033 · COMMANDO
BACK TO THE FRONT! Super Joe, will do, what you say, when you say, back to the front. For more NEStalgia as well as show notes and articles head over to www.NEStalgiacast.com
Commando was a huge arcade hit, and the NES port is playable, which after the third-party stretch we have been through counts for something. It was just Mike, Sean and Joe this week. Dropped into a war zone as Super Joe, you run up the screen and shoot. It is quick to pick up and thin once you have.
What it gets right
- It plays. After a run of bad third-party games, we were glad to get a playable one, and Capcom keeps showing up with games that work. The difficulty felt fair rather than annoying. This is also the run-and-gun style Joe said he thinks of when he thinks of the NES.
- Presentation. The helicopter drop-in (with one blade) and the cutscenes sold us on the game, and the lieutenant who pops up between levels, smoking a cigar, gave us something to argue about: commander, or you on a break?
- Silliness. At the end of 1-4 you get "congratulations, heart on your first mission," and the helicopter then carries you maybe ten seconds' walk forward. Some prisoners of war do what looks like a potty dance next to trees while bullets fly. Joe's find: if you die in the trenches on level two you respawn stuck in them, and we decided Super Joe is simply flanking from the rear.
- A hidden message. Beat round 4-4 with three lives and exactly 24 grenades and the game tells you its next title is Captain Higemaru. That title was director Tokuro Fujiwara's next game. It is a leftover from the arcade, which backed our thought that this was a lazy port.
Where it falls apart
- Sprites. Enemies flicker, and some disappear before you can shoot them, which doesn't happen in the arcade. Flickering in 10-Yard Fight didn't matter because nobody vanished. Running it in an emulator without the sprite limit makes for a fuller, harder game.
- Aiming. You always shoot the way you walk, so dodging a guy on your tail means walking away, turning for a split second and walking off again. Firing in all directions would help, though it might look strange.
- Too easy to skip the fight. Bullets are slow enough that someone on the show beat the first stretch without killing anyone, zigzagging 10-Yard Fight style, and the AI is erratic. The cars in the street levels, which run you over unless you back up, felt cheap.
- The levels repeat. Four areas loop with only the difficulty rising, so the game is really one four-level run with a ramp. There is no boss either, just a wall that closes and a crowd to clear.
Beyond the game
Fujiwara also directed Ghosts 'n Goblins (our next episode) and Mega Man, and he came up with the idea for Resident Evil from his game Sweet Home. We read Shinji Mikami's line about learning "create freedom inside restriction" from him. Super Joe turns up in the Bionic Commando games, and Commando 2 turned out to be Mercs in 1989. It also won Best Arcade Style Game at the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards, which we couldn't picture.
The bottom line
Skip it. None of the three voted it Essential. Joe had a good time and called it worth a try, but said you don't need to go past the first four levels. Sean found it passable but technically frustrating, and a pass overall. The third vote was that Capcom getting in early is great, playable is the minimum rather than the standard, and the NES is not where you would recommend playing it. We also expect better versions of this style down the road.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Commando, can Super Joe and you carry out this reckless, almost impossible mission?
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, the name of the game today, Commando, another one of those Captain Commando Super Series games for the NES that Capcom made. Capcom. Capcom, Commando. Captain Commando. Yeah, Captain Commando. I know we tried to make that last time. We'll make it a thing. It was like a reach. Conspiracy theory. I liked it. I actually thought it worked.
Guys, Commando, any initial impressions, first impressions? You guys want to just jump right into it? Yeah. Um, I, I think that this is a okay game. I think that it has some good value and just like, you know, I like the, I like the, um, I like the setting. I like the helicopter entry.
The cut scenes sold you on the game. The cut scenes are so good. The helicopter with one blade. Yeah. But I found the gameplay itself has aged poorly and just going up one generation and making this what it could have been on the Super NES would make this a much better game.
All right, Joe. Joe? Yeah, this is one of the first games that, uh, you know, I, I feel like we're going to see a lot of games like this on the NES. Like it's something that like this kind of run and gun game is something that I think of when I think about the NES. Um, and I thought it, I thought it was a fun game. I can't disagree that it, that it hasn't aged super well.
Um, but that being said, it was, I think the difficulty level was what my first impression was, was it wasn't so difficult that it was annoying. It was, it was, it was a fair and like fun level of difficulty. I thought. I'm always delighted when we have a playable game, you know, uh, with these third party thing, Capcom has really been doing a great job of making sure that their games are like good and playable. And I think that's how they, by starting so early on and getting these good games on board, I think a lot of, uh, you know, kids and fans of games were able to like trust them a little more than the average developer because like these were big arcade releases to a commando and coming up next ghost and goblins.
