| Captain Commando | |
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First North American arcade flyer of Captain Commando. |
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Designer(s) | Akira Yasuda Junichi Ohno |
| Artist(s) | Akira Yasuda |
| Composer(s) | Masaki Izutani Shun Nishigaki |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Capcom Power System Changer, Super NES, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PSP, GameTap |
| Release date(s) | November 1991, Arcade 1995, Super NES 1998, PlayStation 2006, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PSP |
| Genre(s) | Beat 'em up |
| Mode(s) | Up to 4 players simultaneously |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | CP System |
| Display | Horizontal, Raster, resolution 384 x 224 |
Captain Commando (Japanese: キャプテンコマンドー) is a 1991 futuristic side-scrolling beat 'em up game originally developed and published by Capcom as a coin-operated video game, and later ported to several other platforms. It was the seventeenth title produced for the company's CP System hardware. The game stars the titular superhero who was originally conceived as a fictional spokesman used by Capcom USA in the company's console games during the late 1980s.
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Captain Commando is set in a crime-ridden future in the year 2026, where a superhero named Captain Commando, assisted by his three faithful Commando Companions rise up to protect the Earth and all the Galaxy from a gang of super-powered criminals.
Captain Commando follows the same gameplay established in Capcom's previous beat-'em-up Final Fight. The arcade version allows up to two, three, or even four players simultaneously depending on the game's settings. The player can select between any of the four "commandos" (Mack, Captain, Ginzu, or Baby-Head) as their character, with each player controlling a different character. The player's objective as usual is to move towards the end of each stage, defeat every adversary who gets in their way while avoiding any traps that they may throw at the player's way before eventually fighting the boss awaiting at the final area of each stage. The game consists of a total of nine stages.
The control configuration is exactly like Final Fight, with an eight-way joystick for moving the character left or right, as well as towards or away from the background, along with two action buttons for attacking and jumping. The player can perform numerous combination of attacks while standing or jumping, including grabbing the enemy, as well as a special attack by pressing the attack and jump simultaneously that will drain a portion of the player's vitality. An addition to the controls is the ability to dash by pushing the joystick left or right twice. The player can perform a running attack or even a running jump attack.
Like in Final Fight, the player can pick up health-restoring food items hidden inside barrels and other destructible objects to restore their vitality, as well as other bonus items to increase their score. Weapons also can be picked up, such as three different types of firearms, as well as shurikens that can only be used by Ginzu. Players also can ride certain robots by dismounting their riders and then jumping over the robot. The robots has their own vitality gauge and if they sustains enough damage, it will be destroyed. There are three types of robots in the game: a punching robot, a flame-throwing robot, and a freezing robot. Unlike Final Fight, weapons can be carried when the player makes the transition to a new area until the stage is completed.
The origin of Captain Commando as a character predates his appearance in his self-titled game. In the packaging and manuals of many of Capcom's earlier titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America released between 1986 and 1989. All of Capcom's games released for the NES between 1986 and 1988 (1942, Commando, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Mega Man, Trojan, Section Z and Gun Smoke) were released as part of the "Captain Commando Challenge Series" and featured a drawing of the Captain on the back of the packaging, which depicted him as a "futuristic" space hero wielding a raygun on each hand and two large medallions around his neck with the letter "C" engraved on each. Each game's instruction manual also featured a "Special Message" from the Captain addressed to the owner of the game, congratulating the player for purchasing one of Capcom's products. Additionally the instruction manual for Section Z identified the otherwise nameless player character as being Captain Commando himself.
A revised version of the Captain Commando character appeared again in Capcom's NES lineup in 1989 (Strider, Mega Man 2, Willow, and Duck Tales). The artwork on the rear packaging of those games featured an illustration of Captain Commando wearing a pilot suit in front of a fighter jet, holding a helmet under his right arm, with an alien chimp sitting on his right shoulder and the Capcom logo in the style of one of the Data East logos above them. The text above the artwork featured a message from the Captain advising the reader to "look to (him) for up-to-date reports for all the exciting action games from Capcom", followed by the Captain's apparent handwritten signature.
A Super NES 16 Meg port was released in 1995. This port only allows up to two players. A PlayStation port was released in Japan only on September 17, 1998, by New Inc. This port allows up to three players with the use of a multiplayer adapter. The original CPS game is included in emulated form in the compilations Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed for the PlayStation Portable and Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, both released in 2006. A Sega CD version was announced but canceled with the end of the system, sometime before the port of the SNES version.
Captain Commando would return as a player character in the fighting game Marvel vs Capcom in 1998, as one of the characters representing Capcom. The Captain has a transformation sequence prior to each match which depicts him in a suit (or in a cowboy outfit) before donning his superhero costume. His "Commando Strike" special move, as well as both of his Hyper Combos (the "Captain Sword" and the "Captain Storm"), has him summoning his "Commando Companions" to attack his opponent. The Captain's victory quotes consist of random Capcom trivia, while his ending in Marvel vs. Capcom is a homage to the ending in his original game. This incarnation of Captain Commando also appears in the sequel, Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Besides the Marvel vs. Capcom games, Captain Commando also appears in three other cross-overs: Capcom World 2, Namco × Capcom, and the SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash series.