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Commando is a flash platform series by Miniclip.com. It was originally a straightforward Metal Slug clone (even ripping the sound effects), although as the series went on it strayed away from that in both gameplay and graphics. The first and second games take place during World War II against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, respectively, and the third is (presumably) against the Soviets during the Cold War, or possibly just the Axis again… it’s not entirely clear.

After the third game the series saw a spin-off, Commando Assault, a tower defense game in the vein of Metal Slug Defense in which the player spawns units to destroy the enemy base, and prevent the enemy from doing the same to them (unlike MSD, there is still a player character who takes part in the fighting and is instrumental at taking out the bosses the enemy base spawns). Likely due to the lower budget involved, all subsequent Commando games were of the Assault variety.

Not to be confused with Capcom's Commando series or Pyro Studios' ''Commandos 2: Men of Courage.


Tropes used for this game:

  • A.I. Breaker: The second phase of Commando 3's Final Boss. It has three attacks, two involve attacking you with one of its two claws and those do MASSIVE damage to you. The third one is a very predictable and pathetically easy-to avoid laser that will not hit you if you stay at the sides. You can force the boss to always use the third move by staying in the middle when it's idle, preventing him for using a much nastier attack.
  • Art Evolution: 3 had larger, more realistically-proportioned characters in contrast to the Metal Slug-esque designs of the first two. The Assault games had something of a devolution, seeing increasingly simplistic graphics as they went in.
  • Attack Drone: The SE-40 Prowse fires 3 little "spider mines" that run into enemies and blow up.
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: The first game has this towards the end, but the third's soundtrack consists almost entirely of rock. The second game's soundtrack is heavily inspired by Eastern electronic dance.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Factionwise, both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are the main enemies in the series.
  • Bizarrchitecture: The final mission of the first game sees you on a zeppelin with acid pools(!) that can only be crossed by swinging on ropes(!!).
  • Bottomless Magazines: None of your weapons ever have to be reloaded, although the stronger ones will run out of ammo eventually.
  • Bullet Hell: Crabocalypse, especially when it's low on health, spams bullets ruthlessly.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The second phase of the Final Boss suffers from this. It has a laser weapon that does a lot of damage. Normally, you'd be able to crouch it, but the platform you're on keeps waving up and down, and you're bound to get hit no matter what.
  • Crosshair Aware: Snipers. Before you actually see them on screen, you'll be seeing their crosshair. Let it land on you, and you'll be hit for an unavoidable amount of large damage.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Besides the obvious soldiers, we also have robots, cannibals, mosquito swarms, Deadly Gas, crocodiles, and malevolent patches of swamp grass.
  • Deadly Gas: One of the two possible paths in stage 4 of Commando 2 leads you to an area filled with toxic gas that drains the player's health if they stand in it.
  • Degraded Boss: The Kungfu Warrior boss of stage 2 makes a return in Stage 4 as a Mini-Boss in the second game.
  • Denial of Diagonal Attack: The first game starts you with a pistol that can only shoot straight to the sides, up, and down. The Machine Gun does let you shoot diagonally to an extent, but aside from that you’ll need to use grenades or the knife to hit enemies in your blind spots. The sequels do away with this and have 360 mouse aiming.
  • Elite Mook: Several. They range from a katana-wielding officer, to a martial-arts general, to Ninjas, to the zombie soldiers in the final stage.
  • Expy:
    • Given the game's homage to Metal Slug, the two unnamed player characters are obviously based on Marco Rossi and Eri Kasamoto.
    • The Kungfu Warrior boss is one to Ryu from Street Fighter. He uses Hadoukens, Shoryukens and the spinning kick!
    • The Hell Bearer, a German plane in the first two games, is a blatant clone of The Keesi from Metal Slug 2. In the second one it has a cannon lifted from the Big Shiee from the same game.
    • The Warlord Samurai is suspiciously similar to the second boss of Metal Slug 4, being a segmented rocket which you destroy from bottom to top.
  • Exposed to the Elements: The female commando wears her midriff-exposing shirt and shorts in every stage, including Stalingrad in the winter and the depths of the Arctic Sea. Somehow this doesn't affect her in any way.
  • Fake Ultimate Mook:
    • Tanks in all three games, despite their size, could only shoot at a single elevation with their turrets avoidable simply by crouching. Have some rockets on standby and you'll make quick work of armored vehicles - the human enemies with far better mobility (ninja, samurai, etc.) are actually more dangerous.
    • The third game's Cairo level takes it to the extreme where you fight giant mechas the size of buildings, except you're given a smaller mech with an automated turret the moment you reach the city. None of the giant machines' attacks can hit you as long as you're crouching, can't trample over your relatively smaller mech despite their size, and any rookie player can destroy all the enemy mechs with little to no effort.
  • Genre Shift: The original game was a pretty faithful Metal Slug clone. The sequels shifted away from this and underwent increasingly dramatic changes in art and gameplay, though they still remained two-dimensional shooters.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The "Crabocolypse", a Humongous Mecha crab which you fight on a train. The second phase of Commando 3's final boss counts as well.
  • Giant Mook: Tanks, trucks, bomber planes.
  • Guide Dang It!: The barrel on the toxic waste water. A sniper on top fires at the water to push the barrel away, leaving the player unable to jump directly on it (no thanks to a low ceiling). Most people do not know that, in order to get the barrel to reach you, you have to fire at the toxic water near the far end of the barrel- the water ripples will push the barrel towards you.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: The Japanese soldiers from the second game end up getting completely replaced by the first game's Germans after the second stage.