Like both of those games were like huge in the arcade and their NES ports are good, but I do feel like, you know, my, my thing is, is that the NES is like limiting the possibilities for this game. I mean, right off the bat, like the, um, the sprite limitation is, is huge. And like, and you know, like the whole point is, is like, you know, I got to shoot that guy. I should shoot that guy. It's like, not if they disappear before you. And so that's just like, that's a weird thing about this game that definitely doesn't happen in the arcade version.
But you know, we've talked about how the arcade versions are always better. I mean, 1942 had a much better arcade version. It's just, you know, it's just something that like, obviously the NES couldn't replicate the arcade hardware. So I'm not saying that so much as a complaint, just like a first initial impression is that like this game doesn't really like hold up as well as it does on arcade.
And if I can expand on that a little bit, I just, I'm just questioning why the decision was made to go with maybe as many sprites on the screen for each enemy that you're, that you're fighting against in this game. As you scroll up the screen, um, why would they allow as many enemies to be on the screen if it was actually going to cause issues such as, um, extreme flicker and actual sprite disappearance at times?
I'm wondering if it's just more like a lazy port of just like being like, Hey, let's just take the game code that we have and, you know, mix it over. Cause it's probably done in something similar to assembly, which is what the NES is coded on and just being like, Hey, let's just take this over and it works. Oh great. It works. We don't have to change anything. Like, you know, it, that's not like probably not what actually happened, but I think that's a good enough explanation of like why they're okay with this.
I mean, flickering is nothing new. Everybody remembers how hard everything flickered in 10 yard fight. Oh, the first game we played. The thing with, I think with 10 yard fight, the sprites are so much smaller that it doesn't like stand out. The flickering doesn't stand out as much. And the linebackers didn't disappear. No one disappears.
Which is important because you want to make sure that all your players are, you know, physical appearances and able to stop the people and that goes through them. Should we give a quick like rundown of what's going on in the game? Yeah. I'd love to. Joe, would you like to tackle that? Sure. So yeah, you play as a lone commando. Do you know his name?
Joe. Only from your intro. I didn't know that. His name is Super Joe. And I thought that was funny. I was like, well, you know. So you play as Super Joe dropped into this war zone alone, completely alone with just, I mean, dozens and dozens, hundreds maybe of enemies. And it seems like you have an army, right? I mean, like a helicopter drops you off and it's like, okay, this is all you now. I like to think that you're just late because there are guys that are here. They've just been captured. I think we lost the war and you just got there.
Well, yeah, you, you. This is, this is like when, um, you know, like Donald Trump finally after his foot, it's like, you know, it's like, okay, I'm ready for the war now. And he goes in there and it's like, well, I mean, there's nothing really to do here. Sorry. They captured everybody.
You basically just run forward. I mean, you run forward and you shoot, you shoot at enemies. Bullets come at you nice and slowly. You can dodge out of the way. You just bring up a really good point though for a second. Did anybody ever try to go backwards? Can you? Does it lock on you? You cannot. Okay. I never tried. It's such a forward thinking game of just like move forward. Sometimes I forgot that I, that I was controlling it going forward. I was like, I can stop if I want. I kept forgetting. This is literally just like a hand cranked shmup. Right. I like that actually. It would actually be weird if this game was on rails.
Yeah. But it would add a bit of challenge of you like having to like avoid obstacles before being crushed by the screen, which doesn't make any sense when you get crushed by a screen. It's like, I know that there was things behind me. Like I'm, I'm in an empty space just cause the camera's rolling, but that's, that's beyond the point. I was playing with Chris, our audio producer who's in the room and, uh, and there was a point, there was a point when I actually said, not jokingly, I was like, watch out for that bullet because like, even it was so, the bullets come so slow at you. You have time to be like, look out for that bullet and get out of the way.
I didn't realize until after I said it, how, uh, yeah, I guess I never really thought about that. But, uh, Joe, you brought up that, you know, the game's kind of easy and I, I agree. I think that I did like a full pacifist run on this game. Uh, the first or not the first time I beat it, essentially, I was just like, Hmm, seems like all I have to really do is just dodge everyone's bullets. And it's, it's pretty easy. And I didn't, you don't have to attack anybody until the very end of the stage. But when you say that you beat it, do you mean you beat all four levels or?
