Bionic Commando/YMMV

• Anticlimax Boss: In most of the original games, the bosses are poorly-designed... it's a bad sign when the typical end boss is a wall that you just shoot over and over. In the new console sequel, the bosses are much easier than the rest of the game... even the final boss and the ending sequences. However, in Bionic Commando Rearmed, the bosses are just right.
  • Often, it was easiest in the NES version to just run around the boss and blow up the reactor with a few rockets without killing the boss.
  • At the end of the arcade game, after spending a billion quarters fighting your way through the horrible Fake Difficulty, you reach the enemy general... an old man who doesn't fight back, and dies in a couple shots.
• Awesome Music: The Main Theme, all games.
  • The Power Plant theme, both the original NES and Rearmed versions.
  • From the sequel, "The Gauntlet".
  • "Preparations". Specifically, 1:12-1:47. When you go to face Super Joe, that part repeats as you make your way to him, as he engages you in mocking conversation. It's one epic build-up.
• Game Breaker: The Flamethrower + Rapid Fire combo in Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, even though both aren't acquired until the last quarter of the game, they make the bosses in the two final areas a cakewalk.
  • The rocket launcher in the NES version, which is obtained about 40% of the way through the game. It kills virtually everything, bosses included, in one hit, and travels through enemies too, so you can kill several at a time. Needless to say, the game becomes drastically easier once you acquire the rocket launcher and there is no need to use any other weapon for the rest of the game.
• Goddamn Bats: A variety across all the games, from the remote-control aces of the NES game to the knife-wielding psychos in Bionic Commando Rearmed to the pesky snipers of the sequel.
  • Demonic Spiders: In the sequel, you will rapidly come to hate the upper-tier Biomechs.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Of all things, the Worlds of Power novelization has an instance of this. Early in the book, Rad Spencer has trouble working the bionic arm, but pulls through. When he gets through the area he speaks to the arm, telling it he'll take care of it, and it'll take care of him. Fast forward to the 2009 sequel, where Spencer's arm is his wife...
• Jump the Shark: The rest of the sequel's story line suffers from this after Spencer gives the Carrion Device to Super Joe, though certain sequences during that last hour are still very cool.
• Memetic Mutation: The 2009 sequel's plot twist has become this to some, due to how out there and confusing it is.
• Moral Event Horizon: Super Joe must really love those Bionics.
• More Popular Spinoff: To an extent. The Bionic Commando Rearmed remake was meant to promote the sequel, but Bionic Commando Rearmed is often considered the better game, to the point of getting its own sequel (by a dev made from the remnants of the Bionic Commando Rearmed team after GRIN went kaput) in the same style.
• Older Than They Think: Most people believe that the NES game came first, but it is a sequel to an arcade game by the same name. Yes, the first [arcade], second [Nintendo], third [Game Boy] and fifth [ PS3/X360 ] games are all named Bionic Commando. Only Bionic Commando: Elite Forces and Bionic Commando Rearmed break the pattern.
• Player Punch: Haley is killed off rather anticlimactically just before the final boss fight of Bionic Commando Rearmed. Just in case you didn't already know Hitler "The Leader" was evil. Repeated with Maggie in an even less climactic fashion.
• Surprise Difficulty: Stage 1 of the NES version isn't too bad. The next few areas, while harder, are still reasonable. Stages 5 and 6 are really very hard.
• That One Level: Area 6, easily. Introduces bouncing mines and a Mook who spawns helicoptering mines in the first area, has some of the hardest climbing and swinging in the game at the beginning of the second area, and then a really tough and annoying rolling mine segment where Giant Mooks throw mines which roll down horizontal shafts, which you can't jump over - you need to use the arm to hoist yourself up (which takes time) or use springboards to go over them. Yeah, this level is hard, what gave you that impression?
  • This level was actually made easier in Bionic Commando Rearmed, with the mines being replaced by non-damaging barrels.
  • Although harder difficulties ups the ante to damaging barrels, including one-hit instant kills on Super Hard.
• They Just Didn't Care: The sequel's PC port. Every message about what buttons to press are in the form of console commands. Does your keyboard have Left Bumper or Yellow-Y?