NES Works takes a look back on Bionic Commando

It’s the 100th episode of NES Works, and Jeremy Parish clearly wanted to celebrate in style. In honor of the landmark episode, Mr. Parish has decided to offer up a detailed retrospective for Bionic Commando, one of Capcom’s best on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Bionic Commando didn’t so much ask players to learn an entirely new style of platform gaming as demand it as the price of entry. But once you got a handle on the grappling mechanics, Bionic Commando played like nothing else on the system, becoming a fast-paced action game with breezy, high-speed action through a dozen stages linked by an interesting narrative and well-conceived adventure gameplay flow. It remains the gold standard for grapple-based action gaming to this day, and for good reason: It rules.