Commando (Arcade, Capcom)

Commando is the quasi-predecessor to Bionic Commando. You are Super Joe, a super-soldier taxed with fighting an opposing army by himself. Manly!

Unused Graphics#

	An alternate copyright notice from "COPCOM" is at the start of the first graphics ROM. Although unused in the arcade version, the copyright notice in the Japanese Famicom release is based on this one, modified to read "©1986 CAPCOM" instead.
	All of the characters on the High Score entry screen spin when shot except the Rb/Delete character. Nonetheless, the Rb/Delete character also has graphics for spinning.
	Alternate, more detailed designs of the Japanese and World's game logos. These designs are part of the foreground layer graphics ROM, not the text layer. While this means that a wider palette is available, it also means that these logos have no transparency and would have to be against a black background. The Japanese Famicom version does use the alternate Senjou no Ookami logo – albeit with a reduced color palette – but the US NES version does not use the respective Commando one.
	This, on the other hand, is a completely unused game title! It's stored right after the used Commando logo, and might have been an alternate title for the International versions.
	Small point value graphics intended for the various soldiers in the game. For whatever reason, these are never used.
	Other point values. The 1,000 and 2,000 graphics are used, but there aren't any enemies that give more than 2,000 points.
	Even larger point graphics, more than any enemy can give. Yes, there are two 5,000 point bonus graphics.
That's a lot of wiki edits!	Two medals, probably meant as bonus items. Maybe they gave the 5,000 and 10,000 point bonuses.
	The Commander standing and giving orders to soldiers. He's too busy escaping from the battlefield.
	An unused second variant of the commander. Unlike the commander seen in the game, this one could fight back by firing his pistol in 5 directions. Interestingly, he does appear on the Japanese and European flyer, suggesting that he was removed late in development.
	A 3rd design of the commander. No graphics for the legs were found, meaning they were presumably meant to peek through the windows of the fortress from Area 4 and 8. Both of these unused Commanders could have possibly been targets to score the higher amount of points seen above.
	These two frames of Super Joe are similar to the ones used when exiting the helicopter at the beginning of the game, but show him entering it instead. The helicopter does pick him up after completing Area 4, but it does so from directly above him.
	Both the captive from Area 1 and the enemy soldiers holding him have an idle animation. These clearly went unused on accident; both the captive and soldiers just awkwardly walk in place when standing still. One of the captive's idle frames did end up getting used for his rescued animation...
	...though said idle frame ended up replacing one of the frames actually intended for the animation. Here's what the intended animation would look like.
	An unused grey landmine can be found in the tileset. No code for it exists, but... I mean, it's a landmine, it's not exactly hard to guess what it would've done.
	A box of grenades with the parachute. Normally, all of the boxes are lying on the ground to pick up.
	A watery hole can be found in the object graphics. The palette and design match the bridges found in the game. Perhaps enemy or player grenades could have caused damage to the bridge.
	A big shadow of the jet along with a bomb. The jets do appear in Area 4 and 8 as part of the background, but it looks like some of them were supposed to fly and drop bombs from above at some point.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Text#

Alternate copyright strings can be found in each version starting at 7730 in memory.

Region

String

Japan

IF YOU ARE PLAYING THIS VIDEO GAME OUTSIDE OF THE COUNTRY OF JAPAN YOU ARE INVOLVED IN A CRIME

World

IF YOU ARE PLAYING THIS VIDEO GAME IN THE COUNTRY OF JPAN YOU ARE INVOLVED IN A CRIME

North
America

IF YOU ARE PLAYING THIS VIDEO GAME OUTSIDE OF THE AMERICA AND CANADA YOU ARE INVOLVED IN A CRIME

These strings match the custom copyright messages used by Data East in their games, or rather, match their openings (they would be followed by STOP centered on the screen and then a longer, legalese block of text). The actual game uses a very different and more standard copyright string:

Japan	World	North America
`USE AND EXPORT OF THIS GAME` `OUTSIDE THE` `COUNTRY OF JAPAN` `IS IN VIOLATION OF` `COPYRIGHT LAW` `AND CONSTITUTES A` `CRIMINAL ACT`	`USE AND EXPORT OF THIS GAME` `WITH IN THE` `COUNTRY OF THE JAPAN` `IS IN VIOLATION OF` `COPYRIGHT LAW` `AND CONSTITUTES A` `CRIMINAL ACT`	`USE AND EXPORT OF THIS GAME` `OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY OF THE` `UNITED STATES OF AMERICA` `AND CANADA` `IS IN VIOLATION OF` `COPYRIGHT LAW` `AND CONSTITUTES A` `CRIMINAL ACT`

In fact, even the Data East-distributed US version uses the Capcom message!

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Region Differences#

Attract Mode#

The Japanese version has an extra screen in Attract Mode advertising a PGC (Play Game Card).

: Receive the Capcom Club PGC!!

::*Address, full name, age, sex, telephone number

::*Original certificate number

::*Current favorite games

::*Commando high score and game center/arcade where you earned it

::*Thoughts on gameplay

(address)

[postal code] 547

3-8-51 Nagayoshi Kawanabe, Hirano-ku, Ōsaka-shi

Capcom Club

: Commando PGC clerk

(Translation: Joe)

High Score List#

International	North America

Like most early Capcom games, the number of characters per name was shortened from 10 to 3.

Bug Fixes#

International	North America
That's a pretty steep increase!

The text giving information on extra lives has a typo in all non-U.S. versions: An erroneous zero.

Additionally, there's a bug in the Japanese version's sound driver that mutes one of the instruments on the Last Area Clear track. This was fixed in all other versions.

Space Invasion#

But they don't attack in a side-to-side wave at all!

A special version of the game called Space Invasion was made specifically for the West German market in order to circumvent German laws at the time about killing people in media.

This is based on the World version of the game, as evidenced by the identical unused copyright string at 7730.

International	West Germany

This version replaces all the graphics along with the unused ones of the human soldiers with aliens. Or robots. Possibly alien robots.

There's even an alternate design with horns supposed to replace the latter commanders, but just like them it never appears in the game.

(In both animations of the green variant, there's a frame containing a right elbow of the original design as a leftover)

(Source: Original TCRF research)