991 issue. The Super NES port followed in 1995 on a 16 Meg cartridge: two players, fewer enemies on screen, no robots to ride and some censoring. Critics were mixed, though Complex later put it on a list of the best Super Nintendo games. The Captain went on to fight in Marvel vs. Capcom in 1998.
How it plays today
On the Super NES it is a tidy two-player brawler with an odd, likeable cast. Baby Head in his robot still makes people laugh the first time they see him. What you lose against the arcade is the crowd: fewer enemies, no mechs, and two players where there were four.
Play it with someone. Alone it is a slower Final Fight with better jokes.
Compared with
Why it matters
A beat 'em up for four is barely a game on its own. It is an excuse to stand next to people and push forward together. The Super NES halved the team, and you can feel the missing two.
Goffman wrote that a game makes a shared world with its own rules of what matters, and that being absorbed in it together is what makes the encounter feel alive. Captain Commando's world is a ninja, a mummy and a baby in a robot, and it only matters because the person beside you is in it too.
Read: The second controller →
- Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction ('Fun in Games').
What you're levelling up
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
Teamwork
In the game. Four oddball commandos, each with their own dashes, throws and special. On the Super NES it's two players, and that's how it's meant to be played.
Do it on purpose. Pick different commandos and call who takes which side of the screen. Swap every stage.
Off the couch. A team works when people play different roles. Figure out what you're best at and let your mates do theirs.
Judging risk
In the game. Each commando's special move costs a bit of health. Use it to clear a crowd and you might be the one short at the boss.
Do it on purpose. Next run, limit yourself to one special per area. Notice when you actually needed it.
Off the couch. Spending now versus saving for later: money, energy, favours from mates. Know what the shortcut costs before you take it.
Curiosity
In the game. Baby Head fights from a robot he built himself, and it still makes people laugh the first time. Every character has a different feel.
Do it on purpose. Play a full run with each commando. Write one line on what each is best at.
Off the couch. Try the thing you'd normally skip, the new food, the odd hobby. It gives you something fun to talk about on a first date.
Verdict · 6/10
A box-art mascot given his own game and a better costume, then shrunk to fit a cartridge. Fun with a friend, thin alone.
