As I rewatched Commando last night though, I couldn't help but think about just how much this movie must have influenced the action games of that time. The mysterious, vaguely South American enemies, waves upon waves of faceless bad guys, a singular, virtually unkillable muscle man armed to the teeth with grenades, guns, and a rocket launcher, covered in war paint, going after his kidnapped daughter...it's no stretch to deduce that several games that were released around the time of Commando took more than a little inspiration from it. But have you ever wondered which one did it first? I set out to solve this riddle, focusing solely on their release dates on the Famicom.
Commando was released in the United States on October 4, 1985, nearly five months before its Japanese theatrical debut on February 22, 1986. Though VCRs and cassettes had probably achieved some level of prevelance at that time, and though I figured it was possible that some sneaky reels from other countries may have made their way to Japan in the booming bubble economy of the mid-1980s, I started out my research by assuming I probably wouldn't see much in the way of direct influences until at least a couple months after February 1986, maybe mid-1986 at the earliest, to give the companies a few months to put their games together.
Up from the launch of the Famicom in July of 1983 and through the early years of releases, most of the "combat" games that you can find are based on tried-and-true formulas. Wild Gunman, for example, which takes a distinctly Old West theme, or even Jaleco's bizarre Field Combat, which is space-themed (along with the numerous space shooters of the post-Space Invaders era). Our first "war" game, and one of the first war games in history, to be exact, is Irem's Front Line, ported to the Famicom in August of 1985. We also have the World War II-themed shooter Sky Destroyer, and later Capcom's 1942 in December. Of note is Capcom's wargame Commando, which laid down somewhat of a formula game-wise for games that would follow in its footsteps. Still, the art and setting is "vaguely" still World War II, so I kinda discounted it for something clearly more inspired by the movie.
The first game in the entire Famicom release history that I could find which seems to owe something directly to Commando is...actually a game that probably was equally more inspired by a movie that came out before Commando, Rambo: First Blood Part II, released in August 17, 1985 in Japan. How could I have been so stupid to forget about First Blood II!
That game is SNK's Ikari, known as Ikari Warriors in the States. If the name Ikari sounds familiar to you for some reason other than it being the title of this game, WOW! YOU LOSE! but seriously, the Japanese subtitle of First Blood Part II is "Ikari no dasshutsu," which literally means something like "escape of wrath." The designer of this game has even gone on record as saying the game and its title drew inspiration from First Blood Part II. So Ikari the game was just named WRATH and they went with it. Its Famicom release date was November 26, 1986, about fifteen months after Rambo II and a couple months after Commando. It was an arcade title first though, meaning it probably owes more to Rambo, and my entire journey was in vain! Technically you fight against neo-Nazis in Ikari, since you can find a swastika at the end of the game. Maybe in that case we could give special note to the later game Guerilla War, which in its original Japanese incarnation was called Guevara (yes, that Guevara) and you played as Castro. Ah, aha.
Honestly, the games that seem similar to Commando are probably all equally similar to Rambo, and it's not that great of a stretch to assume that the movie Commando itself owes a bit of a debt to First Blood Part II. All that stuff that came later—the Ikari sequels, Konami's Jackal, Heavy Barrel, and many others—owe a debt to the original Ikari as well. But at least they didn't just replace their sprites with Arnold Schwarzenegger tracings. And hey, does First Blood Part II have Rae Dawn Chong being all cute and flying planes and Arnold delivering the most critical mass of terrible one-liners in perhaps any movie in American history? The answer is NO