Some of Capcom’s best-known sagas are Monster Hunter, Mega Man, Resident Evil or Street Fighter, among others, but throughout its history it has developed very classic titles that have become very legendary. Some of them have even come back to life at some point thanks to compilations, as is the case of Captain Commando, one of the best beat’em up that the company has developed.
This is actually one of the most important works that he has ever published, given that its protagonist, who is the one who gives the game its name, was named after the combination of the letters of Capcom, hence why he originally became its mascot, although we will leave that story for another time. On this occasion, it is time to talk about the extremely large censorship that it suffered one of the versions in which it was published.
Captain Commando It first hit arcades in 1991 and featured Captain Commando himself, capable of performing electrical and fire attacks, who was accompanied by three other very diverse characters. One of them was a mummy-like alien equipped with a pair of knives, a ninja capable of cutting anything in his path in two, and a gifted baby capable of controlling a robot.
Thanks to the fact that there were four heroes, in the arcade version up to four people could get together at the same time to deal out some serious beatings. However, In the SNES version the number of players was reduced by halfwhich required two players to join forces to fight their way through a number of scenarios in which they had to beat up a multitude of enemies. However, this number was reduced due to the lack of power of the Nintendo console.
Although these are two very noticeable changes between one version and another, the truth is that these are nothing more than mere anecdotes compared to the censorship that was applied. It is not that the one distributed in the arcades was one of the most violent games in existence, but it seems that someone must have thought so because They removed a real ton of features and some of them are very surprising.
To begin with, as you have read above, one of Captain Commando’s most lethal attacks is his flamethrower, with which he can scorch opponents so that they burn to the point of being reduced to ashes. On the other hand, in SNES he simply They burn, but nothing else happens to themsince they stay on the ground once eliminated and then disappear like any enemy would.
Speaking of fire, it is also worth noting that in the arcade version there are certain criminals who are equipped with weapons that burn their belongings. In fact, when they die they drop them to the ground and can be picked up by players to return the same coin, but that is something that those who played on SNES could not check, because This type of enemies and their corresponding weapons have been removed..
Babyhead isn’t the only one who can control a robot, because certain enemies are able to pilot the so-called Ride Armorslarge machines that you can climb into and deliver devastating punches. Luckily, players can also experience this by defeating them and then climbing back into them, but those who owned the SNES version were left wanting because Capcom got rid of them.
Regarding the other two protagonists, such as Ginzu and Mack, they share another curiosity, although in these cases it corresponds to its description, because it was altered on the Nintendo console. To give you a better idea, here are the before and after of each one, respectively:
Before – A master of Ninjitsu. He is very agile and can cut enemies in half with a single swing of his sword. / After – A master of Ninjitsu. He is very agile and can attack his enemies with his sword.
Before – A very cool alien warrior. He attacks very fast with his two special knives that can melt. / After – A very cool alien warrior. He attacks very fast with his two special knives.
Beyond all this, the enemies themselves were not spared from modifications either. One of the most striking cases is that of Mardia, who is capable of spit green slimewhich can make you think he’s vomiting. This was also considered too disgusting and gross, so in the SNES he no longer throws anything out of his mouth and instead just throws bombs.
Others who were affected were Carol and Brenda, enemy fighters who, it must be recognized, show a large part of their body due to the lack of clothing, especially the area of their rear, hence why in SNES it was considered more convenient that were more covered up.
Still, if there was one thing that was not to be liked at all, it was the fact that characters were smoking, as two enemies do in the first stage of all while they are crouching. On SNES, they opted for the easy way and simply treated them as two normal, run-of-the-mill thugs who suddenly appear on the stage.
Returning to the subject of violence, it was desired to avoid any aspect that was a clearly explicit display of something like that. That is why in the arcade machine the enemies They melt and their skin falls off in pieces They can be reduced to bones by Mack’s lethal attacks or dissected by Ginzu’s lethal blow, with spurts of blood and dismemberment. As expected, none of this happens on the SNES.
In this same sense, blood had to be completely eradicatedsince this could be observed when slashing with Ginzu, which could be considered understandable, but the surprising thing is that Mack’s blows generated a cloud of pink smoke that was chosen to be eliminated so that nothing similar would appear.
Finally, with the same purpose of not leaving references to anything mentioned recently, the name of the final boss of phase seven, called Blood, was changed to Boots, the SNES version being the only one in which this change occurred. Therefore, it could be considered Captain Commando as one of the most censored titles in history and yet it remains a classic that is still worth watching after almost 30 years.
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