  • Humongous Mecha: Crabocolypse. Also, the Mini-Boss you fight when riding on a truck.
  • Impossible Item Drop: You can somehow obtain ammunition from killing insects in swamp areas. There's also the stage filled with hostile headhunters, who despite using primitive weapons like arrows and spears, somehow you can obtain ammunition crates by by killing them.
  • Incredibly Durable Enemies: Averted in the first game, where most human enemies die in a single shot. The sequels, however, almost completely get rid of armored vehicles and replace them with increasingly spongey enemies.
  • Interchangeable Asian Cultures: The Japanese martial artist boss you encounter is called the Kung Fu Warrior" even though kung fu is a Chinese martial art and it would make more sense for him to be practicing karate, judo, or another martial art from Japan.
  • Just Plane Wrong: This game's airplanes are able to hover in one place like helicopters and even fly backwards to track you and drop tons of bombs on you.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Subverted. One of the first few weapons you can get is a katana, it does good damage but has very short range and later weapons outclass it.
    • One of the Elite Mooks uses a katana, and can shoot out Sword Beams in Spread Shot fashion. They don't do much damage, however. It's the blocking that makes them a threat.
  • Ki Manipulation: The Kungfu Warrior, of course, sends balls and rays of ki.
  • Les Collaborateurs: The first two stages of Commando 2 (both set in China, respectively in the Northern outskirts and in Shanghai) have you regularly facing Chinese traitors - those guys in black coats armed with pistols - as enemies, where according to supplementary materials they're former resistance members who defected to the other side. They lose presence as the game goes on, however, being replaced by Germans.
  • More Dakka: There are many rapid-fire weapons, but the Kee-Jerk Terminator stands out. It fires two damaging shots at one go, and for every five shots you make, it fires out a deadly missile comparable to the P-25 Maisto.
    • The. Big. Lester.
  • Multishot: The Scorpion and the Logan-35 shoot a spread of three exploding arrows, making it very useful against both enemies and bosses.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile: Giant crocodiles the size of boats as a Giant Mook-type enemy as the player tries crossing the Mekong River.
  • New Game Plus: After beating the four levels on easy, you get to do it on Normal. Then if you manage to beat those four, you get to play it again on Hard!
  • Not Drawn to Scale: Inevitable given that it's a Metal Slug tribute. Taken to the extreme in the third game where human enemies have more realistic proportions (think Gunforce II) but the vehicles stay the same size, making you wonder how they manage to squash inside tanks half their size.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Done by the first and third phase of the Warlord Samurai. The Pequeno-R25 can let you pull this off on enemies... as long as you are the male character, who gets faster missile launchers. (Before you cry sexism, let it be said that the female character also gets speed bonuses. And she holds her dagger backhand.)
  • Made of Iron: Your character, but only in Easy and maybe Normal. In the third game, they still play the trope straight in Normal.
  • Ninja: The Japanese forces have them as Elite Mooks, whose shurikens can deal some nasty damage.
  • Recurring Boss: The Machine Gun Robot (that flying mosquito thing) and Doomtrax are bosses from the first game that appear in the second. In the third game, we have the Kung-Fu Warrior from the second game making an appearance.
  • Rope Bridge: The last stage of 2 sees you fending off Germans and Japanese troops while caught in the middle of one such bridge. If you kill everyone, a Japanese colonel suddenly pops up and severs the bridge via katana, and you fall into a valley without suffering any health damage thanks to Soft Water. But then you'll find yourself in a valley filled with hostile headhunters and shoot your way out.
  • The Squadette: The female commando player, who kicks as much ass as her male counterpart.
  • Sequential Boss: The Warlord Samurai, a segmented rocket with a samurai head on top.
  • Shout-Out: The whole game is one to Metal Slug, of course.
  • Spread Shot: Type 1 is used by countless enemies, while Crabocolypse has a Spray Burst as well.
  • Stripperriffic: The woman in the third game wears short-shorts, boots, and a sports bra, and the man isn't that much better. This is particularly jarring given that the first level of the game takes place in Stalingrad. During the winter.
  • Stupid Jetpack Hitler: The whole series runs on this. Most of the elite enemies are Wehrmacht and IJA soldiers given advanced weaponry, Humongous Mecha among other fantastic war-machines, and in some cases mystical powers.
  • Swamps Are Evil: The first half of the third mission takes place in a swamp, filled with crocodiles, mosquitoes, and killer grass (that make you get stuck on Normal and Hard). Worst part is that the final swamp area has said killer grass traps obscured by foreground brambles, so watch where you jump!
  • Temple of Doom: The second half of the third mission, filled with narrow ledges, pitfalls, Spikes of Doom and laser turrets. Yes, laser turrets.
  • The Worf Effect: The first time you encounter the Kungfu Warrior, he is surrounded by four elite Mooks... and promptly punches all four of them away in a single blow, just to show off how strong he is.
  • Traintop Battle: The battle against Crabocolypse is this.
  • Turns Red: The first three bosses- The Sling Raider gets a new ability to charge forward and impale your character on its Spikes of Doom, the Kungfu Warrior literally turns red and gets much more deadly attacks (and in Commando 3, he has a second rage level where he turns PURPLE), the Crabocolypse starts spamming fireballs and bombs.
  • Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: The flamethrowers carried by some Elite Mooks in the third game have less range than their melee attacks. At least they hit hard.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The second phase of the Warlord Samurai, as well as the Warlord Samurai's head. The Final Boss of the sequel also has such an attack in the second phase.

Alternative Title(s): Commando 3, Commando 1, Commando Miniclip

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