Okay. So I beat four levels, but, but they let you keep looping over the same four levels. Until you get to four, four. So it's like, there's, it's, it's really lazy. It's there's one, four, which is its own stage, two, four, three, four, and four, four. All of those are their own stages. Two, one, two, two, two, three, two, four are all the same stages again. No differences. No, there's differences.
The difficulty wraps up. Yeah. That's it. The difficulty. That's okay. The map itself is the same though. Right. The map is exactly the same. Yeah. Like what the enemy is and stuff like that. So I think like that's not enough to warrant me playing through, uh, you know, like I can't even, what's the math? 32, 32 levels. Can't even do like, right. Actually, I don't know. 16. Yeah. I think it's 16.
All right. I wish there was 32 levels. I mean, 32 different levels, but yeah, I don't think like there was enough there. So I'm going to say beating the game is just getting to one four, but like, yeah, I agree, but I just wanted to say that because I'm sure there's someone out there that's beaten the whole game. That's like, well, you guys are saying it's easy and like maybe, maybe the fourth time around is really hard. I don't know. Cause I only played the first, the first time around. Yeah. I just think like, it just says something about the game though, that I didn't even
have to, you know, do anything other than like up and to the right and left. I was doing like 10 yard fight style zigzagging through the course and people just couldn't like the AI just couldn't figure out where I was going to be at any given time. I guess that's just a difference of like the philosophy of how you want to play because I didn't even think to avoid guys. I mean, I was trying to kill them all and I think that that's what a lot, most of the players would be trying to do. Just because this is one of those score based games, the typical arcade.
Um, so I understand that you can get through the level without, um, without killing anyone until the end. I guess that's the same as like, I guess in guitar hero, you could skip entire sections if it was too hard. It's funny that you bring that up. There was actually like a guy who had like a pretty weird username, uh, that I don't remember, but he was on score hero, which is like a guitar hero website. Right. And he would purposely try to get the lowest score.
Like the minimum, like what is the lowest score you can get without failing the song? And so I guess it's in a way what I was trying to do with this game was just like, do I have to kill anybody? Like even the prisoners of war, it's like, all you have to do is just tag them. You know, you don't have to like, you're in buddy.
Like, yeah, you're in. And speaking of the prisoners of war, I just think like they're inconsistent in like how they work. Like sometimes you'll tap them and they'll like flash like a thousand points. And other times they'll just straight up disappear. And I'm like, did I get the points? Like, did I do something wrong? Did someone shoot them? And like, what happened? I think that they just got taken out by a memory issue. A memory issue took them out. It's like, rest in peace. Because sometimes they'll be, they're, they're escorted by, you know, by soldiers that are taking them, I guess, to prison.
And then you shoot them, you get the points, but sometimes you shoot the, you shoot the, not the prisoners of war, you shoot the guards. Um, but sometimes you shoot the guards and the prisoner just keeps going, like dutifully marching towards his prison without anyone like taking him there. Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, exactly.
It's his mission. And also some of the prisoners of war, uh, look like they're like about to pee, you know, like, like, or they're taking a pee. They got a real like potty dance, uh, like, uh, animation going. Yeah. I'm just not sure what that's about, but you know, uh, animation, like, you know, we're watching it right now and there's two guys and they're next to trees too. So that would be like an appropriate spot to go to the bathroom, but bullets are flying everywhere. And it's like, what is this? Like, what are you doing right now? Nature calls, man. It's a sick joke. Uh, the guy, I'm the commando super Joe. Who's just running through the course.
All right. So, I mean, I only went through, uh, you know, up to one four, but did, I mean, like what's weird about it is it's like, you know, you're on your way to the, like it's building up this whole thing to one four. It doesn't really like encourage you to play to one. It's not like, you know, it's just like saying the same exact things as it was saying in the first round. So it doesn't even feel like there's enough story here. But it does say at the, at the end of one four, first of all, it says, congratulations on your first mission.
This is your first mission. They dropped you in there alone, alone in an entire army of your enemy. Um, and also in between each level, there's like this, this like rugged, I don't know what like lieutenant or something. It's always like smoking a cigar or something. And he's like, that's you. I always thought he was giving you a command.
Oh, I don't know. No, I thought it was someone because it always say now go on to your next one. Now do this. Or now do that. I always felt like that was you taking a break though. Yeah. Like looking like, you know, Hey, I'm super Joe. I do what I want. It could be. Yeah. But I took it as it being like your commander. But either way in this note, this is congrats on your first mission. It says, congratulations, heart on your first mission, on your first mission heart. Like who's writing you that letter in this war with hearts? Yeah. War is truly beautiful.
