Captain Commando

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"I am... CAPTAIN COMMANDO"

Captain Commando is an arcade Beat'Em Up created by Capcom in 1991, based on its at-the-time Series Mascot, the titular captain. It was one of many spiritual successors of Capcom's first Beat'Em Up Final Fight. Among its unique features (back then) were the option for 4 simultaneous co-op play and the ability to control mecha suits scattered on the stages (similar to Mega Man X's Rider armors). The arcade game received a SNES port in '95 and a PlayStation one in '98.

The game deals with the Commando Team, a four-man group formed by the Captain himself, Sho (Ginzu the Ninja), Jennety (Mack the Knife) and Hoover (Baby Head). Together, they stand up against a futuristic world filled up with crime with the intent of cleaning it out, and are faced against a group of Super Criminals terrorizing Earth, commanded by an alien Evil Overlord known as Genocide (Scumocide).

And that was it. Good ol' Captain would fall into obscurity for a good couple years, until he was picked up to join the roster of Marvel vs. Capcom 1, which led to subsequent appearances in other Crossover games like Namco X Capcom and the Card Fighters series with SNK. Though unlike Capcom's other forgotten character Strider Hiryu, he'd not receive any sequel out of this.

Tropes used in Captain Commando include:
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Sho's katana Lightning Light said to cut things at an atomic level.
  • All There in the Manual/Expanded Universe: The 2-volume manga gives further background to the Captain Commando characters, such as the backgrounds of the enemies and commandos alike. It also introduces a few characters who never appeared in the game like Sarah Kisaragi.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Carol and Brenda. There's also the dubious example of Mardia. This official artwork is somewhat Ambiguous Gender (as it obscures her face), but the enemy is shown to have a feminine figure, not to mention the dress and high heels.
  • Art Evolution: The '86 Commando (when he appeared on NES manuals as Capcom's mascot), '89 Commando (ditto SNES manuals) and final Anime-styled game Commando look completely different from each other.
  • Artificial Limbs: Sorta. Blood got his two arms replaced with those of a black man. Oddly enough, he's almost exclusively a kicking boss.
  • Automatic Crossbows: The Weapon of Choice of Shtrom Jr., Shtrom and Druk.
  • Bald of Evil: Genocide.
  • Bank Robbery: The Commandos step in their first Boss Fight just as the boss (Dolg) was robbing a bank.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Carol and Brenda.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Carol and Brenda, the smaller female enemies, cannot be sliced in half or melted in to goo like everyone else.
    • Although they are susceptible to the animation of being reduced to a pile of ash if killed by a flame attack.
    • Also possibly subverted in Mardia, who appears to be female (albeit a large and muscular female) but has all the same death animations as the male enemies.
  • Blade on a Stick: Yamato uses a long naginata.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Hoover's robot has a missile production FACILITY on one of its legs, that's constantly supplying ammo for the robot's attacks.
  • Bowdlerise: For the SNES port, as usual: the special kill animation for bladed hits (which sliced foes in half) and Jennety's poisoned daggers (melted foes) were removed, the boss Blood was renamed Boots, the Mardia enemy "acid puke" attack was replaced by bomb tossing, and the female mook graphics were touched up a little to cover more.
  • Breath Weapon: The Marbin enemy.
  • The Brute: Among the bosses, there's Dolg. In the Mook variety, we have Organo and Samson, who dress like cavemen.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Not in the arcade game, but done in the Vs. Series to the point it has become a trademark of his.

CAPTAIN KICK!!!, CAPTAIN FIRE!!!, CAPTAIN COLLIDER CORRIDOR!!!, CAPTAIN SWORD!!!

"Thank you for playing this game!"

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