Ludography
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Where to get it

Bionic Commando (Game Boy) cover

1992 · Port · Minakuchi Engineering Co., Ltd. · Adventure · Platformer

Bionic Commando (Game Boy)

Nintendo exclusivePort

The original arcade game was advertised in the United States as a sequel to Commando, going as far to refer to the game's main character as Super Joe (the protagonist of Commando) in the promotional brochure, who was originally an unnamed member of a "special commando unit" in the Japanese and World versions.

Released
24 July 1992
Platforms
Game BoyNintendo 3DS
Genres
AdventurePlatformerPost-apocalypticScience
Developers
Minakuchi Engineering Co., Ltd.
Publishers
Capcom
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view
Themes
ActionScience fiction
Country
Japan

About

Bionic Commando is a 1992 platform video game developed by Minakuchi Engineering and published by Capcom for the Game Boy. It is an adaptation of the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Bionic Commando, changing the present-day setting of the NES version into a futuristic science fiction one.

The game has been re-released via the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console service in 2011 and the Nintendo Classics service in November 2025.

Keywords

  • run and gun
  • high score
  • superhero
  • no jumping
  • explosion
  • digital distribution
  • virtual console
  • grapple
  • acrobatics
  • grip mechanic
  • nintendo switch online

Media

Bionic Commando (Game Boy) screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Like the NES version, the player must navigate through the overworld map to move from level to level with a transport helicopter, called "DX-3 Turbocopter". A difference from the NES version are the player's encounters with enemy transport vehicles. While on the NES version, these encounters featured a top-down interface, on the Game Boy version, they remain side-scrolling like the rest of the game.

Story

The Game Boy version follows the same plot as the NES version, changing the present-day setting of the NES version into a futuristic one. The player takes the role of Rad Spencer (Ladd in the original NES version), an agent of the FF Corps (the FF Battalion in the NES version), whose mission is to rescue his ally Super Joe from the Doraize Army and prevent their leader, Director Wiseman (named after the Weizmann character from the Japanese Famicom game, who was renamed Killt in the NES localization), from the Doraize Army's secret project codenamed Albatross.

This version also shifts the military theme present in the original to a more sci-fi territory. The uniforms and helmets of the enemies are changed for futuristic armors and "spiky" hair. This version also adds a more modern cinema-like opening and ending sequences. These sequences and character drawings in the in-game dialogues, making the Game Boy version more story oriented.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Game Boy24 July 1992Japan · North America 1 September 1992 · Europe 31 December 1992
Nintendo 3DS16 November 2011Japan · North America 29 December 2011

Editions and related releases

Based on
Bionic Commando
Part of
Bionic Commando
Derived from
Bionic Commando

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.