Iron Commando (1995)

Beat on Hard. This game played a lot like the Final Fight style of beat em ups but has its own style and tactics that revolves around frequent item use. Every enemy has better range than you, whether that be a lunge or shot, and you can't always hit multiple enemies at once. So you have to bob and weave along the lanes to avoid damage while dishing out quick jabs and grabs. Enemies don't seem to be able to escape grabs, so you can move around while carrying them and spread the attacks out while avoiding damage, then the final attack in the grab combo is a throw. I enjoyed how often environmental hazards hindered the enemies and how often items dropped, including healing and grenades. The machine gun was the best because it can burn down enemies quickly. The pistol was almost as good just with a lower rate of fire that required more careful shooting to not get hit. The shotgun had such a long firing delay that it was difficult to use without getting hit; I really needed to focus more on grabs and try to shoot when they were getting up and further away. The knife was decent with the final attack being a throw, while the bat was weak but could hit multiple enemies more easily. The best thing about the knife and bat was that their attacks occurred during grab attacks, so you could have 1 guy immobilized in the grab and the others getting hit by the weapon.

The game was fun but the bosses were very hit or miss. The dogs and snakes were annoying because most moves simply did not work on them. The dogs were the easiest enemy in the game once I figured out grabs wreck them, while the only way I could kill snakes with with a properly angled jump kick to pretty much land on top of them, because god forbid we give the player a low attack. I beat the bosses mostly by using jump kick, sometimes grabbing. The knife guy was tricky to figure out, the flying Aztec guy could only be hit by jump kicks, the gunner was weak to grabs, the mutant was stunned by jump kicks long enough the grab, and the final boss I just jump kicked back and forth. The vehicle levels were not as good because it was much more difficult to avoid damage, though I did appreciate the infinite ammo. I got a bunch of lives from the motorcycle level and the truck boss was interesting. The mine cart level was worse because there was much less control, and the boss was by far the worst part of the game because his attacks were extremely difficult to avoid. The jeep level felt like it was not zoomed out far enough, making it more awkward than the motorcycle and cart. The chopper boss too had difficult to avoid attacks that I felt I needed to just suck up and lose the lives. I had 9 lives by the time I got to the final boss and lost 3 there and probably 3 or 4 during the rest of the game. Better than a lot of SNES beat em ups, but the vehicle levels could have been better designed.

8.0/10