Captain Commando (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
154A playthrough of Capcom's 1991 arcade beat 'em up Captain Commando.
Played through as Baby Head on the default difficulty level.
Captain Commando was always an odd figure. In his first incarnation, he was a mascot of sorts for Capcom. He appeared on the occasional game box sticker, and throughout the late 80s he appeared on several manuals for Capcom's NES games, usually opposite the "thank you for buying our stuff" message from Capcom USA's then-president Joe Morici. Captain was a recognizable figure in those days - it was hard to ignore or forget the hilarious, awful drawings of him.
Thankfully, by the time Capcom decided that their mascot needed his own game, his design got a significant upgrade, and at the end of 1991, Captain Commando appeared in arcades running on Capcom's CPS arcade system hardware.
It's a traditional, belt-scrolling beat 'em up that for the most part mirrors Final Fight's gameplay, though it's not without a few innovations of its own. The game featured simultaneous four-player play, a dash ability, an huge array of usable weapons, the ability to ride on giant mechs, and a couple of auto-scrolling segments all helped it to rise above being a mere clone of Final Fight, even if it does take place in a "futuristic" Metro City.
The other big difference is the tone and character of the game. Whereas Final Fight never veered too far from its "grimy city filled with two-bit thugs" theme, Captain Commando goes all-out. The character designs are nothing short of outlandish (you can make your baby-riding robot ride atop a larger robot equipped with a flame thrower!), and I loved the creativity in the boss designs and the variety of the stage backdrops. The gameplay changes made to Captain Commando from Final Fight are somewhat less dramatic than the shift in presentation, but they do meaningfully change the experience. Four players at once is stupidly fun and chaotic, and the addition was well worth the compromised sprite sizes.
Like most other Capcom quarter-munchers, the game does pose a fairly stiff challenge, but the sharp, simple controls do their job well and the gameplay is satisfyingly fluid. It does, however, suffer a bit from ultra-cheap fights near the end. That last boss... what a complete pain.
Captain Commando has seen a few ports - before it appeared on various emulation-based compilations, it saw a (inexplicably late and somewhat compromised) 1995 release on the SNES and (in arcade-perfect form) on the CPS Changer system. It also saw a Japanese-only PlaySation release. But, your best bet these days is to play it on one of the modern compilations - not only are they arcade-perfect, but they cost a small fraction of what the earlier home ports go for now on the second-hand market.
If you'd like to see my playthrough of the SNES version, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/0X5NMvr9b7U
As a game that came out during Capcom's arcade "golden age," Captain Commando is a classic that represents everything that defined the company's reputation as one of the premier game developers of its day. It'd be amazing to see them recapture that magic again, but until that happens, they left quite a few excellent games to keep us occupied as we wait. Captain Commando is certainly one of those games, and it deserves to be revisited again and again, no matter how many years may have passed.
Considering what an ugly bugger the captain began life as, we would all be so lucky to age as gracefully as he and his game have.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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