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Captain Commando was released in 1991 by Capcom for the CP-System (CPS-1) arcade hardware, it was ported to the Super Nntendo in 1995 and to the Playstation in 1998 (in Japan). The game also was also emulated in the Capcom Classic Collection Vol. 2 for Playstation 2 & Xbox as well as in Capcom Classics Collection Remixed for the Playstation Portable.

While the whole Final Fight series is not yet (May 2013) covered in our tribute to the beat’em up game genre, the city where Mike Haggar, Cody Traverse and Guy once fought the Mad Gear Gang is the place where Captain Commando and his team are fighting a gang under the lead of the main antagonist Scumocide. Welcome back to Metro City in the year 2026!

Basically Captain Commando plays a lot like mentioned Final Fight, but it brought some new elements to the table like that up to four players could play the game simultaneously, it had more detailed graphics and the futuristic setting was rarely used in beat’em ups before. There were also rideable mechas which added new and strong moves, similar to the beasts in the Golden Axe games before.Beside that, the game is very similar to Final Fight.

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There are four playable characters in Captain Commando, with CC himself as the allrounder and main protagonist and his team of Mack the Knife, Ginzu the Ninja and Baby Head. Like in many Capcom games of the nineties, they have different names in japan (Jennety, Sho, Hoover)

The story of Captain Commando is very traditional with a gang of criminals need to get beat up by a bunch of good guys, like in Double Dragon and Final Fight the characters can move into the fore and background, relative unique to the game at that time were the many characters on screen, especially in the multiplayer modes.

Captain Commando never got a sequel sadly, but at least the main protagonist was made a surprise character for the fighting game Marvel vs Capcom in which his comrades appear through special moves as well. All four also appear as playable characters in Namco X Capcom.

The arcade version is relative gory for a Capcom game, enemies can be burned and even cut in half and there is blood. These effects were removed in the Super Nintendo port alongside with smoking enemies. More important is that the mechas were completely removed from the SNES version, the game is also only playable for up to two players due to technical limitations.

Captain Commando was actually an early mascot of Capcom. In many NES game manuals he congratulated the players for buying the game, seems Capcom buried the idea of having him as a mascot though.

 Captain Commando

4 Player Action

Arcade Ending