Right. Like, I mean, like you heard it here first. It's funny too, because there's just like so many enemies on the screen to doing all sorts of things. And it's just like, how many of them are doing something useful at any given moment? You know, like, like some of them are, some of them are literally just walking around the screen, not even shooting at you necessarily.
And I just, it begs the question of like the AI in general, like how is it programmed? Like it seems so sporadic and random that I don't know if I appreciate it. Well, I know that at least there are some scripted parts. Like we're just taking a look at one of the levels right now and you'll see that there's another enemy type that has like riot shields. Oh, the green guys. Yeah. The green guys will be there and they will throw their grenades at you at like at least for the first time at a predetermined time. Um, but as for all of the, all the grunts that are just sort of scattered around, I think they might have like a path finding towards you and also to like make it harder for you to hit them. Right.
But other than that, no, I think it's just a very basic thing. And then there's those cars in the second area, area one, two, I guess. Um, and they just like, it seems like no matter what you do sometimes, unless you back up, they're going to run you over. Like you can't, you can't like go in and around them or anything like that. Like they just appear out of nowhere. And it's like, if you don't back up, you're about to get hit by those cars. And I just, I felt like that was a very cheap, weird thing to do in a game that otherwise is just like bullet. That's in two one, right?
Well, I, no, no, no. It's the street level. Oh, okay. It's like either one, two or one, three. Cause in, in one, one there's cars or maybe in, in one, two there's cars, but you can dodge them. But then the reason I realized that it was harder the second time around, cause it's like as far as I got, cause when the second time around the cars just like follow you, you have, you have to back up to the point where they just decide to back up all the way off the screen. Like they only go to a certain port and then back all the way back off the screen.
Well, because it seems like everybody is like afraid of the screen, you know, everybody's afraid of that camera. Also at that point after your first mission, you've killed hundreds of men in, in one go with like no, with no backup. So like they're scared of you, I'm sure. And then as far as your weapons go, I mean, you're mostly just using the machine gun to shoot, but has anybody, has anybody like use the grenades? I did use the grenades because they were the only way to actually know where I was going to shoot. Like one of the reasons that I thought that this game was ill suited for the NES is because you are always shooting in the direction that you're walking.
And so if you are trying to get around a guy that's kind of following you, you have to do these weird maneuvers where you like, oh, I have to walk away for a certain amount. And then I'll, I'll turn around for a split second and shoot and walk away again so that I can dodge these guys at the same time as killing them. I think that if this had a, not, not a twin stick, but maybe a super smash sort of controller scheme so that you could shoot in the directions of all the deep, the, the, uh, the deep, the directional buttons, I'm sorry. Um, I think that would make this a better feeling game. Uh, and maybe it would make it a little easier.
Um, and maybe they didn't want to go that route. It might also look a little crazy if you're able to like walk forward at the same time that you're shooting backwards or something like, yeah, it would probably, maybe it would look weird, but I think that it would, but you're the commando. You're super, you're crazy. You literally entered a battlefield all on your own and said, screw it.
I'm going for it. So I guess that does make a little bit of sense. And that was one thing that I noticed too. And I noticed that, you know, that's, it wasn't designed perfectly gameplay wise, but like, I thought that kind of like accidentally, accidentally ended up being sort of fun where it's like, I got to dodge the bullets and turn around, you know, it's like obviously kind of stupid.
I want to play games with one hand, you know? I think that's also like what influenced my pacifist run is just, I was like, well, my real mission is just to get to the end of the level. So I should just try to get there as fast as possible. Like, you know, it doesn't make sense if I'm going like sideways and backwards to shoot down these enemies because like who would stop in a real war and be like, oh, I didn't kill that guy. Let me go back. Boom, boom, boom.
Like, you know, it's like, you would probably just, I don't know. Maybe, I mean, I guess it kind of depends on what your mission is. Well, when the bullets are going that slow though too, it's like, you know, in real time, it's like, you want to make sure you get everybody because you know, the bullets only, you don't have that much time to react. Now we're talking about the philosophy of war. Right. And that's a whole nother episode. I'm sure people aren't going to stick around for.
What was the last thing I wanted to talk about with Commando? We had the grenades, we had the cars. There was no like boss battle. Isn't that kind of weird? That is strange. But the boss. I thought the boss should have been like a helicopter. The end of each level is like, it's not a boss, but it's like a boss event. Like you run into a wall, the wall is closed. There's a ton of enemies that come at you. You have nowhere to go. So you have to kill every one of the enemies, including people with riot shields. So it's like not one boss. It's a crescendo. I just would like, I think Super Joe needs a super foe. Oh my. Maybe. I wonder if there's a boss at the very end.
