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You'll need a pocket full of miracles, and the ferocity of a Wild Jac- whoops!
The Ferocity of a Bloody Rose.

Jackal...or Final Commando for the disk system, I wanted to do this first before the NES port. Anyways the arcade port is rad but the home port offered much more (much like what contra got as well.)

Both the FDS and NES ports play identically, except this early version has a lot of stuff not seen in the NES release, here they are.
-Checkpoint Alpha/Stage 1 is gone so no intro of the jeeps so your 1st stage is checkpoint baker.
-Screen only scrolled Horizontally but you can still back track a little bit
-It's much easier and shorter as well, best example is the boss at stage 5 where you opposed to having 4 garage's that hold tanks, there's only two of them.
-Checkpoint Zulu has no POWs or hidden star Power-Ups

Putting that aside this is a sweet top down action shooter where you and the Jackal Squad head out to rescue your brothers in arms. It's fairly balanced too, the only real adversary here is the final boss which I'll explain in a bit.

Your modes of attack are a machine that shoots only forward and most importanly, your explosives/missiles. The goal of the game is to rescue all your comrades that're trapped in buildings and then drop them off to a the heliport to be saved. Weirdly enough it's entirely optional if you don't want to rescue them...a bit harsh if you ask me really.

You start if with only grenades, to upgrade this there's the armory, very much easy to distinct from the barracks that holds the POWs. Once you pick up the officer that comes out the armory your grenades upgrade to missiles. Max level is 3 where your missiles now explode into 4 directions.

Fairly simple but a sweet action packed game still, this port isn't much really but it still has the same action the NES release had. You drop at a checkpoint, save your brothers in arms and then fight a boss in the end.

The final boss is just so awesome to beat, at first you hear the alarm then the boss music, you destroy the building and then that's it right? No, once the building collapse your now on a one on one fight with a giant tank.

Really it gets you off guard especially if you've played the arcade thinking it's already over since the final boss in the arcade is just the building itself. The music does it's part well, you normally hear the alarm that blares to warn you that a you're up against a boss.
Once the building explodes, it plays a rather subtle suspenseful tune plays before the tank comes out to take out the Jackal Squad.

I really love this trope of characters with barely any firepower taking down big bosses, it's fun. Once you blast it with your missiles and machine gun, the tank explodes and the Jackal Squad watches the sunset and head on home.

I've seen this a lot in bootleg carts and I feel kinda bad overlooking this next to Rush'N Attack. While Konami did get their big break on the NES thanks to contra, don't overlook this sweet gem as it contributed just as much to Konami's legacy for the NES.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro
0:40 - Stage 1 (Checkpoint Baker)
3:18 - 1st Boss (Missile Statues)
4:00 - Stage 2 (Checkpoint Charlie)
6:50 - 2nd Boss (Battleship)
7:31 - Stage 3 (Checkpoint Delta)
10:13 - 3rd Boss (Enemy Chopper)
10:51 - Stage 4 (Checkpoint Tango)
14:39 - 4th Boss (Armed Fortress)
15:19 - Final Stage (Checkpoint Zulu)
16:21 - Final Boss (Enemy Base)
16:57 - True Final Boss (Giant Tank)
17:50 - Ending & Credits

If you like my runs be sure to check out the group I'm in if you want to see us play more good ol fashion retro games!
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