A 4-4? Yeah. I can guarantee you there isn't. That's fair. I'm willing to guarantee that. Is the helicopter about to go? Oh, never mind. Well, see, that's what I was saying is that I think it would be really cool if the helicopter DM was the boss.
It was a twist. Whether it's your helicopter or not, I don't care. But like, I do think it's funny that at the end of the mission of 1-4, it's like the helicopter just comes, picks you up, and just drops you off like maybe like what would have taken you 10 seconds to walk forward to. And it's like, here you go, man. Like as far as I can take you. And it's like, wait, what do you mean?
And also it doesn't even like gradually change from like the grass area to the desert area. It just pops back. It's all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you've entered. It reminds me of like areas in early N64 and PS1 games where it would be like once you've entered that zone, it's like, it's snowing here. Right. It's like, okay, but the second I step outside that mark, it's like it's not snowing anymore.
All right. So we've talked at length about Commando, I think, about as much as we can talk about that. But I would like to talk about the director of the game. And I'm going to botch this one, but I think it's Tokuro Fujiwara. And he is the director of Commando, Ghosts and Goblins, and then a big NES title, Mega Man.
That's a pretty good lineup. But he's still like working with Capcom to this day. And I think that that's an interesting like feat for him that he started off all these, you know, like old games. And he's still working with the company more as like a I think he's like the general manager of Capcom or he was the general manager of Capcom. And I think he's just more of like a supervisor role. But he also conceived the idea for Resident Evil, which is which is weird.
And you just told me that right before we started recording. I am amazed that like that he's sort of still a well, I mean, yeah, you just said that he wasn't doing as much anymore. And just kind of like a consultant now. But I it's it shows how far the guy came. Yeah. Coming from something that was kind of just a rehash of of Commando.
Commando or it's a lot of well, it's like a lot of different stuff, though, too, you know, like Commando, Ghosts and Goblins, Mega Man. I mean, they all have like that either like action or platformy aspect to them. But they're all like incredibly different types of games, even in their genre. And most of them have a legacy, I think, except for Commando. Right. And Resident Evil. Well, Commando does get a bit of a legacy in Bionic Commando, which is like very. Oh, it's a spiritual successor. Well, yeah, it's like spiritual successor, definitely made by Capcom and like loosely tied to Commando in some ways. Super Joe winds up making an appearance in some of the Bionic Commando games. You don't play as him. I think that's like a neat little thing.
But, you know, to then jump over to like Resident Evil, I think that's pretty cool for Fujiwara to like be such an imaginative guy. And Resident Evil comes from the idea that he he made an original game called Sweet Home, which I'd love to like watch a video of. I haven't watched it at all if it is playable. But he made this game called Sweet Home and then was like, why don't we make this Resident Evil like a full length game? Oh, Sweet Home, was that like a haunted house sort of thing? Sounds like a Silent Hill kind of thing, right? I think that'd be kind of interesting to see. Whoa, don't don't don't compare the two.
Well, yeah, I'm sorry. There is a big difference. But Sweet Home doesn't sound like it would be, you know, as big of a scale as Resident Evil is and would be more about like.
It would be more intimate, I would say. Right, right. That's what I would think. Yeah, yeah. Like, I can't run a good example for this game now, but there's plenty of indie games currently out that are trying to like replicate that feeling of like, you're in a house and something spooky is happening, you know, kind of like what Resident Evil 7 did a little bit. Yeah, I would say like that, like kind of outlast maybe.
Right. We're all we're kind of we're jumping on a huge tangent here, but we're staying relevant by talking. No, I'm saying that we're making a lot of speculation about a game we've never played. Right. I would actually love to see the game now. And it's actually just like some 16 bit horror game in the same way that like Ghost and Goblins is a horror game.
And then one more thing. Shinji Mikami, who is the director of Resident Evil 1 and Dino Crisis. Oh, my God. I think there is a following for that game. I like Dino Crisis.
He was he was asked about Fujiwara just like as like a, you know, like, who do you respect in your company and stuff like that? And he immediately answered Fujiwara and then was quoted as far as saying, yeah, he is a scary master for me. Maybe evil master. I still can't compete with him. I'll put myself at his feet. He has some kind of different atmosphere than other people. He is not big or macho and he doesn't raise his voice either, but he is really scary. His way is not yes or no. Only yes. I learned a lot from him. One big thing I learned from him is create freedom inside restriction.
Interesting. Yeah. Mikami sounds like he learned a lot from Fujiwara. And I think I just learned something to freedom inside restriction. I like and I like the idea that maybe, you know, I mean, like we're seeing commando here and it's like that's that's not necessarily true. He had a restriction and then like the sprite limit and they were like, go for it. But then again, that's really that's like a bad representation of Fujiwara because I'm sure he only worked on the arcade version.
Yeah. And never like was responsible. Similar like how Miyamoto wasn't like watching the Donkey Kong port and being like, you know what? Let's leave out that third level. Like, I don't want that in my game. Yeah. So, I mean, it's pretty much Fujiwara in a nutshell. But I did think one thing that was cool about commando and him is that if you are if you go to round four, four, which is the final round of the game and you have three lives and 24 grenades and beat the game, you get a special message at the end of the game that it says something like, you know, my next game is Captain Higemaru.
Please play it. You know, you know. I didn't know. Like, it really says, you know. And like, I think that's really cool because that actually did wind up being his next game. But it's like it's a pretty random restriction. And this is like all that pre-internet stuff where like people would just say they saw that one time. It's not even a hard restriction if you think about it. Like, you just have to have the three lives. It sounds hard to me. Do you have to have at least 24 grenades? No, no, no. It's exactly those numbers. It's coded in the game as if player equals three and hand bomb equals 24, display this message.
And Captain Higemaru was his next game. And I don't think that ever came to North America NES. But it's like a pirate puzzle game. So I'm sure people are going to go look that up now. It's even worse than that message is in there. Yeah. Because then you're like, yeah, I got this message. Take it out. It never comes out. But I think like this would have also probably played in the arcade too, which, you know, Captain Higemaru would have been on as well. So it's just like leftover remnants.
Which leads me to believe our thought earlier about this just being a lazy port. Yeah, an extreme port. I will say that if you play this on an emulator, just take off the or rather put on like sprite limiters. This way it like allows like an infinite number of sprites to be displayed and not the like whatever your CPU can handle. And then you'll have a great experience because nobody will flicker. All the enemies will be on the screen. It's definitely a little more challenging. I like seeing it in that respect. But, you know, that's not really the way the game was intended to be played. That's a legal mic. Well, I'm saying please play it both ways. Well, we talked about that earlier too, though. I did the frame limiter on 1942.
Really? To make it like, I had like 10 frame limits. So this way it would skip every like 10 frames or so to make it look like 60 FPS smooth gameplay, even though it wasn't. And sometimes there would be like some weird glitches where I would like hit an enemy, but it wouldn't destroy my ship because it didn't register as one of the frames. So we hadn't talked about that before? We did. We talked about it in 1942.
I had a vague recollection of that. It's like an interesting way of, I mean, like it wouldn't work in this game for sure because you dodge so many bullets by skipping those frames. But I think like it's an interesting way to see like games play a lot smoother than they do. Because technically every NES game plays at 60 FPS, but it definitely doesn't feel like it.
There's definitely laggy sections. Joe, you had some straight thoughts? I did, which I just added another straight thought in the middle of that because we're watching footage of just random footage of the game. And while none of us in the room beat the game in the footage, we get to the end of the game. And now I'm just going off of, I just saw for a second here, but it says something like your game is ended. You're a great player at the end. If only every game could... You can speak. You're. Yeah, it's been... Y-O-U-R. Yeah, Y-O-U-R. Y-O-U-R. The incorrect you're. That is so frequent. In every NES game, you're never going to get the proper grammar.
But my other straight thoughts that I had before this was... Wait, just one thing though about that one though. I do, I always appreciate it when an end game like commends you on being a good player. Because that's really all these games were was like, there wasn't like a giant story that needed closure. It was more like, holy shoot, you did it. You know, like that's incredible. Here's a pat on the back. Yeah, you're really good at video games. Like that's the kind of stuff that you wanted to see as a kid. So I appreciate messages like that. It's much better than just like, the end.
Later that same day. Honestly, I'd rather see a weird like, later that same day, it all happened again. Than just a, hey, good job kid. Well, this game does sort of do that. Like four times, like later that same day. By taking the helicopter and bringing you back to the beginning. And then just doing the same mission again.
But also, I noticed that when you get to, I don't know, I don't remember if it's every level. But at the end of some of the levels, there are people, you can see people like in little, you know, in the windows of the wall. And they burst into, they burst into purple flames after, after you beat the man on the ground.
They just, for no reason? I don't think I remember this. I was just watching it happen here too. But at the end, after you, after you complete the level. Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. That was strange. I know what you're talking about. Like if you're at the end of the stage where you have to like defeat everyone, you don't have to technically defeat everyone. Right. Because sometimes you get a white flag.
Oh, so exiting the level kills everyone else with purple flames. I think it's only the people that are like on the other side of the wall. I'd have to see it again. Interesting. There are usually like four people that can bust into purple flames. That's like a special chemical weapon that the helicopter has poured out on them. It feels like a horror game or like something from like Castlevania or something. But there's nothing else. Another Capcom game. Yes. Maybe it's a hint.
It's getting Capcomical, by the way. Joe, please continue with your straight thoughts. Just another quick short one here. The grenades, the sprite of the grenades, the overworld sprite of the grenades is just a square.
Like they couldn't just, they couldn't make a grenade sprite. Wait, you're talking about like, I was always curious because I didn't look at the manual for this one. And what are the square tiles that are like a row of three? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grenades. Those are grenades? Those are gonna get us. I would have thought they were like treasure. I know, I know. Like gold or something. I ended up making the connection that my grenade stockpile was getting larger when I picked those up. I thought that was just like, here's some glowy points.
I used so little of the grenades that I just never, I don't know, I just never even like, the only time I was gonna ever use a grenade was at the end of a stage for sure, just in case there were like too many enemies. Grenades, but like I said, like you just run through everybody. You don't need grenades. Shoot forward. That's pretty much what I saved my grenades for too. End of the stage is the only time I really felt the need to use them. But they were helpful sometimes.
Anything else, Joe? Last one. Love it. I think it's on level two. If you're near the trenches and you die, you'll just spawn in the trenches. Oh yeah, and then you get stuck. You get stuck, we thought. You get stuck and you can't go forward, left, or right. You'll just die. But you can go backwards. Which means that the trenches are dug in the wrong direction.
Well maybe actually, no, maybe they're onto something with that. Maybe that is actually clever design. And you as Super Joe are attacking from the rear. Oh, you have flanked them. You have flanked. That's why they're so confused. That makes sense, yeah.
That, I love that. That's now canon for me in the Commando world. Speaking of Commando canon, I'll just say that Commando was followed by a sequel titled Mercs in 1989. And it got like a second sequel called Wolf of the Battlefield Commando 3. But I don't think anybody knew Mercs was Commando 2. And if it makes any less sense for you, Wolf of the Battlefield Commando 3 comes out in 2008.
Wow. Okay, that's almost for what? That's almost for Xbox Live Arcade. That's a noticeable thing that Capcom totally did this with all of their NES games that had like long legacies. Well, rather, they're arcade games that have long legacies. Because we saw that with 1942 as well. They made an Xbox Live Arcade version that was like a recreation of 1942. And it was like, this looks nothing like 1942. Like, you've changed everything about the game, including adding boss battles and stuff like that. Like, this is way too different. So I can't imagine what Wolf of the Battlefield Commando 3 looks like either.
But Super Joe, as I mentioned, later comes up in the Bionic Commando games, which are more of like a spiritual successor, even though they aren't in this style. Well, they're more like platformer than they are vertical scrollers. If that's the correct word. I think you're close, if not right on. So before we do the essential games list, I have to mention that one time this was definitely considered an essential game because it was voted Best Arcade Style Game of the Year at the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards. An award show I didn't even know existed. I am having trouble seeing a world in which Commando is the winner of a year-long award,
especially in something that is still a pretty... Like, arcade-style game is still a lot of games at this point. Yeah, I think it's most of the games. Yeah. Right? I guess I still find it hard to believe that this won that award. Yeah, and I think it's weird that it is Best Arcade Style Game and not Best Vertical Shooter or something. You know, it's like, what else was in the competition I'd like to know? Unfortunately, I don't have that information, but I just thought it was worth mentioning. But now, we're going to vote on our essential games list.
All right, it's the essential games list, and rather than thinking about 1986 or the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards, we're going to think about 2018. How does this game stack up today? And not in regards to the NES, but just video gaming as a whole. Is this game worth your time? Joe? So, I did like this game.
I noticed, I listened for the first time to, I think it was the Donkey Kong Jr. 3 episode, which I wasn't a part of. Donkey Kong Jr. 3? Donkey Kong 3. I'm intrigued. Is that the sequel to math? It was either Donkey Kong Jr. or Donkey Kong 3, which I just combined for convenience. Yeah. One of you said, I think it was you, Mike, said that Joe is the most likely to be high on a game or to really like a game. And I think that's true.
I'm very like... You love video games. I don't know, I get very excited about these games. When they're playable. You get very excited. Yeah, when they're playable. So, I had a good time with this game, and I think it does what you want from a run-and-gun shooter. There's a lot of problems, like strafing and aiming and stuff like that. I think its biggest flaw is that the levels repeat.
So, I think it's worth picking it up and giving it a try. But you probably don't need to go past the first four levels unless you're just looking for more of a challenge. Not essential. Sean?
I also don't think this is essential. I don't think that it has as much bright spots as I think Joe does or even you, Mike. I think that it's a very passable game. I think that even though it's a passable game, it still has a lot of even technical problems that make it a frustrating play. Not just the control scheme thing that I had a problem with as well. But I do like the art style, and I do like just run-and-gun games in general. But overall, no, this is a pass.
Yeah, I mean, I was a fan of this game when I played it, but I didn't play it for very long. I think the biggest problem with this game is that it's really small in scope. You know? It's like, here's how I would put it. If you're an arcade fanatic, I don't even know if this game is essential as an arcade game. You know? Like, I would say try it out. I don't think that the NES would be where I would recommend you play it.
But I just think, like, in terms of where we're at right now in the NES's lifespan, it's always refreshing to get a good game again. But that doesn't mean that it's, like, a great game. You know? Playable is not the minimum. Well, it's the minimum for me, but it's not the standard. You know? And so I'm glad that I, like, tried this game out and saw what it was all about. But I don't think I'll be going back to it.
I think, you know, the fact that I was able to do that pacifist run might have been fun in the moment. But it kind of made me think about, like, what really is this game? Like, how much fun am I actually having with it? And, like, is this good design if I'm able to do something like this? You know? Obviously, later games, you know, the stealth genre would become a thing. It's not the idea here. You know? So the fact that I was able to do that, like, you know, yeah, some people like to play stealthy and stuff like that. But, like, I don't think that's the idea here.
And I just think that, like, while the marketing side and, like, Capcom getting in early with the NES is great and fantastic and, like, this scope, we're talking about 2018. And I just don't really think this game holds up. So also not essential for me.
May I add something, too? So I, at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that this is one of what I think is going to be many games kind of in this style with this kind of objective kind of gameplay. And I think that's a big reason why this doesn't hold up either. I imagine they get significantly better as time goes on. You might be surprised.
Yeah? Maybe I could be wrong. I'm throwing it out there. But I think next time, I think there's going to be a lot of games that I'm going to be like, this is a better version of Commando. But I could be wrong. I think they do. Some might get better. But I also think this is just going to be a much more crowded, a much more crowded genre. Where we keep seeing the same problems. I think we're at an interesting point for nostalgia right now where we haven't ran into too many of the same game.
Yeah. You know, where eventually, by, like, 1990, that's just going to be a problem. Where it's just like, I remember this game when it was this. And, you know, like her when it looked like that. And these are going to be five-minute episodes. Yeah. Well, we'll see. I mean, maybe. Who knows what the future will be. Yeah, yeah. But, okay, I think that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia.
Join us next time for Ghosts and Goblins. And be sure to play it yourself if you can and are willing to sacrifice something. For more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen. And be sure to check out NostalgiaCast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-C-A-S-T dot com. There you'll find links to the show and show notes as well as our other platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, the whole thing, the whole shaboos. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon.
Chris keeps saying, like, yeah, I hit box. And I was like, what box is this? I know most people didn't say box. He's talking about square. And I was like, box? So then I was like, no, hit ball. Hit ball. That's funny. And you can't even make, like, some people do call X cross, though. I know about that. Cross, yeah. But, like, I call it. That's kind of interesting that each one has a thing except for triangle, which no one's going to call delta. Yeah. No one's going to be like, did you press delta? It's like, excuse me? I call it O, but it's really circle.
I've always called it O, too. Yeah. But, yeah, it's totally circle. And what's weird is in Japan. I think I use them interchangeably. In Japan, like, circle is the confirm button and X is the back button. If you've ever played, like, Final Fantasy games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the earlier ones didn't correct that. It freaked me out. And then I couldn't play it the other way. I couldn't play it the American way for a while. I like that. It freaked you out.
Like, the worst episode of the Twilight Zone. Yeah. They're switched. And then, like, you know, you can't play it the other way to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play it, you know, to play
